DirecTV said common-law agency principles should govern the question of whether a call was made “on behalf of” a seller, in an ex parte filing on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (http://bit.ly/14jHtSZ). But the efficacy of this approach “could be undermined if it is qualified by examples of activities that a reader might interpret as alone sufficient to indicate the existence of an agency relationship,” it said in docket 11-50. The filing expands on issues raised by DirecTV in recent meetings with the FCC, it said. Improperly compromising the principles of common-law agency by including examples “would have real-world consequences for DirecTV and the third party retailers with whom it contracts,” it said. Common-law agency principles “are defined by a large, well-developed body of precedent that needs no further elaboration or examples,” DirecTV said.

The CBP reauthorization legislation introduced March 22 by Senate Finance Committee leaders Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, largely follows the path laid by previous CBP bills introduced in the House and Senate, including provisions to reorganize the agency and solidify trade as a key part of its mission. The new legislation is similar to last year’s House bills, Republicans’ HR-6642 and Democrats’ HR-6656, and the 2009 CBP reauthorization bill introduced by Baucus and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, which never made it out of committee (here).

Broadcasters and their consulting engineers clashed with the CE and wireless industries over the merits and legality of updating the FCC’s DTV interference software for the purposes of calculating interference between stations after the planned spectrum incentive auction. The commission released an updated version of its interference prediction software described in the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology Bulletin 69 (OET-69) called TVStudy last month and asked for feedback on it. CEA and CTIA each urged the agency to use the proposed changes, which they say will make the software more accurate.

Broadcasters and their consulting engineers clashed with the consumer electronics and wireless industries over the merits and legality of updating the FCC’s DTV interference software for the purposes of calculating interference between stations after the planned spectrum incentive auction. The commission released an updated version of its interference prediction software described in the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology Bulletin 69 (OET-69) called TVStudy last month and asked for feedback on it (CD Feb 6 p10). CEA and CTIA each urged the agency to use the proposed changes, which they say will make the software more accurate.

Senate Finance Committee leaders introduced legislation to reauthorize CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement March 22. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2013 establishes and fully authorizes CBP and ICE, and makes “trade facilitation and trade enforcement a top priority for each agency,” according to a summary of the bill from the Committee.

The FCC notified the NTIA it plans to start an auction of licenses in the 1695-1710 and 1755-1780 MHz bands as early as September 2014. In doing so, the FCC satisfied a requirement of last year’s spectrum law, the FCC said (http://fcc.us/ZNM3n7). “As directed by Congress in the Spectrum Act, NTIA recently identified the 1695-1710 MHz band as the 15 megahertz of spectrum between 1675 MHz and 1710 MHz to be reallocated from federal use to non-federal use,” the FCC said. “The Spectrum Act now requires the Commission to allocate this identified spectrum for commercial use and to license the spectrum by February 2015. Our goal is to ensure that the Commission has adequate time to conduct this auction and complete the subsequent licensing process prior to the Spectrum Act’s deadline.” The 1695-1710 MHz is part of the 1675-1710 MHz band, which provides weather satellite downlinks, and was the subject of a Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee working group, which looked at sharing in the band. The 1755-1780 MHz band has been a longtime target for carriers for reallocation for wireless broadband. A government official said the move is mostly ministerial and provides options for the FCC to reallocate the 1755 MHz spectrum, though many questions remain. “We are happy that both the FCC and NTIA are working to move these two pairings to auction,” said CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe. “Clearing this spectrum and moving the bands to auction will bring tremendous, measurable benefits to our economy, our citizens and our country.” “T-Mobile has worked closely with the FCC, NTIA, and federal users to make these bands available for mobile broadband use and today’s designation marks a critical milestone in this process,” said Senior Vice President Tom Sugrue. “When paired with spectrum the FCC already has under its jurisdiction, these frequency blocks can provide an additional 80 MHz of valuable spectrum adjacent to the AWS-1 band, and expand US leadership in LTE mobile broadband deployment.” Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member John Thune, R-S.D., said he was glad to see the FCC taking steps to pair and auction together the 1755-1780 MHz and 2155-2180 MHz wireless spectrum bands according to a news release following the publication of the letter. Thune commended Commissioner Ajit Pai for advocating the FCC use of its notify-and-auction authority and said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has “once again shown he clearly understands the tremendous potential of commercial mobile broadband and the importance of making more public resources available to the private sector for development,” the news release said. Thune urged NTIA and the White House to concentrate their efforts on reallocating the 1755-1780 MHz band “for as much exclusive, non-federal use as is feasible. Cleared spectrum is the best way to meet consumer demand and raise revenues needed to relocate current users and reduce the deficit,” he said. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said she too was pleased by the FCC’s letter: “Pairing the 1755-1780 MHz band with 2155-2180 MHZ band makes sense not just for revenue purposes, but also for innovation in our ever growing digital economy,” she said in an email sent via her spokesman. “The clock is ticking on the AWS-3 spectrum reallocation. We must find a timely solution that address both our economic needs and our national security challenges.” Last congress Matsui introduced the Efficient Use of Government Spectrum Act which sought to require the FCC to pair for commercial auction the 1755-1780 MHz band with the 2155-2180 MHz band (CD April 27 p5).

The FCC asks a battery of questions in an NPRM approved Wednesday that tries to get to the bottom of what went wrong in June when the derecho storm led to problems at 77 public safety answering points across Ohio, the central Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic states, with 17 PSAPs losing service completely. FCC officials said the NPRM is open-ended and doesn’t draw tentative conclusions, though it could lead to new requirements for carriers. The questions raised are based on the problems identified in the Jan. 10 FCC report on the storm (http://bit.ly/ZTzB3M).

Republican members of the House Communications Subcommittee Tuesday sharply criticized a Food and Drug Administration proposal to regulate thousands of medical apps and warned of a 2.3 percent Obamacare excise tax that could soon apply to mobile devices. Democrats said heightened scrutiny of medical apps is justified.

Republican members of the House Communications Subcommittee Tuesday sharply criticized a Food and Drug Administration proposal to regulate thousands of medical apps and warned of a 2.3 percent Obamacare excise tax that could soon apply to mobile devices. Democrats said heightened scrutiny of medical apps is justified.

There may be room for compromise on how much spectrum is available for unlicensed use after the FCC auction of frequencies of TV stations that choose to participate for a slice of the proceeds, said NAB’s auction pointman. Fleshing out his stance against the voluntary incentive auction occurring next year, NAB Executive Vice President-Strategic Planning Rick Kaplan told executives and regulators that he thinks there’s a “sweet spot” for how much is licensed versus unlicensed. The commission shouldn’t make guard bands or the gap between carriers’ licensed frequencies used for uplink versus downlink operations “one megahertz larger than they need to be for interference purposes,” Kaplan said at a Media Institute lunch. Some high-technology companies want larger guard bands than do carriers, and the issue of how big they're to be may be controversial when the FCC prepares to adopt an order on auction rules (CED Jan 29 p4).