At a public hearing AT&T held in Carbon Hill, Ala., last week about the proposed IP transition in the farming community, a local official tried a test. He called 911 from a cellphone inside the Carbon Hill Community Center. But to the local 911 system, the call appeared to be coming from several blocks away, said Lawrence Smith, the Carbon Hill Police Department’s chief dispatcher, in an interview. That could have been a problem if someone really needed help, he said. And it could be a burden on law enforcement, especially in a place like Carbon Hill.

The Communications Workers of America asked the FCC to block the proposed transfer of AT&T’s Connecticut wireline business to Frontier Communications. The crux of CWA’s argument is the telcos failed to provide enough details about the proposed transaction, without which the commission can’t conclude it’s in the public interest (http://bit.ly/1fx2w54). CWA has also been opposing the transfer at the state level, where the approximately $2 billion deal disclosed in December also is being reviewed (CD Jan 2 p1).

Big data and online accessibility and access should be among the Council of Europe’s top priorities for its 2016-2019 Internet governance strategy, speakers said Friday at a webcast CoE conference in Graz, Austria, on ensuring online rights. Government and civil society panelists said the 47-country human rights organization could play a leading role in helping stakeholders share best practices and in making sure that compliance with rules on Internet human rights is monitored properly.

A Media Bureau public notice Wednesday announcing that pending and future transactions that involve sharing arrangements and include right of first refusal purchasing options or loan guarantees will receive extra scrutiny (http://fcc.us/OoNg4k) is a message to broadcasters that such deals won’t be approved, several communications attorneys told us. The message comes from Chairman Tom Wheeler, who industry observers said is behind the PN, which was issued on delegated authority over the objections of two commissioners two weeks before the March 31 meeting at which a full rulemaking on the same topic is anticipated.

FCC staff approved AT&T’s $1.2 billion buy of Leap, in an order released Thursday, as expected (CD March 4 p2). The FCC said the deal could lead to “certain public interest harms,” and as a result the order imposes various conditions, which had been voluntarily offered by AT&T. The commission finished work just under the wire. Thursday was day 179 on the FCC’s unofficial 180-day timeline for reviewing the transaction.

The FCC should continue to deepen its focus on data privacy, said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at a Federal Communications Bar Association event Thursday. “Let’s be a bit more about” the FCC’s consumer protection mandate, she said, “especially when it comes to privacy.” The FCC and the government should work to protect consumers from “abusive and overreaching data brokers” and ensure “companies are protecting the data they lawfully gather,” Clyburn said. While the FTC has served as the lead agency in this area, Clyburn said, the FCC does have a role promoting the “resiliency and security of communications networks."

Hewlett-Packard mostly supports the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s proposed rules for expanding its patent ownership information disclosure requirements, said Scott Pojunas, HP director-patent development, at a PTO hearing Thursday. PTO was collecting public feedback on its proposed rules, which would require patent applicants and owners to expand their disclosure-of-ownership information to include entities PTO considers to have a claim to “attributable ownership” (http://1.usa.gov/1n5qjAq). Previously referred to as “real-party-in-interest” (RPI) by the PTO, entities with attributable ownership would include any patent title holder, the ultimate parent entity behind the title holder and enforcement entities that have a stake in asserting patent ownership rights. PTO replaced RPI with attributable ownership because RPI is used elsewhere in U.S. patent law and the agency wanted to avoid confusion, said Bob Bahr, PTO’s senior patent counsel.

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., introduced a bill addressing rural call completion problems Thursday, much to the satisfaction of some rural telco advocates. The five-page bill, called the Public Safety and Economic Security Communications Act, would target intermediate providers and push the FCC to outline service quality standards. Johnson’s office consulted with the FCC in crafting the legislation, his spokesman said.

In just over four months as FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler has developed a reputation for mixing with staff, eating lunch in the commission lunchroom. Agency officials say he’s much quicker to head for another commissioner’s office for a meeting than was his immediate predecessor Julius Genachowski. He has also been willing in some cases to cut deals with the FCC’s two Republicans, Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai. But agency and industry officials tell us with huge issues looming, from media consolidation to spectrum aggregation, Wheeler is likely to also prove that on the issues most important to him, he’s not afraid of 3-2 votes.

The path to 4K and Ultra HD TV will be paved by the Digital Video Broadcasting-Satellite 2 and High Efficiency Video Coding standards, said experts in the satellite broadcast distribution industry. The standards will bring more mobility services, high-quality content and they will take the direct-to-home market to the next level, they said at the Satellite 2014 conference in Washington.