Harbinger Capital Partners and Solus Alternative Asset Management are seeking to buy bankrupt S-band licensees TerreStar and DBSD for $2.6 billion, said bankruptcy court filings late Tuesday. The offer hasn’t been finalized and was made through a bidder letter Monday. The bid led to further delay of a bankruptcy court decision on whether to accept Dish Network’s $1 billion offer for DBSD (CD Feb 2 p8). The bankruptcy judge, expected to rule on Dish’s plan Wednesday, would have to approve either transaction, and the FCC probably would, too. Acquiring the companies would give Harbinger, which owns LightSquared, access to an additional 40 MHz of S-band spectrum as it continues to try to build out a wireless network in the L-band. LightSquared has recently run into GPS spectrum interference concerns over the use of its L-band spectrum.

AT&T isn’t entitled to “personal privacy” protections of the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The company acknowledged in 2004 that it may have overbilled the FCC’s E-rate program that year. When CompTel tried to obtain records about the disbursements and payments, AT&T sued to block disclosure, saying FOIA allowed records to be withheld if they violate “personal privacy.” In an 8-0 vote, the justices disagreed. Justice Elana Kagan sat out the case.

House Commerce Committee Democrats said it’s too soon to vote on legislation to kill the FCC’s December net neutrality order. The Communications Subcommittee plans to mark up a Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval at a business meeting Wednesday morning. But the committee and subcommittee’s ranking members -- California Democrats Henry Waxman and Anna Eshoo -- said they want a “legislative hearing” first. Meanwhile at the NAB State Leadership Conference, Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., predicted quick House passage of the joint resolution.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said broadcasters and pay-TV providers alike must negotiate retransmission consent deals in good faith and not deviate from that because of a forthcoming FCC rulemaking notice (CD March 1 p6) on retrans. Of the notice, set for a vote at Thursday’s agency meeting, he told an audience of broadcast executives visiting Washington to lobby on Capitol Hill for them and pay-TV rivals to “please don’t use this as an excuse” to not negotiate fairly. But most broadcasters and cable companies won’t wait for the FCC to change the dynamic, McDowell said Tuesday at an NAB conference. He also used FCC figures his office received to show that the agency is whittling down the number of indecency complaints against broadcasters, something he’s said should be reduced, although many license renewals are pending.

The FCC should proceed with caution as it considers the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), balloon-mounted systems and other aerial base stations that could be quickly dispatched to disaster areas to keep communications alive when other systems falter, CTIA said. The Public Safety Bureau sought comment about low-altitude aerial telecommunications systems in a Jan. 28 public notice. Many of the responses were posted by the FCC Tuesday.

Rural carriers are gearing up to fight against the proposed cap on the Universal Service Fund and other objections they've found to the FCC’s rulemaking notice, association lobbyists said Tuesday. The cap, which would freeze the fund at 2010 levels, “has to be proven flawed,” Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecom Companies Vice President Randy Tyree said on a conference call for members of several rural associations. It’s important that rural telcos and their supporters convince policy makers and legislators that the telcos are handling their USF cash well and that broadband will expand even further if the fund is allowed to expand, too, he said.

Dynamic spectrum sharing can go a long way toward addressing a pending U.S. spectrum crisis, Microsoft and Google told the FCC in separate comments on a notice of inquiry. CTIA encouraged the FCC to press forward, but warned against imposing “involuntary spectrum easements on commercial mobile spectrum.” The FCC approved an NOI on dynamic spectrum access (DSA) at its Nov. 30 meeting (CD Dec 1 p2).

SAN FRANCISCO -- There’s a huge potential to show online video viewers more ads when they watch professionally produced TV programs, said Gian Fulgoni, executive chairman and co-founder of comScore, during the OMMA Global conference Tuesday. The ratio of ads to programming minutes for online video is far lower than on TV, and closing the gap could prove lucrative for content owners and brand marketers, he said. “I think we can expect to see ad loads increased,” he said. “Consumers are willing to accept a lot more ads and the issue will be how many ads can we push it to.” But there is a concern that online video platforms could keep advertisers from reaching viewers, said Mitch Oscar, executive vice president of televisual applications for MPG, and ad agency.

The FCC affirmed some cable operators’ billing practices of charging subscribers for products and equipment as part of a bundle and not individually requested by name (CD Feb 16 p17). A Media Bureau declaratory ruling Tuesday granted much of a petition from Time Warner Cable. The ruling said so-called negative option billing, when a subscriber doesn’t tell a customer service representative each product and service being requested, comports with the 1992 Cable Act. Nothing in Section 623(f) requires the customer to tell the CSR each product being purchased, in many cases, said the ruling signed by Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake.

FCC staffers met Monday to prepare for a possible government shutdown when the existing Continuing Resolution expires Friday. While House Republicans and Senate Democrats may soon agree to a short-term extension, the threat of a later shutdown lingers, said lobbyists. A shutdown could jeopardize RUS and NTIA broadband projects, delay FCC work on CenturyLink’s purchase of Qwest, and create problems for those with expiring spectrum licenses.