That U.S.-based semiconductor fabs cost 40%-70% more than foreign counterparts due to low federal incentives helps explain why American companies account for 48% of the world’s chip sales, but U.S.-based fabs do 12% of such manufacturing, blogged Jeff Rittener, Intel chief government affairs officer. Intel backs the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (Chips) for America Act, passed by Congress last Friday with bipartisan support as part of the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), said Rittener Thursday. It establishes a Commerce Department program to provide up to $3 billion “to companies to invest in facilities and equipment in the U.S. for semiconductor fabrication, assembly, testing, advanced packaging” or R&D, he said. This positions the U.S. “to regain our leadership in the semiconductor manufacturing industry and significantly contribute to the nation’s economic and technological success,” he said. “We need federal investment to do so.” Intel urges President Donald Trump to sign the NDAA and the act into law. Trump is threatening an NDAA veto. The White House didn’t respond to questions.

Major "gatekeepers" such as social media services would face tighter supervision under proposed legislation unveiled by the European Commission Tuesday. The Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Market Act (DMA) aim to give users better, more reliable services, allow smaller companies to scale up across the EU and prevent unfair conditions imposed by online platforms that are or are expected to become gatekeepers to the single market, the EC said. They are "milestones in the journey to making Europe fit for the digital age," said EC Vice President Margrethe Vestager. The goal is to ensure internet users have access to a wide range of digital services, all companies can compete online as they do offline, and users can trust what they see online, she said. The DSA contains measures to counter illegal content and has transparency rules for platforms and requirements for very large platforms to prevent abuse of their systems. The DSA builds on existing intermediary liability rules in the EU e-commerce directive. Very large platforms that fail to comply would face fines of up to 6% of global revenue. The DMA applies specifically to gatekeepers, to be defined by their role in the market according to factors such as size, whether they operate as gatekeepers between businesses and users, and whether they have an entrenched position. Gatekeeper obligations, the EC said, would include giving companies that advertise on its platform access to the performance measuring tools it uses. Gatekeepers would need to allow business users to promote their own offers and give such users access to the data generated by those activities. Large platforms would be barred from blocking users from uninstalling and preinstalling software or apps, using data obtained from their business users to compete with those companies, and restricting users from accessing services they found elsewhere. Companies would self-verify as gatekeepers if they meet DMA quantitative thresholds. The EC would then designate them as gatekeepers, and within six months, they would need to comply with DMA rules. Platforms that ignore the rules are subject to fines of up to 10% of revenue, and, if there are systemic infringements, the EC can impose additional remedies such as forcing a unit's sale. The proposed legislation needs approval by the European Parliament and the Council.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 5G subscriptions are growing four times faster than those of 4G LTE, said 5G Americas Monday. The world added 225 million 5G subs from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020, which “required 4G LTE four years to attain,” said the trade group, citing Omdia data. It estimates that 5G customers surpassed 229 million this quarter, a 66% increase from Q2. Subs are expected to reach 236 million globally by Dec. 31, it said. GSMA estimates 519 5G devices have been announced, “of which 303 were commercially available by the end of November."

Huawei asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear its case seeking to overturn the FCC ban on rural eligible telecom carriers using USF programs to buy equipment from the Chinese firm. Huawei filed the case a year ago (see 1912050050). The FCC’s order approved Thursday (see 2012100054) “leaves no doubt that Huawei’s petition is ripe,” said a filing (in Pacer) posted Friday in docket 19-60896: The order “confirms that only judicial review can relieve Huawei from enforcement of the USF rule.” Protecting national security is a “lame excuse” to oppress certain Chinese enterprises, said a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Friday, responding to the FCC’s order approval. “Huawei has built more than 1,500 networks in more than 170 countries and regions,” with no “network security incidents,” she said. “No country has been able to come up with evidence to prove Huawei products have back doors, including the United States, whom we've challenged many times to present evidence.” China urges the U.S. to “stop its arbitrary use” of national security as a pretense for its “unjustified crackdown on certain Chinese enterprises,” she said.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr urged India to “embrace” ATSC 3.0 as a way to promote 5G, in a speech to the India Mobile Congress Wednesday. India’s mobile networks need capacity, which could be provided from the country’s “powerful but underutilized broadcast spectrum -- enhanced by ATSC 3.0,” Carr said. Indian companies “are playing a leading role in developing the mobile technology that will seamlessly merge broadcast spectrum into the next-gen wireless ecosystem,” he said. He listed recent steps the FCC took to assist the 3.0 transition and said it's “critical to identify and remove the overhang of unnecessary government regulations that would otherwise hold back the introduction and growth of new competitive offerings.”

The debate on trans-Atlantic data flows is starting to shift as the U.S. and EU increasingly recognize their shared values, officials said Tuesday at a webcast data protection and privacy conference in Brussels. The regions are negotiating a targeted enhancement to Privacy Shield that will comply with the European Court of Justice ruling in Schrems II, withstand further legal challenge and ensure U.S. sovereignty over its national security, said James Sullivan, International Trade Administration deputy assistant secretary for services. The ECJ decision overturned PS (see 2007240031). Any revised accord will have to relieve companies of the need to carry out separate reviews of the national security regimes of countries to which they want to transfer personal data, Sullivan said. Since the U.S. revised its surveillance laws in 2015, it has become the gold standard for protection against data access for national security purposes, he said. One complicating factor in the discussion is that Schrems II caused skepticism from some in the U.S. about making further commitments to Europe that could force changes in U.S. law, doubts reinforced by the EU not scrutinizing at the same level surveillance practices of some of its own members, he said. The European Commission is convinced the intersection of privacy and national security is the avenue to pursue to address the court ruling, said Bruno Gencarelli, head of international data flows and protection unit. He warned there's no quick fix because a solution must be legally and politically defensible. Gencarelli sees much more common ground now between the EU and U.S. and more convergence as more companies adopt data protection practices around privacy laws; nations at the G7, G20 and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development level now realize that like-minded countries should be the ones to define common standards. Talks with the U.S. on an enhanced PS involve a negotiation on complex issues that won't be resolved overnight, Gencarelli said. It's a priority for the EC, and "we expect to move quickly" to agree on several provisions. This isn't a beauty contest about which privacy system is better; it's about finding solutions, he said. Sullivan said both sides have been "very creative" in coming up with solutions to bridge their differences, and challenges aren't insurmountable.

The average U.K. home owns 28 internet-connected devices and is poised to become even more tech-inundated, as 83% of Brits canvassed in a BT Group survey of 1,500 adults said they plan at least one digital device as a holiday gift, said BT Monday. Home internet usage has spiked to record levels since March amid COVID-19 lockdowns and remote-work and learning orders, said BT. Three-quarters of those polled said they have spent more time on the internet as a family during the pandemic, and 36% have been online for 50% longer or more than before the lockdowns, it said: “Daytime traffic across BT's broadband network has more than doubled year-on-year.” The time families spend on their smartphones and browsing social media has soared by more than 150% since March, it said. The average U.K. home now spends 20.8 hours a week on their phones,18.5 hours watching TV or streaming services, 16.5 hours on social media and 13.4 hours videogaming, said BT: Smartphones will be the most popular tech present this holiday, with 36% of Brits set to gift one. Next in line are game consoles (33%), tablets (29%), smart TVs (25%), smartwatches (24%) and smart speakers (19%).

Most observers expect the U.S. Court of International Trade to pick the first-filed Section 301 complaint from HMTX Industries and Jasco Products as the lead case, and to stay the roughly 3,700 other actions while HMTX is litigated, blogged law firm Neville Peterson Thursday. “More than two months after the HMTX case was filed, however, there has been surprisingly little action,” other than “some minor skirmishing from some plaintiffs,” it said. Some litigants favor picking a complaint other than HMTX as the lead case or joining it with other actions that raise constitutional challenges to the Section 301 tariffs, it said. Still others argue HMTX should proceed on its own, since the CIT “will not consider constitutional issues if cases can be decided on non-constitutional grounds,” it said. DOJ’s deadline to file answers to the HMTX action “technically” has lapsed, it said: Though the CIT likely won’t hold DOJ “in default” for failing to respond, “the urgency for establishment of a case management plan is increasing.” Plaintiffs' attorneys on their own have established an “informal” steering committee to manage the case, it said, saying the committee “confers with some regularity.”

President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration can support advanced manufacturing in the U.S. by “immediately lifting” the Section 301 tariffs on a “targeted list” of information and communications technology components and inputs sourced from China, blogged Alan Kohlscheen, IBM director-import compliance and supply chain security, and Michael DiPaula-Coyle, director-international trade policy. “Limited, early removal” of the most “counterproductive” China tariffs could provide relief for U.S. manufacturing, while leaving the new administration space “to negotiate further tariff changes based on Chinese market access commitments,” said the authors Wednesday. The tariffs have raised IBM’s sourcing costs by “tens of millions of dollars,” they said. “These imports do not represent high-value technology products -- rather, they are necessary inputs into U.S.-made systems and include such items as printed circuit board assemblies, mechanical parts, fans, power distribution units, power supplies, and cables -- largely available only from Chinese sources.” The incoming administration “can give a direct boost to U.S. manufacturing through targeted tariff relief on these sorts of component parts and inputs,” said Kohlscheen and DiPaula-Coyle. “Such a step would provide immediate benefits to U.S. manufacturing while also redirecting U.S. policy toward more international, and coordinated, action to address Chinese market access issues.” The Biden transition team didn’t respond to questions. Biden told New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman Tuesday evening that he won’t make “any immediate moves” on China policy after taking office. “And the same applies to the tariffs,” he said. “I’m not going to prejudice my options.” A “major priority” in the opening weeks of the new administration will be to “try to get us back on the same page with our allies” and develop a “coherent strategy” toward China, he said.

Environmentally friendly 5G, “mainstream” virtual reality and ubiquitous Wi-Fi 6E are among trends ABI Research predicted won't happen in 2021. That global 5G subscriptions are forecast to grow 48.4% to 347 million “will strain the environment as a growing number of consumers will be switching over to 5G devices,” said ABI Tuesday: “The transition will potentially create large amounts of electronic waste.” Stakeholders “have not aligned” to enable mainstream VR adoption, it said. Growth will be strong in 2021, “but the user base will not reach levels once thought probable,” where VR competes for time with TVs and smartphones, it said. COVID-19 further accelerated demand for high-efficiency Wi-Fi networks, said the researcher. But residential broadband adoption of Wi-Fi 6E, an extended Wi-Fi 6 network with 6 GHz spectrum “will be minimal in 2021" because broadband service providers only recently started upgrading infrastructure for Wi-Fi 6, it said.