FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai put his support behind noncommercial stations using on-air time to raise funds for third-party charities and proposing regulatory changes to improve the AM band. Allowing noncommercial educational stations to use up to 1 percent of their annual airtime to raise funds would allow stations “to help meet the humanitarian needs in their local communities and around the world, and it wouldn’t undermine the noncommercial nature of their operations,” he said Tuesday in a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters board in National Harbor, Md. A proceeding on the rule change, suggested by NRB, is still pending (CD Feb 4 p8). He rejected arguments that such a rule change would put stations in the position of having to approve some requests for airtime while denying others, or that audiences will be driven away. Broadcasters make plenty of decisions every day, “and I'm sure they can handle this one without antacid,” he said. “I don’t think that less than 15 minutes a day of charitable fundraising will alienate those who listen to or watch noncommercial stations.” If it does, “stations have every incentive to change course,” he said. He also encouraged broadcasters to participate in the comment period for the forthcoming NPRM on revitalizing the AM band (CD Sept 20 p11). The commission will have to act quickly “to give AM broadcasters relief while we come up with more permanent fixes for the band’s difficulties,” he said. The commission should go further in helping AM stations secure FM translators, he added: “We should open up a window where any AM station without an FM translator can get one so long as there is available spectrum."

Free Press is “inventing an issue where none exists” in its criticism of the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council for not disclosing whether MMTC had prior relationships with the subjects of its cross-ownership study (CD Sept 25 p23), said MMTC President David Honig in an ex parte filing Monday (http://bit.ly/GzyzXM). “MMTC’s identity was not known to Study respondents, nor were the respondents’ identities known to MMTC,” said Honig in the ex parte. “No conflict of interest for ‘double blind’ research exists by virtue of a nonprofit sponsor’s ownership of or relationships with broadcast stations.” Honig also said disclosing prior relationships would jeopardize the confidentiality promised to participants of the study. “Providing any additional information could reveal the identities of Study subjects,” said Honig. He also responded to Free Press complaints that the use of FCC data to conduct the study led MMTC to misidentify some stations as minority- or female-owned that weren’t. “The FCC uses its own database as well,” said Honig. “Free Press does not demonstrate that the results of the Study would have been materially different if a different database had been used.” Honig also challenged Free Press attacks on the study’s peer review process. “Even if the Study had not been peer reviewed at all, the Study would still be a useful piece of evidence that could aid the Commission in its evaluation of whether common ownership has a disparate impact on minority and/or women owned broadcast stations,” said Honig. “All of the peer reviewers ultimately concluded that while not dispositive, the study has value as a piece of evidence. That is all MMTC has ever asserted.” Free Press didn’t comment.

The Satellite Industry Association repeated that the FCC grant spectrum allocation changes for federal earth station facilities, but that there isn’t a need “to adopt a co-primary non-Federal allocation in frequencies currently available for launch operations,” in reply comments in docket 13-115 (http://bit.ly/16UH9Gz). The proceeding is to determine whether federal earth stations are to have full protection from interference when operating with commercial satellites (CD May 6 p5). The FCC should adopt SIA’s proposal for enhancing the current status of federal earth stations, it said: Because the FCC would have sole regulatory authority over the space segment of satellite systems operating in the fixed satellite services and mobile satellite services bands, “it can establish conclusively at the outset that its rules will apply to federal government operations, and that the bands will not be shared for regulatory purposes.” Boeing suggested that, to improve non-federal operators’ access to launch spectrum, the FCC should issue two-year experimental licenses instead of six-month special temporary authorizations, it said (http://bit.ly/GzJEIK). The company agreed it isn’t necessary for the FCC to re-engineer the current process by introducing a new co-primary non-federal allocation and associated rules, it said. Engineers for the Integrity of Broadcast Auxiliary Services Spectrum agreed with Comsearch’s concern that federal use of the extended satellite bands “should not be upgraded from secondary to co-primary, because these bands are extensively used by point-to-point terrestrial microwave stations,” it said (http://bit.ly/16e9onZ). Allowing federal downlinks in these bands that were no longer secondary “would give those sites super primary status because of the commission policy of protecting downlinks on all possible channels and all possible look angles,” EIBASS said. The group objects to allowing federal stations co-primary status in the extended Ku-band segment of 10.7-11.7 GHz, which is heavily used by Part 101 terrestrial FSS stations, it said. The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition doesn’t object to federal access to non-federal satellite spectrum as long as federal users comply with all established frequency coordination procedures and industry practices, it said (http://bit.ly/171vIhd). FWCC supported Comsearch’s proposals, including requiring federal earth station users seeking to operate in shared non-federal bands to follow the same frequency coordination procedures and industry best practices currently required for non-federal users, it said. The FCC also should delete the extended Ku downlink band “from its proposed policy to provide federal earth stations with protected status, so as to preserve the 10.7-11.7 GHz band for badly needed FSS links,” it said.

A denial by a federal judge in Los Angeles of a preliminary injunction requested by Fox against Dish Network’s Sling doesn’t point to a particular outcome for the case, said Stifel Nicolaus in an email. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee’s opinion last week said Fox hadn’t shown the threat of irreparable injury but “made no finding on whether Fox was likely to succeed upon further review,” said Stifel. The analysts called the decision a victory for Dish, because the DBS provider will be able to continue offering Sling-enabled Dish Anywhere services to customers while the case continues, but said the case remains undecided. “Consequently, while we have our doubts that the courts will ultimately thwart Dish’s Sling place-shifting technology in the consumer marketplace, we do not believe Judge Gee’s opinion sheds any clear light on the prospects of Fox’s substantive claims, meaning it’s entirely possible Fox could win damages and new payments from DISH,” said the email. “Fox can also appeal the preliminary injunction denial."

The FAA should move forward on rules allowing people to keep their non-connected electronic devices on through all aspects of flight, CTIA Vice President Jot Carpenter said Tuesday in an e-mail. The New York Times reported that a special 28-member FAA advisory committee has agreed to a report that recommends allowing people to watch a movie, read a book or play a game below 10,000 feet (http://nyti.ms/18GCIny). “The idea that there is still a rule that says you can read a book if it looks like a book, but you can’t if it’s a book downloaded to your mobile device is just silly,” Carpenter said. “So the fact that government now acknowledges this absurdity is a positive step. The sooner the FAA modernizes its rules to reflect the realities of today’s mobile society, the better.” The report was forwarded to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. It was not released by the FAA.

The FCC should include mid-size cable operators in the category of companies that will receive an extra two years to comply with proposed 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) rules for user interfaces and navigation guides, said the American Cable Association in an ex parte letter filed Monday (http://bit.ly/151e27V). The proposed rule has a three-year compliance deadline for companies with more than 400,000 subscribers, and a five-year deadline for companies with fewer. However, ACA said the cutoff would leave three members under the earlier deadline: Mediacom, Cable One and WOW. Those companies “will be no more able to ensure compliance than their smaller brethren” because they don’t design their own hardware and software and depend on “the availability of commercial ‘off-the-shelf’ equipment to satisfy regulatory requirements,” said ACA. The “buying power” to influence hardware and software companies to construct components “rests almost exclusively with the largest operators,” said a Cable One ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/171Ads8). “Operators the size of Cable One [600,000 subscribers] simply have no ability to materially influence these schedules."

The successful effort to repeal the Massachusetts state tax on computer and software services made tech groups more active in the legislative process, Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) CEO Tom Hopcroft told us Tuesday. “Tech is not a regulated industry in the state, so these groups are usually not super involved with lawmakers,” said Hopcroft. The legislature last week repealed a 6.25 percent sales tax on the services (CD Sept 30 p19 ). The tech sector is the second-largest employer in the state, and it creates 1.6 support jobs for every job in the tech sector, said Hopcroft. In order for the state to raise money, it should focus on more “broad-based taxes,” said Hopcroft. MassTLC signed a petition with 20 other tech groups to get a referendum on the tax on the ballot for November 2014 as a “fail safe,” he said: “A lot of people did not want this to become a campaign issue.” The tax was part of a gas tax bill passed by the legislature, so it was not an important issue at the time, said Hopcroft. At a meeting to discuss the tax, MassTLC and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation explained to the governor and legislators the impact that the tax would have on tech companies, he said. “We provided new information that was not considered about this tax the first time around, and it became a real tipping point when the governor came out against the tax,” said Hopcroft.

Hawaiian Telcom said it completed its buy of Honolulu data center and cloud company SystemMetrics for $16 million in cash. Hawaiian Telcom CEO Eric Yeaman in a news release said the deal will allow the telco to “meet the accelerating demand for these services, and provides the company with a solid platform for future growth.” SystemMetrics generates about $8 billion a year in revenue and has a facility in Honolulu that has 6,500 square feet of data center capacity (http://bit.ly/15H4n97).

EchoStar and Vivendi-owned GVT are planning a joint venture for pay-TV services in Brazil, they said. The companies expect to benefit from GVT’s strong market position and IP network “combined with EchoStar’s expertise in satellite and video technology and its Brazilian licenses,” EchoStar said in a press release (http://bit.ly/16e9onZ). EchoStar said the companies want to offer a national service based on IPTV “and a unique high power satellite to provide leading edge features, quality and reliability to consumers."

More than half of e-commerce takes place on smartphones and tablets, said a Tuesday news release based on the findings of a comScore and Partnering Group report (http://bit.ly/18oDzZ7). Smartphone Internet usage totaled 44 percent of retail Internet minutes in Q2 2013, up from 17 percent in June 2010, it said. Mobile commerce was $4.7 billion, 8.6 percent of total Q2 U.S. e-commerce and a 24 percent increase from the year-ago quarter. Nearly six in 10 smartphone users said they visited a company’s website or app while in its brick-and-mortar store, while 43 percent said they visited another company’s website.