The EMRadiation Policy Institute (EMRPI) told the FCC the commission has done too little to protect consumers from the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation, in comments filed at the commission. “Despite EMRPI’s filing repeated Public Comments, visiting with FCC staff, presentation of Congressional Staff briefings and seminars, and written complaints to get the FCC to adopt electromagnetic radiation safety limits and regulations that actually protect people, the FCC continues to disregard the problem -- meanwhile authorizing thousands of new licenses to radiate increasing numbers of frequencies over a huge geographic area,” the institute said (http://bit.ly/15qpzdV). In March, the FCC sought comments on its radio emissions policies (http://bit.ly/1dDS7J5). The group is a non-profit citizens organization based in Marshfield, Vt.

Global spending on public IT cloud services will hit $47.4 billion this year and will likely hit more than $107 billion in 2017, said a report from International Data Corp. (IDC). The compound annual growth rate over the five-year period will be 23.5 percent, “five times that of the IT industry as a whole,” IDC said in a release (http://bit.ly/1dMgXY2). In a statement, IDC Chief Analyst Frank Gens attributed the growth to a shift in motivations for adopting cloud services. “Over the next several years, the primary driver for cloud adoption will shift from economics to innovation as leading-edge companies invest in cloud services as the foundation for new competitive offerings,” he said.

CableLabs membership is expanding to more than a dozen Asian and European cable operators, said a Justice Department notice in Tuesday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/14gUVbT). It said the standards organization disclosed the changes to the FTC and attorney general under provisions of the 1993 National Cooperative Research and Production Act. Among those added as parties to the venture are Com Hem of Sweden, Germany’s Kabel Deutschland, Ono of Spain, Japan’s Jupiter Telecommunications, China’s Shenzhen Topway Video Communication and the Netherlands’ Ziggo. The European companies are part of 14 new members in Asia, Latin America and Europe moving to CableLabs from Cable Europe, CableLabs said last month (http://bit.ly/1a4jg3N).

The House Communications Subcommittee tentatively plans to hold its hearing on the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act and the state of the video market on Sept. 11, a spokesman for Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., confirmed. He declined to comment further or specify the time of day or location of the hearing. The subcommittee first announced the planned September hearing in mid-August (CD Aug 16 p11). Congress is supposed to reauthorize portions of the act by the end of next year. The House Judiciary Committee will also take on issues surrounding STELA next week, a communications industry source told us, pointing to Tuesday as the likely date. A Judiciary spokeswoman did not comment.

Members of Massachusetts’s business community filed a petition asking for the repeal of a recently passed state finance law “that made various computer services subject to sales and use tax,” said tax services firm Ryan in a news release Tuesday (http://prn.to/19fKELd). The Commonwealth’s Transportation Finance Bill (HB-3535) passed July 24 and took effect July 31, the release said. Petitioners must have the petition deemed constitutional by state Attorney General Martha Coakley and get 68,911 signatures by Dec. 4 for the petition to be considered by the Legislature, the release continued. “If the Legislature takes no action, the petitioners will need to collect an additional 11,485 signatures. At that point, Massachusetts voters would decide whether to repeal the tax when they head to the polls in November of 2014."

LightSquared’s bankruptcy restructuring plan involves selling its assets if it doesn’t receive FCC approval to deploy terrestrial downlink operations in a band shared with the federal government. The restructuring plan also contemplates distribution of the sale’s proceeds “to satisfy allowed claims and allowed equity interests, if applicable, in accordance with the plan, … potential prosecution of certain causes of action,” and “wind down of LightSquared and its estates,” it said in a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The company believes and operates on the premise that “concluding discussions with the FCC and interested government agencies regarding the terrestrial deployment of its wireless spectrum significantly increases the value of its estates and most likely leads to a value-maximizing solution, whether through a sale process or an alternative transaction,” it said. Resolution of the pending FCC proceedings will maximize the value of its assets and LightSquared will continue its efforts with the FCC and other agencies “in seeking approval of its pending license modification applications and related proceedings before the FCC,” it said. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection last year (CD May 15/12 p12).

Cablevision and the Game Show Network are waiting to see if The Tennis Channel will be granted an en banc appeals court hearing in its case against Comcast to proceed with their own carriage dispute, said both opponents in a status report filed with the FCC Tuesday (http://bit.ly/17xoWmy). The Tennis Channel filed a request in July for an en banc rehearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (CD July 17 p12), and no ruling on that petition has been issued, said GSN. The final results of the Comcast case and the precedents it might set could affect “the parties’ approach at trial in the instant action, and we expect to gain greater guidance as these matters progress,” said Cablevision. The Cablevision/GSN case was put on hold in June pending an outcome in Comcast at the companies’ request, with both required to submit periodic status updates to Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel (CD June 27 p21).

The U.S. ranks seventh globally in relative readiness for IPv6, said Internet Protocol addressing solutions provider Logicalis in a news release Tuesday based on its new rankings (http://prn.to/1cCHWBf). The U.S. scored first among countries in the Americas, Logicalis said of the ranking, which was based on data gathered by Cisco. “America’s relative failure to keep up could threaten U.S.-based businesses’ ability to compete internationally, particularly in vital, fast-growing economies,” Logicalis said. “Failure to keep pace with other nations -- trade partners or competitors -- could ultimately have serious implications in terms of competitive capabilities for U.S. businesses,” said Mike Martin, Logicalis senior vice president-solutions and services. Switzerland, Romania and Luxembourg topped its chart.

The U.S. multichannel video market is in “a subscriber doldrums,” said SNL Kagan in an email Tuesday. Combined cable, satellite and telco video provider subscriber counts are lower by more than 200,000 subscribers than they were in Q2 2012, SNL Kagan said. Since Q2 2011, the industry research firm found “only a small uptick in combined subscriptions of 121,000 for the past 24 months,” it said. However, cable, satellite and phone company video providers lost 366,000 video subscriptions in Q2 2013, an 11 percent improvement over the same quarter last year, said SNL Kagan. Cable subscriber losses of 607,000 in Q2 doubled the amount in Q1, but represent a “slight” improvement over Q2 2012’s figure, said the email. Satellite had the biggest quarterly decline in subscribers, but the DBS numbers still are a small increase compared to the figures from the previous 12 months, said SNL Kagan. “The telcos offered the clearest source of optimism.” The phone companies are taking video share from cable and satellite, gaining more than 400,000 net adds -- “significantly more subscribers than in the year-ago quarter,” said SNL Kagan. Telcos had more than 10.7 million total video customers as of mid-2013, the company said.

The FCC should add the Bloomberg/Comcast channel placement dispute to the agenda for its Sept. 26 open meeting, said Bloomberg in an ex parte letter filed Friday (http://bit.ly/14nNYAs). The dispute is about a condition of the Comcast/NBCUniversal merger that requires Comcast to place independent news and business channels in the same neighborhood of its programming guide where it carries other news and business channels, if it groups such channels together at all. Comcast has disputed that it groups channels into such a neighborhood, and a Bloomberg complaint after the merger led to a Media Bureau order saying Comcast did have some news neighborhoods on some systems. However, that order was clarified as only applicable to standard definition systems and then stayed by the bureau pending commission review (CD July 1 p7). “The arguments in this matter are well known and the pleading cycle ended more than ten months ago,” said the filing. The matter has been listed as being on circulation since February, and the commission should address it this month, said the ex parte.