Securus Technologies asked the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable in a filing Monday to suspend its investigation on inmate calling services (http://1.usa.gov/1cc4bSh). This follows Global Tel Link’s similar motion Friday to the DTC citing the FCC’s ongoing rulemaking on interstate ICS rates (CD Oct 22 p11). The DTC should not “expend resources addressing the same issues” being considered by the FCC because the DTC could have to “redo” its decision after the FCC proceeding, said Securus. If the DTC denies Securus’s motion, the ICS company said it requests 10 days after the denial for interested parties to respond to the Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts petition to consider ICS changes.

The FCC Media Bureau fined Korean American TV Broadcasting $9,000 for failing to timely file the Children’s Television Programming Reports for its Class A station WKTB-CD in Norcross, Ga. The broadcaster also didn’t file the station’s quarterly issues-programs lists, the bureau said in a forfeiture order (http://fcc.us/17ef5Fl). The commission originally proposed a forfeiture amount of $20,000, it said. Given the licensee’s history of compliance and considering the FCC’s forfeiture guidelines, “we reduce the remaining forfeiture amount to $9,000,” it said. The bureau also fined Guenter Marksteiner $12,000 for failure to file the same reports for Florida stations WHDT-CD, Miami and WYDT-CA, Naples, it said in a forfeiture order on reconsideration (http://bit.ly/178J27o). The bureau also proposed a $20,000 fine for Capital Broadcasting Corp. Capital allegedly failed to timely file the Children’s Television Programming Reports, the bureau said in a notice of apparent liability (http://fcc.us/1h5HQW1). Capital apparently violated the FCC rule repeatedly regarding its station KSKJ-CD, Van Nuys, Calif., it said.

The 16-day federal government shutdown probably did little to slow FCC work on key issues, to the detriment of industry companies, Medley Global Advisors said in a research note. The bigger factor is the delay in Tom Wheeler’s confirmation by the Senate as chairman of the FCC, the note said: “As a practical matter, while there’s been substantial staff work on key rulemakings and transactions, major policy cuts on key items (e.g., incentive auction rules, spectrum aggregation, IP transition, media ownership) have largely been deferred in anticipation of Wheeler’s arrival at the agency."

Comcast and Ciena completed a trial of a 1 terabit-per-second optical transmission over almost 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) earlier this month on the cable operator’s long-haul fiber infrastructure connecting Ashburn, Va., to Charlotte, N.C., the companies said in a news release Tuesday, repeating an announcement they made the same day at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers conference. It’s believed to be the first trial where “live data traffic was carried over a 1Tb/s 16 QAM super-channel on an existing, commercial network,” said the companies (http://bit.ly/1gC6pwe). “That network was also carrying customer traffic over 10G, 40G and 100G wavelengths,” it said, referring to gigabits per second.

Representatives of General Motors met with acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn about the automaker’s concerns about protecting dedicated short range communications (DSRC) systems in the 5850-5925 MHz band from Wi-Fi in the band. The FCC is examining whether the spectrum can also be dedicated to unlicensed use, while protecting automotive anti-collision systems. The ex parte filing was made Monday, though the meeting took place just before the partial government shutdown (http://bit.ly/Hdc4cn). “In light of GM’s investment of significant financial and human resources in support of DSRC, and DSRC’s tremendous potential to improve road safety, the GM representatives urged that the Commission not take any actions in the pending 5 GHz proceeding to make DSRC communications susceptible to harmful interference from unlicensed (including Wi-Fi) devices,” the filing said.

An FTC oversight hearing scheduled for Thursday was postponed due to House scheduling issues, said a spokeswoman for the House Commerce Committee. The hearing was to discuss the agency’s changing oversight and jurisdiction as the advanced communications market rapidly evolves and the commission nears its 100-year anniversary (CD Oct 21 p9). All four FTC commissioners were to testify. When the hearing is rescheduled, information will be posted on the committee’s website (http://1.usa.gov/H6DbF9).

SES renewed its contract with Sony Entertainment Television Asia. The agreement allows SET Asia to serve its subscribers in the U.K. and Ireland at SES’s prime orbital arc of 28.2/28.5 degrees east, “as well as distribute its platform to affiliates across Europe,” SES said in a press release (http://bit.ly/HfKIS6). The company is in the process of a full fleet renewal at that prime location, it said.

Satcom1, an aircraft satellite communications solutions provider, will be a distributor of Inmarsat Global Xpress Aviation services for the business aviation market. The partnership is possible through Satcom1’s agreement with Honeywell Aerospace, the designated business aviation reseller for Global Xpress Aviation Ka-band services, Inmarsat said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1cbDIUL). The aviation network and hardware is scheduled to be commercially available in early 2015, “providing high-speed broadband services with complete global coverage for all aircraft requirements,” it said.

Save the National Security Agency phone surveillance program, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reiterated in a USA Today op-ed posted online Sunday night. Feinstein has championed the program before and while arguing for more transparency and oversight adjustments, wants to enact legislation that would preserve the bulk metadata collection. Other lawmakers have vowed to end the program. “The call-records program is not surveillance,” Feinstein said (http://usat.ly/1b4GsOC). “The overwhelming majority of records are never reviewed before being destroyed, but it is necessary for the NSA to obtain ’the haystack’ of records in order to find the terrorist ‘needle.'"

The European Commission created a high-level expert group on the best way of taxing the digital economy, it said Tuesday. The panel will focus on identifying the main problems with digital taxation from an EU perspective, it said. The EC will use its recommendations to draft any necessary legislation, it said. The group is expected to start work before the end of the year and report in the first half of 2014, the EC said. Today’s tax systems were conceived before computers, said Taxation, Customs, Statistics, Anti-Fraud and Audit Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta. Taxes shouldn’t be an obstacle to all that’s good about the digital revolution, but the digital sector must also play and pay fairly, he said.