Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked the FCC and Justice Department to investigate Comcast for alleged anticompetitive conduct and violations of its merger agreements made in connection with buying control of NBCUniversal. His request came in a letter sent to the agencies Monday (http://xrl.us/bm6i7y). Franken, a vocal critic of the deal and member of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, said that complaints against Comcast’s compliance with the terms of the commission’s order have “languished” before the FCC “for extended periods of time.” Franken said he’s “disappointed” it took the FCC 10 months to issue an order to resolve a carriage dispute between Comcast and the Bloomberg financial news channel. Franken also alleged that Comcast was using delay tactics to prevent Project Concord, an online video distributor (OVD), from negotiating programming deals. He alleged Comcast was requiring Project Concord to provide a full, unredacted copy of the underlying peer agreement for content with another company before Comcast can provide its programming. Such a dispute has “far-reaching implications for the entire OVD market,” Franken said. He urged Justice and the FCC to act quickly to resolve the issue; otherwise “it will dissuade other OVDs from seeking Comcast’s programming under the terms of the order, and it will send a message to Comcast that it may set unreasonable requirements on OVDs as a condition of receiving its content.” Franken urged the agencies to probe Comcast’s announcement that it will exempt its VOD services for the Xbox 360 from its customers’ broadband data caps. The practice (WID May 7 p3) “raises serious questions about how Comcast will favor its own content and services to the detriment of its competitors,” Franken said. Comcast is “fully complying with (indeed exceeding) the transaction orders as detailed in our recently filed Annual Compliance Report,” a company spokeswoman said by email. The Xfinity app for the Xbox does not stream content over the open Internet and “is not subject to the FCC’s open Internet rules,” she said. Comcast’s Xfinity service is “indisputably part of our Title VI cable service which is not subject to the FCC’s Open Internet Rules,” she said. Franken acknowledged in his letter that Comcast’s video content is being delivered over its private Internet Protocol network, rather than the Internet, saying he was “not yet prepared” to call it a technical violation of the commission’s merger order.

The International Trade Commission said it received a complaint entitled Certain Electronic Devices, Including Mobile Phones and Tablet Computers, and Components Thereof, DN 2896, and it's soliciting comments on any public interest issues raised by the complaint or complainant's filing.

Congressional investigators are looking into allegations of loan fraud raised by cable operators against a county government in Minnesota that accepted about $66 million in funds from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to build a fiber broadband network there. Mediacom Communications, which serves some of the less sparsely populated parts of Lake County, Minn., complained last year to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s office of the inspector general that Lake County’s Broadband Initiatives Project (BIP) loan application appeared to be fraudulent, designed to set the county up for financial failure and allow outside consultants hand-picked by local officials to buy the fiber-to-the-home systems at a discount (CD March 17/11 p6). More recently it has been taking its case to nearly anyone else who might listen, including federal prosecutors in D.C. and investigators with the House Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and apparently gaining some traction.

It’s time for industry and government stakeholders to “roll up our sleeves, lock the engineers from both sides in a room and figure out a path forward” on spectrum reallocation, said T-Mobile Vice President-Federal Legislative Affairs Tony Russo in a blog post Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm544v). Additional bandwidth is “essential to continue offering cutting edge mobile broadband services to consumers and regaining the competitiveness of the wireless industry,” he said. Russo endorsed the Efficient Use of Government Spectrum Act (HR-4817), which he said can accommodate the needs of “current government users while carving a path forward to reallocate the spectrum for commercial wireless services.” Reps. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced HR-4817 last week to require the FCC to pair for commercial auction the 1755-1780 MHz band with the 2155-2180 MHz band (CD April 27 p3). Stearns said the legislation would bring more spectrum to the commercial market and raise $12 billion for the U.S. Treasury while offering the Defense Department protections for reallocation. Russo acknowledged that the full clearing of the 1755-1780 MHz band may not be possible in a short timeframe and said the legislation offers a transition plan whereby all users can share the spectrum. “Only through cooperative engagement will we get to a solution that works for both current and future licensees within the three-year period remaining under separate legislation that authorized the auction of the 2155-2180 MHz band,” he said. Both the 1755-1780 MHz and 2155-2180 MHz band should “obviously” be sold together to provide “certainty to auction participants about what they are buying,” Russo said.

Low-power TV stations with full-service protections are challenging FCC orders saying the LPTVs face loss of the Class A status keeping frequencies safe from interference. In responses this month and last to Media Bureau orders to show cause why they shouldn’t become regular LPTVs, at least 17 stations have said the commission would violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the 1999 Community Broadcasters Protection Act and/or the Telecom Act by yanking the protection. Another four have said they plan to oppose the status loss, seeking more time to reply. The bureau in the last two weeks issued orders revoking the Class A status of eight stations that didn’t respond to the show-cause demands (CD April 30 p16).

The FCC Tuesday effectively suspended for 21 days the 180-day clock on its review of Verizon Wireless’s buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox. Opponents of the deals had asked the FCC to stop the clock because of problems they have had gaining access to documents and working their way through the massive record. Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan said in a letter posted on the FCC website he had little choice. The clock is non-binding, but still closely watched. Tuesday was officially day 103 of the commission’s 180-day review.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) continued efforts to develop new markets for Alaska’s 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the North Slope by raising the potential of providing a long-term supply to Japan. Murkowski discussed the idea with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at a dinner hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said a press release..

Local governments want to work with wireless carriers and tower companies to make collocation easier, Anthony Perez, NATOA president-elect, said at an FCC workshop Tuesday. Industry speakers said collocation will only get more important as siting towers becomes more difficult. One provision of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, signed in February by President Barack Obama, streamlines collocation on and modification of an existing structure that doesn’t substantially change the physical dimensions of the structure.

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District defended its decision to cut off service at one of its transit stations last August to fend off a possible riot. BART subsequently approved a policy for shutoffs (CD Dec 2 p11) and the FCC started to ask questions. On March 1, the FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureaus asked for comments on “concerns and issues” raised by the intentional interruption of CMRS service by government authorities for the purposes of protecting public safety (CD March 2 p14).

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District defended its decision to cut off service at one of its transit stations last August to fend off a possible riot. BART subsequently approved a policy for shutoffs and the FCC started to ask questions. On March 1, the FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureaus asked for comments on “concerns and issues” raised by the intentional interruption of CMRS service by government authorities for the purposes of protecting public safety.