In the latest twist on unlicensed spectrum and the TV incentive auction, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is proposing a uniform 11 MHz duplex gap in the 600 MHz band plan, following the auction, industry and FCC officials said Thursday. The reconfigured gap, which would separate uplink and downlink spectrum in the band plan, is seen as a compromise that would offer a bone to high-technology companies like Google and Microsoft, as well as public interest groups that want more low-band spectrum dedicated to Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use, industry officials said. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn are also strong supporters of making more unlicensed spectrum available.

The Universal Service Administrative Co. computer systems are not up to the task of effectively making available all the data it receives on E-rate demand and what services cost for various schools and libraries, panelists at a Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition event said Thursday. This makes it hard for school administrators and librarians to ensure they're getting the “lowest corresponding price” on services, panelists and audience members said. Panelists also expressed frustration at the political compromises that led to a Priority 2 funding system that has run out of money.

With a small group of protesters camping outside at the FCC, Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai put out a statement Thursday urging FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to delay the May 15 vote on a net neutrality NPRM. Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel on Wednesday also asked Wheeler to delay a vote (CD May 8 p23). An FCC spokesman said Wednesday the vote will take place as planned. “I have grave concerns about the Chairman’s proposal on Internet regulation and do not believe that it should be considered at the Commission’s May meeting,” Pai said (http://bit.ly/RrMzJh). “Instead, I believe that the Commission should focus for the next week on getting the rules for the incentive auction right."

Congress dug into the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process in two House committees Thursday. The House Commerce Committee’s latest draft of STELA, HR-4572, advanced by unanimous voice vote out of committee, as expected (CD May 8 p4). It’s the only legislative text introduced so far from the four committees with STELA jurisdiction -- Commerce and Judiciary in both chambers. The House Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, held its first major STELA hearing of the year, conducted at the IP Subcommittee level.

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen expects the forthcoming over-the-top (OTT) product offered through its programming deal with Disney to allow Dish to give a better product to customers and to experiment in advertising, he said Thursday during a conference call discussing Dish’s 2014 first quarter results. “We're experimenting a lot in the advertising realm in the sense that we believe that we can increase the advertising [revenue] to our programming partners,” he said during the call. Combining the data Dish has with Disney’s data enables Dish “to go to a customer in a way that we otherwise couldn’t go to them with a particular ad,” he said. It’s a step toward making programming partners money, he added.

House Judiciary Committee lawmakers treated with some skepticism Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable, as paid peering dominated the debate. Antitrust Subcommittee witnesses from the American Cable Association, Cogent Communications and DeepField Networks discussed what the deal would mean, in the second hearing Congress has held on the deal, lasting more than four hours.

With an FCC vote on spectrum aggregation rules set for the FCC’s May 15 meeting, AT&T countered arguments by Sprint and T-Mobile that backed bidding limits (CD May 6 p3), in a Wednesday letter to the commission. Also on Wednesday, wireless competitors made their case for spectrum aggregation limits for both AT&T and Verizon (CD May 8 p1).

The biggest problem Google Fiber may encounter from cities as it tries to expand its high-speed network isn’t government regulation, but Salt Lake City’s snowy, cold weather, according to a sampling of five applications we examined that cities filed for the service. As part of its process of considering 34 cities as candidates to get the much-sought service, the company asked cities to fill out a checklist identifying potential issues and whether they could comply with the streamlined regulatory process the company wants. A top potential issue Salt Lake City’s application identified was that “snow and cold weather could ... cause a contractor to temporarily stop working (up to a few weeks) and wait for better weather.” All 34 cities Google Fiber targeted for the service’s expansion planned to apply (CD May 1 p5).

The Advanced Television Systems Committee’s “S34-1 ad hoc group,” assigned to writing the specifications on ATSC 3.0’s video component, has 8K on its long-term “radar,” but no one has formally proposed including it in the final ATSC 3.0 standard, Alan Stein, Technicolor vice president-technology, who chairs S34-1, told the “ATSC 3.0 Boot Camp” conference Wednesday.

A new effort by Sinclair to bring about the creation of a new TV standard by designing technology to allow broadcasters to send their signals over wireless networks is not likely to capture the attention of an FCC consumed by the incentive auction, said several industry observers in interviews. “Once you get into a new standard it would delay everything,” while the FCC is focused on completing the auction on schedule, said broadcast engineer Don Everist, president of Cohen, Dippell.