More than two years after the FCC approved rules for a new Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) service in the 2360-2400 MHz band, the rules have yet to be finalized and no patients are benefiting from wireless body sensors approved by the FCC. The FCC’s work on MBAN demonstrates the sometimes extremely slow pace of making FCC spectrum reallocations a reality, industry officials say.

The FCC said the start of the TV incentive auction was pushed back from mid-2015 until a date in early 2016. The Friday announcement came in a blog post by Gary Epstein, chair of the FCC’s TV Incentive Auction Task Force. Industry officials have long predicted that a delay was possible, given the NAB legal challenge to the auction rules and the number of items the FCC needs to complete before the auction can take place (see 1409100041).

The FCC Media Bureau’s temporary suspension of pleading schedules for AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV and Comcast/Time Warner Cable (see 1410220058) is likely to strengthen the cases of those calling for delays of Comcast/TWC reviews at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and New York Public Service Commission (PSC), parties in those states’ reviews told us. The CPUC is evaluating a new timeline for its review based on recommendations from its Office of Ratepayer Advocates and public interest groups (see 1410150092), while the New York PSC is to vote on its review Nov. 13. Public interest groups in California and New York are concerned that programmers’ objections to the disclosure of confidential documents will preclude the groups from effectively participating in the reviews. The FCC cited similar concerns at the federal level as the main reason to suspend its pleading cycle for the deal.

The private sector and government must continue working together to pave the way forward for more cost-effective use of military and commercial satellites and an integrated operational architecture for both areas, satellite operators said Thursday during a Washington Space Business Roundtable event. Government efforts to develop bandwidth pathfinders, and take advantage of commercially hosted payloads, will help satisfy wideband global satcom (WGS) needs, they said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wants major ISPs to pledge to abstain from paid prioritization deals. He fired off letters Thursday to AT&T, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and Verizon requesting such pledges. Earlier this week, he sent a letter to Comcast asking for similar promises, expressing big fears about what paid prioritization would do to the Internet (see 1410200046).

The FCC’s inmate calling service rulemaking notice (http://bit.ly/1xaqAVP), released Wednesday, lays out options for setting interstate and intrastate phone rates, and barring or limiting commission and ancillary charges, as expected. It explores in more detail taking “a market-based approach” to encourage competition to reduce rates, while also ensuring “fair but not excessive ICS compensation.” The further notice, which was approved Oct. 17 (see 1410170047), also seeks comment on the agency’s legal authority to enact further reforms beyond last year’s interim interstate rate caps.

Neustar is petitioning the FCC for a declaratory ruling to throw out the North American Numbering Council’s recommendation that Telcordia be named the next local number portability administrator and that the LNPA selection process be reopened, alleging that NANC and a working group violated federal transparency laws.Neustar, according to a number of ex parte filings filed as recently as last Friday (see 1410220037), had been pressing the commission to allow it to continue serving as the LNPA. The company is arguing that it had been performing the function “flawlessly” and raising questions about Telcordia’s ability to not favor certain companies and questioning the adequacy of its plan.

CTIA President Meredith Baker turned up the heat on the FCC to not impose the same net neutrality rules on the wireless industry as are imposed on wireline, saying doing so would be “almost reckless” on the agency’s part. Baker made her first appearance as CTIA president on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, in an interview set to be televised this weekend.

Virginia believes the federal government needs to improve its information sharing with the states and clearly define when the federal government and states have authority over specific aspects of cyber policy to assist states as they align cybersecurity policies with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework, said Zaki Barzinji, Virginia deputy director-intergovernmental affairs. Virginia was the first state to adopt version 1.0 of the NIST framework after its release in February, doing so in conjunction with Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s (D) formation of the Commonwealth of Virginia Cyber Security Commission, Barzinji said. The Department of Homeland Security has been working to encourage state and local governments to use the NIST framework, but “in a lot of cases we don’t know which federal agency, which state agency has authority,” Barzinji said at a Microsoft event Wednesday.

The European Parliament Wednesday approved the new European Commission, prompting hope and optimism from telecom, tech, consumer and civil society groups. The 423-209 vote followed an intense debate that highlighted a major rift between the three main political parties and others, such as the Eurosceptics and Greens. Parliament members (MEPs) split over several candidates and issues, but EC President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker's choices of former Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip for digital single market vice president and current Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger as digital economy and society commissioner sailed through without comment. The strong opposition by some political groups showed that MEPs "are taking the prime opportunity at the outset to make sure the Commission knows it has a handbrake," emailed a European Consumers' Organisation spokesman. The new panel must now be formally appointed by the Council of Ministers, and will begin work Nov. 1, Parliament said.