Democrats on the House Commerce Committee warned the shutdown is hurting the FCC and other telecom and media proceedings. The FCC “may be forced to postpone the first spectrum auction for mobile broadband in six years scheduled for January 2014,” they said in a Tuesday letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio (http://1.usa.gov/H1P3rU). “Neither the National Telecommunications Information Administration nor the FCC is able to work with federal, regional, and local agencies to investigate possible communications system failures for first responders during the shooting at Navy Yard last month.” The letter also warns of how the shutdown is affecting the FTC and its ability to investigate and prosecute fraud. They requested Boehner allow the House to vote on a clean continuing resolution to fund all government agencies and end the government shutdown.

Newtec and SniperHill partnered to deploy new satellite technology to U.S. and NATO bases in Afghanistan. The solution enables SniperHill “to manage capacity and deliver increased throughput with dynamic allocation, shaping and prioritization to multiple sites across a hybrid network of terrestrial optical fiber, wireless, satellite and microwave,” Newtec said in a press release (http://bit.ly/1aJLD6k). Newtec’s EL501 Hub was installed at SniperHill’s partner teleport facility in Germany, it said. From that location, it enables high throughput networks over satellite to operate at several locations across the Middle East for Morale, Welfare and Recreation networks, it said.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a bill that would require a search warrant for government entities to obtain electronic communications from carriers. Within three days after a government entity receives such content from a service provider, it would be required to give the subscriber a copy of the warrant and a notice, under Senate Bill 467. Brown said Saturday he vetoed the bill because it requires “law enforcement agencies to obtain a search warrant when seeking access to electronic communications” (http://bit.ly/GWT01I). Federal law requires a search warrant, subpoena or court order. and this bill “imposes new notice requirements that go beyond those required by federal law and could impede ongoing criminal investigations,” said Brown. On Thursday, he vetoed two bills related to the state’s LifeLine program and the purchase of prepaid cellphone minutes. Assembly Bill 1409 would have limited some of the Public Utilities Commission’s powers to adopt new rules for its LifeLine program. Brown vetoed the bill because of an open PUC proceeding to revise the state’s LifeLine program to allow non-traditional carriers to participate in the program, he said in a written statement (http://bit.ly/16dP1DT). “The last minute amendments included in this bill would legislatively preempt the outcome of this proceeding that has taken public comment from hundreds of California citizens.” AB-300 would create an additional system for collecting and remitting fees, surcharges and taxes applicable to prepaid mobile phone services where these charges would be collected from prepaid customers and remitted to the Board of Equalization and the fees from postpaid customers continue to be collected by the PUC, State 911 Fund and local governments, said Brown. AB-300 is “duplicative, complex and will result in significant and unnecessary costs to the state,” he said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1gHWyCw).

Netflix ISP speeds remained constant from August to September, said the company in its monthly index Monday (http://nflx.it/1cOpR6e). Bright House moved up a rank to No. 9 at 2.06 Mbps, shifting down Mediacom (2.04 Mbps) in September, said Netflix. No other rankings changed but Google Fiber speeds fell from 3.58 Mbps to 3.41 Mbps, said the company. Other ISPs were Cablevision (2.59 Mbps), Cox (2.50 Mbps), Suddenlink (2.45 Mbps), Verizon FiOS (2.20 Mbps), Charter (2.16 Mbps), Time Warner Cable (2.12 Mbps) and Comcast (2.11 Mbps), said Netflix.

The federal judiciary will remain open at least until Thursday, despite the ongoing government shutdown, said notices posted on court websites. Federal courts will remain open for business at least until Oct. 17 due to severe spending restrictions that have meant some “limited additional funding now exists,” said the federal judiciary’s website (http://1.usa.gov/19L6eoH). “Spending rates and fund balances will continue to be monitored closely in hope that adequate funds may be available to allow courts to operate through the end of the work week -- October 18,” it said. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit put out a similar notice that said it will remain open for business and will reassess its situation on or around Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1bUgjHf). “All proceedings and deadlines remain in effect as scheduled, unless otherwise advised,” said the D.C. Circuit. “Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) will remain in operation for the electronic filing of documents with courts."

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. completed a $20 million capital project to connect more than 120 K-12 schools in southern Virginia, it said in a news release Monday (http://yhoo.it/15Erijf). The wholesale open-access network transport provider was funded through a $16 million grant from NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and a matching $4 million grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, said MBC. The network will support broadband connectivity of 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps for every school in southern Virginia, said MBC. The project was completed in the allotted timeframe and under budget, saving $1 million, said the provider.

FCC regulations aren’t as bad as the Internet Innovation Alliance-sponsored paper published last week makes them out to be, said telecom lawyer Jonathan Lee in a blog post Friday (http://bit.ly/1cEWSBM). The paper, by Georgetown visiting senior policy scholar Anna-Maria Kovacs, criticized the FCC for requiring ILECs to spend money maintaining legacy networks, rather than letting the telcos invest their money in new technologies (http://bit.ly/1fjIdgz). But, according to Lee, “the IIA knows full well that maintenance of this ‘museum network’ is critical to our country’s economic recovery.” Investment in the legacy networks amounted to more than $13.5 billion dollars a year, Lee said. “The IIA report dramatically shows what every FCC commenter has ever said in support of their comments: and that is that if FCC adopts the regulatory (vs. de-regulatory) policies advocated, then these policies will promote investment above and beyond the level necessary to deliver the regulated service,” he said.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., led criticism of the “failed” Lifeline program Friday. “If Congress had the opportunity to reauthorize this program instead of allowing it to grow on auto-pilot, Lifeline wouldn’t be able to survive,” said a letter signed by Blackburn and 43 Republican House members, addressed to FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn (http://1.usa.gov/1hILOBt). Lifeline, intended to help low-income Americans, has come to “symbolize everything that is wrong with Washington as it’s one of the worst examples of corporate welfare in the federal government,” they wrote, citing its rising costs in recent years and reports that question its effectiveness. There’s no way to win back trust for the program, they said. The letter included several queries to Clyburn, such as what makes Lifeline more important than other USF programs, whether she would support a $2 copay to participate in Lifeline and ways to cut spending in half by the end of 2014. “How much time and how many resources has the FCC wasted trying to save this failed welfare program?” The FCC has defended recent changes to the program as ending waste, fraud and abuse. On its website www.lifelinesupport.org/ls, the Universal Service Administrative Co., which administers the program says: “Eligible households can receive up to $9.25 per month in discounts. Additional state support may be available."

A group of major broadcasters, in a cert petition filed Friday, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to not grant a preliminary injunction against Aereo. The Supreme Court’s intervention is “urgently needed,” said the filing. “This Court has had little tolerance for business models built on the for-profit exploitation of the copyrighted works of others. And this Court has repeatedly recognized the important public interest in protecting the viability of over-the-air broadcast television.” Broadcaster attempts to get the court to hear their case against streaming TV service Aereo aren’t likely to succeed while their cases in other jurisdictions are still in progress, said Stifel Nicolaus and Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant in separate emails. “Given the seeming non-ripeness of the current court rulings (which are all preliminary injunctions, not post-trial rulings), it may not be easy for broadcasters to persuade the Supreme Court to hear the case,” said Gallant. Aereo’s case in the 2nd Circuit (CD April 2 p8) is still proceeding on the merits in U.S. District Court in New York, and Aereo and its competitor FilmOn X are still embroiled in ongoing court cases in California(CD Aug 29 p5), Utah (CD Oct 9 p21), Washington, D.C.(CD Sept 9 p18), and Massachusetts (CD July 17 p6). In Massachusetts, a federal judge Thursday also denied a preliminary injunction sought against Aereo by Hearst. “Broadcasters will have to overcome general Supreme Court reluctance to address cases at the preliminary injunction phase,” said Stifel Nicolaus. Both analyses agreed that the prospects for high court review could change if the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules against FilmOn in its preliminary injunction appeal there, creating a circuit split. “It would be the Second Circuit (Aereo is legal) vs. Ninth Circuit (Aereo is illegal),” said Gallant. “And resolving Circuit splits is a leading reason why the Court agrees to devote its scarce resources to any given case."

Students and families could lose control of sensitive information because of the Education Department’s efforts to revise regulations under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, said the Electronic Privacy Information Center in a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (http://bit.ly/1ag8cOC). By explicitly defining several terms under FERPA, such as “education program” and “authorized representative,” the Education Department made a wider range of student information available to a larger group of people, the letter argued. “As a consequence, data is now flowing to private companies that operate far outside the direct control of school systems,” the letter said. EPIC challenged the definitions in court, but the organization’s case against the Education Department was recently dismissed “on technical grounds,” according to the letter. So the organization wanted to bring the issue to the Senate committee’s attention. Areas the letter suggests the committee explore include who has access to student data, whether third parties are using any student data for commercial purposes, whether third parties are subject to security standards, and whether students and families can limit the use of data by third parties.