If the FCC limits the built-in functions manufacturers are required to make accessible under proposed new rules for user interfaces, CEA would support a commission proposal to apply accessibility rules for programming guides only to equipment provided by multichannel video programming distributors, CEA said in an ex parte letter. Both proposed accessibility rules are part of the FCC Media Bureau’s rulemaking on implementing sections 204 and 205 of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. The American Foundation for the Blind and the American Council of the Blind -- previously at odds with CEA (CD Aug 9 p3) -- have expressed support for CEA’s proposed tradeoff. The interpretations of the rules suggested by the groups are “entirely consistent” with previous FCC treatment of MVPDs and set-top boxes, CEA said. The trade association said it “urges the commission” to resolve the issues around the scope of sections 204 and 205 (http://bit.ly/156u90M).

CEA is splashing cold water on an MPAA study that says search engines aid in consumer infringement of online content. The survey repeats a familiar Hollywood refrain of blaming technology for content infringement “instead of providing your customers with the experiences and products they want,” said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president-government and regulatory affairs, in a statement Wednesday. “Yesterday, it was the VCR and the MP3 player,” Petricone said. “Today, it’s search engines, Aereo and the Dish Hopper.” Contrary to the findings of the MPAA report, search engines don’t introduce consumers to infringing content, Petricone said. “Most consumers simply want legal, conveniently accessed digital content at a reasonable price.” Commercial piracy “is wrong and illegal,” Petricone said. “Violators should be prosecuted under existing laws. But the answer is not restrictions on search engines or the ability of Internet users to access information.” The MPAA study report, released Wednesday, said overall, search engines “influenced 20 percent of the sessions in which consumers accessed infringing TV or film content online between 2010 and 2012.” Moreover, consumers who view infringing TV or film content for the first time online “are more than twice as likely to use a search engine in their navigation path as repeat visitors,” it said. Most search queries that lead to consumers viewing infringing film or TV content “do not contain keywords that indicate specific intent to view this content illegally,” the study said. Nearly six in 10 queries that consumers use before viewing infringing content “contain generic or title-specific keywords only, indicating that consumers who may not explicitly intend to watch the content illegally ultimately do so online,” it said. “Additionally, searchers are more likely to rely on generic or title-specific keywords in their first visit than on subsequent visits.” MPAA based the study on an analysis of 12 million film and TV content sites “that were known to host infringing content” between 2010 and 2012, using a database compiled by Internet scanning vendors DTecNet and IP Echelon, the report said. The survey augmented that data with interviews with 1,065 Internet users in the U.S. and the U.K., it said. The interviews were done in late 2012 and early 2013, it said.

Cable’s initiatives to bring content to mobile devices have low awareness and cable risks losing the mobile viewing battle to Netflix and other online providers, said a survey from Altman Vilandrie & Company and Research Now Wednesday (http://yhoo.it/1aL708B). Less than five percent of consumers watch online video regularly instead of subscribing to cable TV, and most non-subscribers canceled primarily due to the affordability or value of cable, not because online video was a complete substitute, the survey found. Eighty percent of consumers under 35 watch TV shows and movies online weekly and more than 25 percent of people under 45 are watching TV shows on a tablet weekly, the survey found. One in five 35-44 year olds now watch TV or movies on a smartphone every week, the survey found. Research Now fielded the online survey of more than 2,500 U.S. consumers in July and August.

The Association of Public Television Stations urged the FCC to consider the importance of universal service as it relates to TV translators and white-space areas in connection with the upcoming spectrum incentive auction. APTS, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting recommended that “spectrum clearing in low occupancy markets not exceed major market recovery,” APTS said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/14iZDDF). It recounted a meeting with representatives from the public broadcasting entities, staff from the Media, Enforcement and Wireless bureaus and the Office of Engineering. A selection priority should be adopted “for any displacement applications of public television translators,” and “out-of-core” operation should be permitted to prevent spectrum from lying fallow, “with no set transition deadline but with a cessation mechanism similar to that used following the digital transition,” said APTS. The commission also should design the reverse auction to prevent the creation of a major market white area “with no service from a qualified noncommercial educational TV station,” it said. The entities also addressed the funding for relocation, “including the importance of advancing payments to stations for repacking costs, ensuring that the costs incurred by noncommercial licensees are fully covered by the fund, and not providing reimbursement on a first-come, first-served basis,” said the association.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appointed Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., to the House Commerce Committee Tuesday. The House Democratic Steering & Policy Committee approved the recommendation, and the House Democratic Caucus still has to sign off on Yarmuth’s appointment before he starts, Pelosi’s office said (http://1.usa.gov/15CwLHr). Pelosi hailed Yarmuth’s record on energy and healthcare. Yarmuth has been a member of the Committees on Budget and Education and the Workforce. Yarmuth replaces former Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who won a special Senate election this summer. Yarmuth has sponsored several telecom-relevant bills. He put forth a bill in 2007 that would create a National Center for Learning Science and Technology, on which Markey was a co-sponsor. That bill, which failed to get out of committee, was designed to keep funding for the center separate from the proceeds of spectrum auctions. He voted no on the House’s Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which failed to become law.

The City Council of Lenexa, Kan., voted to bring Google Fiber to its residents, making it the 17th Kansas City-area expansion city, said Google Fiber Tuesday (http://bit.ly/155IzON). Google Fiber needs to plan and install the network before it can open signups or share information about customer installation, said the company.

As of April, the broadcast TV business was receiving 7.3 percent of all its revenue from retransmission consent, NAB said in a response to Mediacom (http://bit.ly/18vTZ4H). A significant portion of that revenue “is reinvested in local station news operations, allowing TV stations to provide news coverage of events like the Colorado floods and D.C. Navy Yard shootings that is later retransmitted by cable news operations,” it said. “If Mediacom, Time Warner Cable and others in the pay TV world truly cared about consumers, they would stop ripping off viewers by charging for services not provided during a retrans impasse and end the outrageous practice of $200 early termination fees."

Local communities are developing different strategies to create their own broadband networks, said panelists at a community broadband event at the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) Tuesday. Westminster, Md., has about 18,000 residents, but two thirds of the city commutes on a daily basis, which can stifle innovation, said Robert Wack, Carroll Cable Regulatory Commission vice chair. The city is creating its own dark fiber network because no ILECs were interested in developing broadband to the city, said Wack. “We are pursuing the least risky option where we can use this for 30 years with bonding,” he said. “We are not competing with the private sector, but we are looking for active private-public partnerships.” The Westminster project is in its engineering phase, with two pilot projects in development near the airport and a residential community, said Wack. North Carolina State is working with Gig.U to create a regional broadband network to four colleges in that state, said Marc Hoit, NC State vice chancellor-information technology. “Seventy to 80 percent of innovation in the U.S. comes from college communities,” he said. “We don’t know how the network will work yet but we want bandwidth not to be a limitation, but an innovation.” UC2B, a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grantee, is becoming a nonprofit entity in order to have private discussions with interested parties that want to develop their network in Champaign and Urbana, Ill. “We want to be able to connect to businesses and bring network funds back into our communities,” said Mike Smeltzer, who wrote the NTIA grant application for UC2B.

LightSquared urged the FCC to provide regulatory certainty on the company’s licensed spectrum so assets are sold in its bankruptcy auction for their full and fair value. It would be “very unfortunate if the FCC made its decisions after the bankruptcy sales process was over,” LightSquared said in an ex parte filing about a meeting last week with staff from acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn’s office (http://bit.ly/1a1ogFI). “Maintaining a perpetual state of uncertainty makes LightSquared a ’spectrum grab bag,'” it said. “No one will pay very much for the chance to come up empty.” LightSquared said in its bankruptcy restructuring plan that resolution of the FCC proceedings will maximize the value of its assets (CD Sept 4 p14). Action by the commission now would result in a significant amount of spectrum making its way to consumers “and finally resolve ... the remaining obstacles to the use of LightSquared’s spectrum,” it said. Dish Network is likely to acquire LightSquared spectrum, said New Street Research analysts. This could potentially double Dish’s spectrum capacity and generate $10 per share in incremental value for Dish shareholders, the analysts said in a research note (http://bit.ly/18vTZ4H). The FCC needs to establish parameters for the lower downlink channel to coexist with the current GPS allocation, they said. Because of the risk and uncertainty surrounding the path to value realization, “Dish would never pay anywhere near full value for the spectrum,” they said.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology said it awarded $7 million in grants for pilot programs to support its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. The initiative, begun in 2011, is to encourage collaboration among government agencies, the private sector and advocacy groups. The five grants announced Tuesday “will support privacy-enhancing technologies that help make Internet transactions more secure, including better protection from fraud and identity theft, and are an important step toward giving American companies and consumers greater confidence in doing business online,” said Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker in a news release. The grants are: $1.72 million to Georgia Tech Research Corporation, $1.59 million to Privacy Vaults Online, $1.61 million to Exponent, $1.26 million to Transglobal Secure Collaboration Participation and $1.2 million to ID.me (http://1.usa.gov/1899vPP).