The FCC is circulating an order that will maintain the Sept. 1, 2015, deadline for low-power TV to make the digital transition, an agency official told us Monday. Though the item is listed on the FCC website only as a proposed amendment to the rules for digital LPTV, the official said the proposed order is mainly a denial of a petition for reconsideration filed by Signal Above, licensee of WDCN-LP Fairfax, Va., and WDCO-LP Salisbury, Md. (http://bit.ly/1cZ525f). Signal had argued that any hard deadline for analog LPTV stations to cease analog transmission and shift to digital “will penalize the efficient and innovative use of spectrum the Commission is committed to fostering, and it will gratuitously and seriously erode existing public broadcasting services.” The order on circulation rejects that argument and preserves the existing deadline, said the FCC official.

The European Commission isn’t looking to create a pan-EU telecom regulator or Europe-wide spectrum licenses in its upcoming legislative package on a single telecom market, it said Monday. The proposed measure, due out Wednesday, has been floating around in various leaked drafts for months. Among other things, the EC will propose to: (1) Help operators who want to offer cross-border services by providing a one-stop authorization shop. (2) Remove inconsistent obligations for operators that provide services in more than one country by giving the EC more oversight over national regulatory decisions. (3) Standardize fixed access products such as virtual unbundled local access and ethernet leased lines, to make it easier for market entrants. (4) Create a more coordinated approach to spectrum management, with the EC having new power to review national assignment procedures and timetables. (5) Allow infrastructure and spectrum sharing and spectrum trading, and promote the use and deployment of Wi-Fi and small cells to increase capacity. (6) Harmonize fully consumer protection laws and end misleading touting of Internet speeds. The package will also guarantee net neutrality by putting an end to blocking and throttling, while giving operators the option to offer higher speeds or better quality according to user needs. The EC will also push mobile operators to create by next year EU-wide roaming bundles and end charges for incoming roaming calls, it said. The proposals in the latest leaked draft sparked criticism over the weekend from independent telecom consultant Innocenzo Genna, who accused Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes of trying to change the “fundamental paradigm of net neutrality.” The final package is likely to have net neutrality provisions that may substantially affect the balance between network operators and ISPs, with a big impact on consumers, Genna wrote on his radiobruxelleslibera blog (http://bit.ly/18J2d5s). Kroes appears ready to allow network providers including ISPs to arbitrarily discriminate and charge for Internet services “with the sole scope to privilege some Internet services instead of others,” and without justification, he said. Dominant players will be able to extract money from the over-the-top business and make up for declining margins, he said. Consumers will then select services not only on the basis of their intrinsic features but on the cost of the Internet connectivity needed to access them, he said. For streaming music, users will be naturally induced to opt for free-connectivity services even if they are not as good in terms of quality or variety of offers, he said. The problem already exists because there are no rules barring European ISPs from differentiating connectivity costs to discriminate against Internet services, he said. But ISPs “have been cautious” and few have discriminated out of fear of regulation, he said. The single market proposal will overturn existing national laws on net neutrality and prevent governments from ever intervening on the issue again, he said. The only obstacle for network providers will be antitrust rules, which don’t work well in oligopolistic markets like the telecom sector because collective dominance is hard to enforce, he said. The potential problem could be solved if the final package sets a clear non-discrimination obligation on ISPs and other network providers that bars them from differentiating access prices unless justified by specific circumstances such as quality, speed or capacity, he said. Once operators are free to arbitrarily charge for Internet services, they'll stop innovating, he said.

On the eve of what’s expected to be the release of the next iPhone, Sprint confirmed its expected Android news. LG’s G2 smartphone, launched last month, will be available for the holiday season with Sprint’s 4G LTE service plan that offers unlimited talk, text and data for the life of the line of service. Sprint didn’t give a date for G2 availability, and didn’t respond by our deadline to questions about carrying a new iPhone.

The Telecommunications Association of Maine and the Maine Office of the Public Advocate don’t oppose Time Warner Cable’s request to provide Lifeline-only service in the state if it complies with the Maine Public Utilities Commission’s rules for Lifeline, said TAM and OPA in an FCC filing Friday (http://bit.ly/1aXWugO). The FCC granted blanket forbearance for telco service providers which seek to receive Lifeline-only eligible telecom carrier (ETC) status under the requirements of rural ILEC boundaries on April 15. The Maine PUC recently amended its Lifeline rules to remove the state from participating in any new ETC approvals for Lifeline purposes, said TAM and OPA. “While the MPUC did remove itself from the designation process for Lifeline-only ETCs, the MPUC did not completely remove itself from involvement with Lifeline,” said the groups. “The MPUC maintained an additional obligation for all ETCs operating in Maine to include a further discount of $3.50 above and beyond existing federal levels.”

USTelecom and several member companies met with an aide to acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn Wednesday to discus adoption of a certification requirement relating to critical 911 reliability practices, an ex parte filing said. The groups asked that any requirements be “directly related” to ensuring 911 reliability, “reasonably achievable,” “not unnecessarily burdensome,” and voluntary. Practices for circuit auditing should provide flexibility and let providers establish appropriate practices and permit the use of sampling, they said. Backup power requirements should not exceed 24 hours, the ILECs said, especially in light of the commission’s recognition that 24-48 hours is usually sufficient to restore commercial power. And any new certification requirement must give providers enough time for evaluation and preparation, they said. The ILECs also “expressed concern” that the proceeding involved “highly technical issues” that call for a “full record” to support any new requirements.

NTIA awarded more than $20 million in grants to seven states, Guam and Puerto Rico for FirstNet planning (http://1.usa.gov/165XcVR). Under the State and Local Implementation Grant Program, the following states were awarded funds: Massachusetts ($2.1 million), Minnesota ($2.3 million), North Dakota ($1.1 million), South Carolina ($1.8 million), Texas ($5.8 million), Virginia ($2.7 million) and Washington ($2.6 million). Guam got $529,300 and Puerto Rico got $1.4 million. All recipients are required to provide a matching contribution of at least 20 percent and additional grants will be awarded on a rolling basis.

AT&T submitted additional information to the FCC, responding to questions posed by the Wireless Bureau on the carrier’s January deal to buy former Alltel spectrum licenses from Atlantic Tele-Network for $780 million. On Aug. 27, the bureau stopped its unofficial 180-day clock for review of the transaction citing the need for additional answers to the June 5 queries (http://bit.ly/18Xg0bZ). But AT&T’s filing as posted by the FCC Friday (http://bit.ly/1emIEEF) was a blank page with all information redacted as “highly confidential.”

A former broadcast executive plans to again recommend the repeal of cable and satellite compulsory copyright licensing before Congress this week. “The common sense course of action for this [House] Committee, and for the Committee On Energy and Commerce, is to repeal the compulsory copyright licenses and all of the associated regulations designed to ameliorate the market-disrupting impact of those licenses, including retransmission consent.” That’s what Preston Padden, a former president of the ABC TV network and former executive vice president of Walt Disney, plans to tell the House Judiciary Intellectual Property Subcommittee Tuesday at a 10 a.m. hearing on satellite-TV laws in U.S. code Title 17. The hearing will be in 2141 Rayburn and other witnesses will include Dish General Counsel Stanton Dodge, Covington & Burling attorney Gerard Waldron for NAB, CenturyLink Vice President-Regulatory Affairs James Campbell, Arnold & Porter attorney Robert Garrett for Major League Baseball, and Nielsen Senior Vice President-Government and Public Affairs Don Lowery. Padden plans to slam copyright and communications law as “convoluted and nonsensical” and urge “fundamental reform of the copyright and communications law provisions that govern cable and satellite distribution of broadcast television programs,” according to his written testimony. Such licensing “creates a major impediment” to online video distributors like Netflix, he plans to say. “The end result of these reforms would be to put cable and satellite distribution of broadcast television programs under the same legal regime as the distribution of non-broadcast programs -- namely, simple free market copyright negotiations.” Padden will say there’s “no way to protect consumers from the temporary inconvenience of dropped channels” in carriage disputes, citing the market forces involved. His testimony says he’s appearing on his own behalf.

The FCC granted Samsung’s unopposed request for a waiver of analog tuner requirements for the company’s new Smart Media Player (SMP) set-top box, said a Media Bureau order Friday (http://bit.ly/17FMwtq). It said the waiver “is in the public interest because it will reduce the cost and power consumption of the SMP and provide consumers with a retail set-top box option that can better compete with devices leased by cable operators.” The SMP lets users access digital cable content and over-the-top Internet video through a programming guide without charging a monthly guide fee, Samsung said. Since the device won’t be able to receive analog cable or broadcast signals, the order requires Samsung to enact a labeling and retailer education campaign to let consumers know what services the device can’t receive. Samsung also has to allow free returns and exchanges for customers who buy the box mistakenly believing it will receive analog. The company had said that unless its waiver was granted by Sept. 15, it wouldn’t be able to offer the new set-top box for sale during the 2013 holiday season.

A nearly nationwide preliminary injunction against FilmOn X’s streaming TV retransmission service, requested by broadcasters, was granted by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer in Washington, D.C., according to court filings Thursday. Broadcasters had requested that the injunction apply throughout the U.S., but Collyer exempted the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, since a similar injunction against FilmOn competitor Aereo was struck down by the 2nd Circuit (CD April 2 p8). The 9th Circuit had previously issued an injunction against FilmOn there, which is on appeal (CD Aug 29 p5). FilmOn “is in no meaningful way different from cable television companies, whose relationship with broadcasters such as Plaintiffs was the primary motivation” for the 1976 Copyright Act, said Collyer’s memorandum opinion. After considering the rulings in previous cases in other circuits on similar copyright issues -- the remote-DVR case Cablevision and broadcasters’ unsuccessful cases against Aereo -- Collyer concluded “that the Copyright Act forbids FilmOn X from retransmitting Plaintiffs’ copyrighted programs over the Internet,” said the opinion. FilmOn didn’t comment. Thursday’s ruling increases the likelihood of a circuit split and a FilmOn or Aereo case making it to the U.S. Supreme Court, said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker in an email to investors. “Ultimately, we believe Aereo’s legality is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court,” said Ryvicker. “We view last night’s news as a positive catalyst for the pure-play broadcast stocks, as well as for the broadcast networks."