ABC began its live-streaming service in Houston to viewers with participating TV subscription services, said Disney/ABC Television Group in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/18fN1uX). The Watch ABC app is available on iOS, Kindle Fire devices and some Android tablets, said the company. The authenticated service lets viewers access live, linear streaming of local ABC as well as on-demand access online and via tablets and phones, said the company. ABC said it plans to make the service available in Fresno, Calif., the final ABC-owned station to get the service, before the start of the fall broadcast season. Hearst Television plans to start the service in 13 ABC station markets in coming months, said ABC. ABC’s Internet Protocol-based live-streaming application could lead to ABC becoming more interested in mobile DTV (CD May 14 p2).

Time Warner Cable experienced “steady, but manageable traffic" at its retail stores Friday on the first day of its offer of free antennas to subscribers in markets blacked out from watching CBS channels in the cable operator’s retransmission consent dispute with the network (CD Aug 26 p10), spokesman Rich Ruggiero said. Time Warner Cable spent much of the day “talking with customers about the factors affecting antenna effectiveness,” including line-of-sight considerations and the fact that they need a TV with a digital tuner or an over-the-air DTV converter box, Ruggiero said. “We're encouraging customers to check out twcconversations.com/antenna for information whether an antenna will work for them” and where antennas are available, he said. The one-antenna-per-household offer is available to Time Warner Cable subscribers in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wis., New York and southern California, the company said.

Intelsat requested an additional 30 days for a previously granted special temporary authority to drift Intelsat 5 from 65.45 degrees east to 50.15 degrees east. At 50.15 degrees east, “it will eventually operate in inclined orbit in the C and Ku bands,” said the company in an application to the FCC International Bureau (http://bit.ly/18fNkWI).

Wasserstein & Co. will buy Globecomm for about $340 million. An affiliate of Wasserstein signed a definitive agreement to buy the satellite technologies company for $14.15 per share in cash, Globecomm said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/17f0eqX). It said the purchase price represents a premium of 22 percent over the closing price on Jan. 14, the day Globecomm disclosed it hired an investment bank to help it consider alternatives. Globecomm said it expects consolidated revenue to be about $319.6 million for the fiscal year ended June 30.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment on a request by Laboratory Accreditation Bureau (LAB) for commission sanction as an accreditation body for test laboratories. Comments are due Sept. 23, replies Oct. 7, said a public notice (http://bit.ly/15pXdn2). “It is the responsibility of the accreditation body to review the qualifications of a test laboratory’s test personnel, management systems, record keeping and reporting practices; to send recognized experts to observe testing at the laboratory; and to verify the testing laboratory’s competence to perform tests in accordance with FCC-related measurement procedures,” OET said.

Intercarrier compensation disputes “continue to permeate daily business” in the telecom industry, and are “particularly acute for IP providers,” O1 Communications told the FCC in a letter Thursday (http://bit.ly/1c1ttP2). Both AT&T and Verizon refuse to pay O1 for the end-office switching functions associated with VoIP services provided to over-the-top VoIP customers, the California CLEC said. “This issue alone has tied up millions of dollars” that would otherwise go toward expanding O1’s network, it said. The commission must make a decision on reciprocal access charges, it said, and find that end-office switching charges are compensable when a CLEC and over-the-top VoIP provider jointly provide voice communications services to a retail customer.

The Alliance for Telecommunication Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the National Exchange Carrier Association’s (NECA) Joint National Call Testing Project will give interexchange carriers, wireless carriers and VoIP providers “the opportunity to identify call completion issues on calls destined to areas served by volunteer local exchange carriers,” the two groups said Friday. The project will also allow carriers and providers to capture data on call failures and improve their internal performance, as well as facilitate trouble resolution efforts between carriers, ATIS and NECA said. The groups will use data they collect to assist industry efforts to address call completion issues, including member training and revisions to the ATIS Next Generation Interoperability Forum’s Intercarrier Call Completion/Call Termination Handbook (http://bit.ly/1c1tDpR).

The FCC is taking rural call completion problems “very seriously,” acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn told Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in a letter the FCC released Friday (http://bit.ly/1dADKU4). The letter was dated Aug. 1 and replied to concerns Leahy raised in an April 25 letter to former Chairman Julius Genachowski, which the FCC posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/154184S). “The Commission is committed to ensuring reliable telephone service for consumers and businesses in rural America,” Clyburn wrote, describing “multiple fronts” of approach. She attached a letter from the FCC Wireline Bureau chief as well as a recent enforcement advisory. Completion problems in Vermont were increasing, Leahy had warned Genachowski. “Call completion problems harm Vermont businesses, and, generally, the quality of life of all rural Americans,” Leahy wrote. “They also harm rural telephone companies, which are often erroneously blamed by consumers for these problems.” He commended FCC action on the issue and urged it to “act swiftly” against any companies breaking the rules.

"For the sake of transparency,” the co-chairs of North American Portability Management filed with the FCC a letter they had received criticizing Neustar’s “exorbitant profits” as Local Number Portability Administrator (http://bit.ly/155uyGr). The anonymous letter, sent by a Lathan Watkins attorney Aug. 16 on behalf of a client shareholder of companies that are members of NAPM, urged NAPM to “take measures” to address its concerns “in conjunction with the awarding and pricing of the next NPAC [Number Portability Administration Center] contract.” The client suggested selecting multiple LNPAs to “prevent Neustar from further entrenching itself as the LNPA monopoly.” A Neustar spokeswoman said it was hard to respond to the accusations since Neustar is under a nondisclosure agreement and the letter is coming from an unknown source that’s not involved in the procurement process. In a statement, the company said it supports the process underway by NAPM and the FCC to “promote a competitive, transparent and fair RFP process. We're confident in the strength of our proposal and the value to be gained by the industry and consumers if we are awarded the contract to continue as the local number portability administrator.” Neustar has in the past criticized a lack of transparency and responsiveness in the bidding process (CD April 26 p9). NAPM’s Future of the NPAC advisory committee issued a “Best and Final Offer” last week in connection with the NPAC RFP. That’s standard procedure in RFP processes, and has been contemplated in the process since the beginning, said Todd Daubert of Dentons US, who represents NAPM. The timeline approved by the FCC has not changed, Daubert said. The advisory committee is expected to make its vendor recommendations by Nov. 14, although the committee could “adjust the timeline with the consent of the FCC,” Daubert said. The number of participating bidders and their identities are confidential, he said.

Wireless still has limitations as a substitute for wireline CD Aug 23 p1), Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood told us in an email. “It’s less reliable when the power goes out,” he said. “Everyone has experienced dropped calls. And it’s subject to much lower data caps even when everything is working smoothly,” he said. While wireless voice might be a substitute for wireline in many cases and a cost-effective alternative for carriers, “that’s not the whole story,” he said. “We have to ask first whether things like voice calls, health monitors or credit card processors work just as well on narrowband wireless networks as they do on wireline.” Verizon’s plans to offer wireless infrastructure as it rebuilds copper facilities on Fire Island, N.Y., “show that the answer to that question is mixed at best, which has real implications for Verizon customers,” Wood said. “The even more important question though is what protections we'll have for consumers, competitors and innovators in an all-broadband world, when voice and data are nothing more than applications on the same platform.” The FCC then will need to ensure that network “remains open, affordable, reliable and universally available,” he said, “no matter what the underlying technology is, or what information the broadband telecommunications network carries."