The FCC should “future proof” upcoming spectrum auctions by not imposing overly restrictive rules and giving carriers room to maneuver, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said in a speech at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. McDowell said he does not want to see a repeat of 2008’s 700 MHz auction, where “onerous encumbrances” imposed by the FCC led to a less successful auction. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski also spoke to the GSMA.

The mobile emergency alert system pilot project, led by PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has the potential to foster more collaboration between public and commercial broadcasters and also between public broadcasters and their local alert and public safety organizations, some public broadcasting and mobile professionals said Monday at the Public Media Summit sponsored by the Association of Public Television Stations. For the pilot, three public TV stations will create and distribute emergency alerts using video, text and other media, through devices manufactured by LG Electronics (CD June 6 p 11). The test networks are Vegas PBS, Alabama Public Television and WGBH TV and Radio in Boston.

With ex-Cablevision executive Tom Rutledge now in charge of Charter Communications, analysts want to know how some of the strategies he deployed as chief operating officer of Cablevision might translate to Charter. During Charter’s Q4 earnings teleconference Monday, Rutledge fielded question after question about what new products or tactics Charter could introduce soon. In response, Rutledge largely stuck to his script: “We have a network that is highly capable from a physical perspective,” he said. It was a theme he repeated several times during the discussion.

Europe and the U.S. should be thinking about a “transatlantic digital marketplace” instead of getting “hung up on our small differences,” U.S. Ambassador to the EU William Kennard, a former FCC chairman, said Monday at a Copenhagen EU Danish Presidency high level conference on the digital single market. He cited a book by Peter Baldwin, “The Narcissism of Minor Differences,” that describes the psychological tendency people have to seize on small differences and enlarge them, saying that although the EU and U.S. are the world’s largest trading partners, they get stuck on issues such as data privacy that are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. As Europe debates its digital single market and the U.S. updates its online rules, they should consider joining forces because China, Brazil, Russia and other countries aren’t going to wait for them to resolve their differences, he said on a webcast.

Low-income consumers who buy a refurbished computer from Redemtech to get the cable industry’s new low-cost broadband service will get major computing bang for their buck and help put a damper on e-waste, an executive of the refurbisher said. The Columbus, Ohio-based information technology asset recovery company is providing refurbished PCs for $150 each to the poor people who subscribe to Connect to Compete, the low-cost broadband program that’s being rolled out. Efforts of Comcast, whose Internet Essentials $9.95-a-month broadband package for the poor was the prelude to the formation of C2C, and a telco that’s not part of C2C but is selling a similar service are getting positive initial reviews from government officials in the areas where it’s being rolled out. The officials said few subscribers have yet signed up.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Jones decision has set the federal government scrambling by setting constitutional privacy law on its ear, the FBI’s chief lawyer said. “What a sea change that is perceived to be in the Department” of Justice, said Andrew Weissmann, the bureau’s general counsel. First, the Supreme Court ruling in January that warrantless official GPS tracking is unconstitutional sent the government rushing to turn off the technology and then try to find and retrieve its tracking gear, Weissmann said late last week. The FBI alone had 3,000 devices to locate -- without benefit of GPS -- he said at a conference at the University of San Francisco’s law school.

Passage of wide-ranging spectrum law left room for more legislation to improve spectrum efficiency and free up underutilized federal spectrum, current and former lawmakers said. The House is preparing to review receiver standards, while the Senate is expected to conduct oversight in 2012 on the spectrum legislation that was signed into law last week. More work on spectrum is important in case authorization of voluntary incentive auctions is not the “golden goose” that some expect, a Senate GOP aide said.

NBCUniversal may face an arbitration request from an upstart online video distributor (OVD). It could seek a programming deal with the company under terms of an FCC order approving Comcast’s purchase of control in NBCU that gives OVDs the rights to buy some content accords if they strike distribution deals with other programmers. Project Concord Inc.’s request may be the first such instance of an OVD intending to seek arbitration to get access to shows from Comcast’s cable channels or the NBC broadcast-TV network to distribute them online, consumer advocates who opposed the NBCUniversal deal told us. The OVD’s request was made public in an FCC filing last week. It asked the agency not to pause issuance of a protective order to keep programming contracts confidential while it reviews Comcast’s request to change a condition in the 2011 order (CD Feb 22 p4).

The FCC’s Consumer Affairs Committee is looking at the FCC’s controversial new website, with an eye on whether it’s user friendly for consumers, CAC member Ed Bartholomew of Call for Action said during a meeting of the advisory committee Friday. Bartholomew, who chairs the Consumer Empowerment Working Group, said CAC members are planning a call with FCC officials to ask about the commission’s goals in making major changes to the website.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell still hopes to see commission action early this year on Universal Service Fund contribution reform. The FCC approved an order in October addressing the distribution side of USF and an order on the USF’s Lifeline program in January. Followup work on both is expected to consume much of the Wireline Bureau’s attention this year.