The Florida Public Service Commission has led efforts to prevent Lifeline program fraud and abuse, said Chairman Ronald Brise in his monthly newsletter released Monday (http://bit.ly/GzLyc6). During Lifeline Awareness Week (LAW) in September, the PSC stepped up its Lifeline outreach efforts and visited seven central Florida locations, said Brise. This year, national LAW organizers focused on educating consumers and stakeholders on recent federal rule changes “that help ensure the program is run in an efficient, cost-effective manner,” he said. In Florida, the Lifeline program provides at least a $9.25 discount on an eligible consumer’s monthly bill and some wireless carriers offer a free phone to qualifying low-income consumers when they apply for the Lifeline program with their company, said Brise.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office extended the deadline for comments on an out-of-cycle review of notorious markets to Oct. 25 from Oct. 11, the USTR said in Tuesday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/GzzjNb). The notorious markets list (CD Dec 17 p9) identifies potential Internet and physical notorious markets that exist outside the U.S. Comments can be made via http://www.regulations.gov, docket USTR-2013-0030. USTR’s website describes notorious markets as those “which exemplify the problem of marketplaces dealing in infringing goods and helping to sustain global piracy and counterfeiting."

Google Fiber will make an announcement about the service coming to Provo, Utah, this month, a company spokeswoman told us Monday. Mayor John Curtis posted the first video advertisement for Google Fiber last week, and he said the first “fiberhoods” will be disclosed in mid-October (http://bit.ly/1b7EZvE).

The Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet) lacked adequate internal controls in 2010 and 2011, which led to an increased risk of misuse, loss and misappropriation of public services, said the Washington State Auditor’s Office in a report released Monday (http://1.usa.gov/16dUldS). NoaNet began as a commercial operation in January 2001 to provide a broadband communications backbone throughout the state, said the office. The project got about $54 million in grants from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program in 2010, said NTIA (http://1.usa.gov/16UBEb5). The office said credit purchases for June 2011 don’t have adequate documentation to support businesses purposes, and unallowable purchases such as flowers, valet services and room upgrades were also identified. Reimbursements for various business expenses “lacked adequate documentation to support the validity of the payment,” said the office. It said employees were paid double their regular rate for hours worked on holidays, but NoaNet was unable to provide documentation on its board’s approval of this practice. Per company policy, NoaNet purchased office equipment to furnish at-home work offices, but the auditor’s office said the company doesn’t have policies for tracking and monitoring equipment purchases worth $2,849. The office said it recommends NoaNet clarify existing policies and add policies to ensure staff have the information to “accurately interpret and act on Board expectations.” Since the 2010-2011 audit period, NoaNet told the office it updated its policies in the employee handbook and improved the retention of supporting documentation for payments, said the report. It said NoaNet reported increasing the number of employees in its accounting department to “compensate for a sustained Network growth.” NoaNet has been working with the State Auditor’s Office over the past several months to address the findings from the audit, a company spokeswoman told us in an email. “We take their findings very seriously and appreciate their efforts in assisting us in putting in place stronger controls and procedures.” NoaNet has experienced significant growth over the past two years and through its work the State Auditor’s Office, NoaNet has “put in stronger financial policies, procedures, compliance monitoring and infrastructure that will allow us to effectively manage our public resources,” she said.

Dish Network and Disney agreed to a short-term extension of their retransmission consent agreement as they continue to negotiate. The extension is for continued carriage of ESPN, Disney Channel, ABC-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other designated market areas, and other Disney networks, they said in a news release (http://bit.ly/GzGxk3). “Details regarding the extension were not announced."

FreedomPop will start offering a free mobile service with free voice, text and data on the HTC EVO Design smartphone, said the company in a news release Tuesday (http://yhoo.it/15GLEdW). Users will get 50 MB of data, 500 text messages and 200 anytime voice minutes free every month for life with the purchase of the HTC phone for $99, a 65 percent discount, said FreedomPop. Heavier users can buy unlimited voice and unlimited texting for $10 per month, said the company. Additional Android handsets will be offered later this year for the service, said FreedomPop. FreedomPop already provides a free 1 GB of wireless Internet service each month with options to pay for more data or a virtual private network in an effort to close the so-called digital divide (CD July 9 p2).

The Commerce Department is seeking applicants for two-year terms on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, which addresses spectrum issues before the federal government. Applications are due by Nov. 15 (http://1.usa.gov/15Ip4MB).

The 5G networks expected to start in 2020 will likely last at least 10 years, with any increases in capacity matched by expanding bandwidth, NTT Docomo Assistant Manager Anass Benjebbour told us. The 5G technology will likely require 400 MHz bandwidth at the start, and need to expand to 1 GHz to accommodate increasing data, voice and video traffic, he said. The goal will be to create a network with standard 1 Gbps download speeds and peaks reaching 10 Gbps, Benjebbour said. To achieve the faster speeds, most networks will rely on a system of main cellular towers with a range of 500 meters surrounded and connected via fiber to smaller microcells, each with up to 100 small antennas and a range of 10-15 meters. The system would allow the microcells to carry the high-frequency bandwidth for data and voice, leaving the larger towers free for video, including Ultra HD, said an NTT Docomo spokesman. The larger towers could be surrounded by up to 36 microcells in denser configurations, NTT Docomo officials said. The 5G networks “need to exist for about 10 years, so we need to have systems that are extensible for both short term and long term,” Benjebbour said: “The high-frequency band will go through the microcells because the larger base stations are already overloaded by hardware. The data and voice will need to be handled separately by the smaller cells, but as the system evolves there will be no difference” between the microcells and larger towers. The frequency used for 5G will likely be sorted out by the ITU, which sets standards for mobile networks and has its World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva in 2015, Benjebbour said. A 5G standard could be set by 2018, allowing the start of service two years later, he said. “It will depend on a worldwide harmonization” of standards for 5G, and “some interesting bets are already being realized by existing systems,” Benjebbour said. Among those pushing 5G technology, in addition to NTT Docomo, are Samsung and China’s Huawei.

Opera Software is taking a two-pronged approach to deploying Web browser engines in TVs and other devices. It’s targeting its Presto platform at mid-to-low-end products in the short term, but swinging fully in time behind open-source Chromium, said Aneesh Rajaram, senior vice president-TV and devices. Opera, which recently introduced Presto 3.6, will continue with that browser for about two years, before swinging fully behind Blink, which was developed by Google and Opera as part of the Chromium project and introduced in April. Blink was a split of source code among the WebKit’s WebCore component used in Google’s Chrome, Opera 15 and other Chromium-based browsers including Digia’s Qt WebEngine. The split enabled developers to remove unneeded code while providing flexibility in adding new features. The Opera 15 browser has been available for Windows and Macs since July and will also work its way into TVs, Rajaram told us. The open-source software, Rajaram said, will help Opera keep pace as customers increasingly require support for multi-core processors. About 10-30 percent of Opera-based devices will use Blink in 2014 and fully switch to the new browser software within 2-3 years, Rajaram said. “We looked at our requirements and the fact that the road map for our own browser engine wasn’t meeting those requirements, and decided to move to Blink Chromium because it seemed the most advanced” and was better aligned with Opera’s needs and those of the TV market, Rajaram said. The switch to Blink has enabled Opera to expand some focus to other software projects, including its Opera TV Store, which was introduced in July and has more than 100 apps, including Dailymotion, he said. It also launched Opera TV Snap, which enables content owners to convert online video channels and catalogs into smart TV apps. Among Opera customers, Sony has shipped the Presto browser software in “tens of millions” of Bravia TVs and other products, Rajaram said. TiVo, which included the Opera browser in its new Roamio DVRs, has backed Presto.

Broadband ISPs are part of a “two-sided” market, and the FCC’s net neutrality rules hurt the Internet’s value, said Justin Hurwitz, a member of the Free State Foundation Board of Academic Advisors, in a research note Monday (http://bit.ly/19R7aZk). In a two-sided market, there are two distinct groups of consumers for the same good, and the number of consumers in one group affects the demand of the consumers in another group. End-user customers and content providers make ISPs a two-sided market, Hurwitz said, and that’s important because the intermediary in most such markets gets to set different prices for each side to maximize the value of the market. “The Open Internet rules, by preventing Verizon from charging firms like Google and Netflix for access to its network, prevent this market from behaving like a two-sided market,” Hurwitz said. “The economic literature suggests that the Open Internet rules can have a negative effect on the value created by the Internet, and that allowing broadband ISPs to charge content providers can benefit consumers and increase infrastructure investment."