Comcast has installed and activated more than 900 Xfinity Wi-Fi hotspots along the Wasatch Front in Utah, said the company in a release Thursday (http://yhoo.it/1759aCr). With no additional charge to Xfinity Internet customers, they can now access hotspots in cities such as Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo, said Comcast. More hotspots will be added in more areas in Utah on an ongoing basis, said the company.

Torrent website isoHunt shut down Thursday after settling a copyright infringement lawsuit from major movie studios, the Motion Picture Association of America said in a release (http://bit.ly/18pI6LU). The settlement in the case, Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Fung, follows a March panel decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a 2009 ruling that isoHunt was “inducing” users to illegally download and distribute MPAA members’ movies and TV shows over its network. The appellate court affirmed that the site was not protected under the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Thursday’s settlement includes a global prohibition against the site’s founder, Gary Fung, further profiting from infringement of MPAA member content, it said. Plaintiffs in the suit also asked the court to enter a judgment of $110 million against the defendants.

Dish Network assured the FCC it would commit to the power and emissions limits applicable to other fixed and base stations in the AWS-4 band if the FCC grants its waiver for flexible AWS-4 use 30 days before the Jan. 14 H-block auction. Dish committed “to operate any future downlink terrestrial fixed or base stations in the 2000-2020 MHz band consistent with the technical requirements applicable to other fixed/base stations in the AWS-4 band at 2180-2200 MHz and adjacent operational PCS/AWS bands” to provide interference protection for adjacent operations, it said in reply comments in docket 13-225 (http://bit.ly/16dPXO1). “Sprint’s additional request to condition grant of the waiver upon Dish’s satisfaction of potential reimbursement obligations to Sprint, however, is unwarranted,” it said. The FCC already decided to “require winning bidders to pay UTAM [Unlicensed Transition and Management] and Sprint, respectively, the amounts owed within thirty days of the grant of the winning bidders’ long-form license applications,” it said. NTCH, a wireless company, does not and cannot dispute the substantial public interest benefits of the requested flexible use of the 2000-2020 MHz band for both AWS-4 licensees and future H-Block and J-Block licensees, Dish said.

Two prominent House Republicans bashed the FCC’s September NPRM that proposed killing the UHF discount. The proposed FCC rules “won’t even be final until next year at the earliest because the FCC can take however long it sees fit -- sometimes more than a decade -- to promulgate rules,” said House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., in a joint Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday (http://on.wsj.com/1bXwXFW). “Even worse, the commission says whatever rules the FCC dreams up in the future will be applied retroactively. So between now and when the new guidelines become final, no one knows the rules of the game.” The Republicans cite this as an example of the White House being unable to “connect the dots between federal regulatory actions and entrepreneurial investment decisions."

The Georgia Public Service Commission revised a state rule for the federal Lifeline program to ensure low-income households have access to basic communications services, said the PSC in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/GQkbuM). Telcos participating in Lifeline will collect $5 per month from each participating Lifeline subscriber or provide eligible customers a minimum of 500 minutes of use per month, said the PSC. The revised rule will eliminate the photo identification requirement for all Lifeline applicants and it will take effect on Jan. 31, said the PSC.

The Tennessee Regulatory Authority issued a $42,000 fine to Direct Marketing Travel Services for violation of the state’s no-call law, said TRA in a news release Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/17Nw8r9). The company violated the state’s Do Not Call law by making unsolicited phone calls to at least 18 Tennessee customers registered on the state’s Do-Not-Call register, said TRA. Direct Marketing Travel Services was assessed a fine of $2,000 per violation, and an additional $2,000 fine for having failed to register as a telemarketing solicitor in Tennessee, said TRA. It said the company was ordered to refrain from making solicitations to subscribers listed on the Do-Not-Call register.

Civil rights and e-communications organizations lobbied Thursday before Monday’s vote on new data protection rules in the European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee. In a joint press release (http://bit.ly/1fFiWgM), 16 nongovernmental groups urged Parliament members (MEPs) to approve strong rules, saying recent revelations on government surveillance involving major Internet companies highlight “the urgency of an update of Europe’s privacy rules.” The European Commission-proposed data protection regulation would have a major impact on the digital environment for citizens, businesses and public bodies, the statement said. The groups are concerned that any weakening of data protection rules would undermine the rights and freedoms of Europeans, they said. Any new rules must limit data collection to the minimum necessary, ensure privacy by design and safeguard the rights of individuals to delete their data from online services, they said. The regulation will “only be as strong as its weakest link,” and shouldn’t have any loopholes that undermine democratic rights, said coalition members, which include European Digital Rights, La Quadrature du Net and Privacy International. They were backed by 23 U.S. public interest groups who told MEPs (http://xrl.us/bpzbmp) that “the promotion of stronger privacy standards in Europe will benefit consumers around the globe.” Tougher data protection is urgently needed, said the U.S. coalition, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Privacy Information Center and Center for Digital Democracy. The extent of data collection and access by U.S. intelligence agencies and the involvement of U.S. Internet companies “is much greater than we were aware,” they wrote. Congress has “so far failed to take necessary steps” to update privacy laws or rein in the National Security Agency, they said. Consumers on both sides of the Atlantic are at risk, they said. Many of the arguments against the EU data protection regulation aren’t credible, the groups wrote. Self-regulation isn’t working, they said. “And remarkably, even after the revelations this summer, on privacy Americans trust the NSA and the IRS more than they do Facebook and Google,” they told lawmakers. In their joint statement (http://bit.ly/1cxpx9x), the GSM Association, European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association, European Competitive Telecommunications Association and Cable Europe said the data protection regulation must ensure “the right balance between protecting the fundamental right to data protection and privacy and ensuring that business and innovation can flourish within a truly uniform single market.” They urged MEPs to make the regulation applicable to the processing of EU citizens’ personal data regardless of the service provider’s location. However, they said, the current proposals and discussion don’t address inconsistencies between the draft regulation and the e-privacy directive and their impact on the internal market and consumer protections. For a technology neutral system, functionally equivalent services and data must be treated equally, they said. In addition, the regulation should be underpinned by a risk-based approach to privacy in areas such as consent and profiling, and should simplify international data transfers, the organizations said.

National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander will step down this spring, an NSA spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday. “The process for selecting his successor is ongoing,” she said, saying Alexander has not hidden his desire to retire and that “he’s served well beyond a normal rotation” as NSA chief. “This has nothing to do with media leaks,” she said, referring to revelations about U.S. surveillance practices this year.

The European Commission is market-testing commitments (http://bit.ly/19ae4Lx) by Samsung Electronics in an antitrust case on enforcement of standard essential patents (SEPs) for mobile communications, it said Thursday (http://bit.ly/17vDwbv). Samsung’s seeking of injunctions against Apple in the European Economic Area on the basis of its 3G UMTS SEPs may have been an abuse of its dominant position, the EC said. While patent holders can legitimately seek injunctions in cases of infringement, doing so on the basis of SEPs can be abuse if an SEP holder has committed to licensing its patents on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms and the company against which an injunction is sought is willing to agree to a license on such terms, it said. Samsung’s actions in such circumstances could allow it to set royalties or other licensing terms which a licensee wouldn’t agree to absent the threat of having its products excluded from the market, it said. That distorts licensing negotiations and hurts consumers by raising prices, reducing product choice and stifling innovation, it said. Samsung proposed to refrain for five years from seeking any injunctions, on the basis of present and future SEPs related to technologies in smartphones and tablets, against companies that agree to a particular licensing arrangement, the EC said. Comments are due in one month from publication in the EU Official Journal. -- COMP-SAMSUNG@ec.europa.eu.

Every EU household now has access to a basic broadband connection due to the pan-European availability of satellite broadband, the European Commission said Thursday. Satellite connections available in all 28 EU countries cover everyone, including the three million people who don’t have access to fixed and mobile broadband networks, it said. But most people don’t know about the satellite option, so the EC launched broadbandforall.eu, a service developed by the European Satellite Operators Association (ESOA) that lets people check their satellite broadband options, it said. There are 148 satellites providing services in Europe, with basic packages starting at 10 euros (around $14) per month, the EC said. But basic broadband isn’t enough, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said. Speaking at an ESOA “broadband for all” event in Brussels, Kroes said her motto and “bumper sticker” is “every European digital.” The target is for universal access to at least basic broadband by 2013 -- a goal now reached -- and to 30 Mbps broadband by 2020, she said. Traditional telecom operators aren’t interested in providing services to rural areas, which is where satellites come in, she said. Modern bi-directional broadband satellites can provide download speeds up to 20 Mbps at ever lower cost to consumers, she said.