The National Emergency Number Association isn’t opposing a CTIA request that the FCC reconsider one part of its May 17 text-to-911 order and drop a requirement that even roaming subscribers get bounceback messages when they can’t text to 911. The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials strongly opposed CTIA in comments filed last week at the commission (CD Aug 19 p4). NENA didn’t file comments in response to CTIA, but NENA Regulatory Counsel Telford Forgety explained NENA’s position in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief David Furth (http://bit.ly/19LUcll). Forgety said NENA “does not oppose the petition of CTIA,” according to the ex parte filing. NENA is “convinced the long-term safety and security of the public requires a ubiquitous Text-to-911 solution that works across networks, regardless of whether a subscriber is attached to a home or roaming network,” Forgety said. “However, I also explained that CTIA’s position with respect to the limited question of which party should be responsible for delivering a bounce-back message is consistent with the understanding of the public safety community.”

More than half of cloud developers are very confident in their company’s current software development process, said an Evans Data survey released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/16dMGaD). The survey over 450 software developers around the world found 56 percent said they were very confident compared to 39 percent from a year ago and 36 percent in 2011, the survey found. Similar results were also found for satisfaction with security and sandboxing measures that the cloud providers offer to protect corporate data, said Evans Data. “While the total number this year and last year of developers who are satisfied has remained similar, those who are very satisfied has overtaken those who are only somewhat satisfied by a large extent,” said Evans Data CEO Janel Garvin. “This is notable because security has been the chief obstacle to cloud implementations up to this date, and with that barrier eased, we can expect cloud development to really take off.” The survey was completed through an online survey questionnaire in early July, said the company.

Al Jazeera America filed a lawsuit against AT&T Services for deleting the channel from its U-verse lineup Tuesday, the day of the channel’s premiere, Al Jazeera said in a news release Wednesday. “Unfortunately AT&T’s decision to unilaterally delete Al Jazeera America presented us with circumstances that were untenable -- an affiliate that has willfully and knowingly breached its contractual obligations,” said the release. “As a result of our inability to come to terms on a new agreement and due to certain breaches by Al Jazeera of the existing agreement, we have decided not to carry Current TV on U-verse,” an AT&T spokesman told us in an email, referring to the U.S. network purchased by Al Jazeera earlier this year (CD Jan 4 p13). The lawsuit, filed in Delaware Chancery Court, accuses AT&T of breach of contract, and asks for a declaratory judgment against the carrier, according to Al-Jazeera. “We had no choice but to take this action and to enforce Al Jazeera America’s rights under its agreement with AT&T -- and to compel AT&T to do the right thing,” said the release.

Time Warner Cable will offer a free preview of the Tennis Channel to its digital customers in areas affected by the CBS blackout during its retrans dispute with TWC (CD Aug 6 p1), the company said in a release Wednesday. The preview will occur during the U.S. Open Tennis Championship Series, from Aug. 26 through Sept. 9. Tennis Channel will broadcast almost 240 hours of U.S. Open coverage, including 75 hours of live coverage, the release said. “A lot of the matches will also still be available to customers via ESPN2 and CBS Sports Network,” said Mike Angus, Time Warner Cable general manager-video. CBS Sports is not affected by the blackout, said a TWC spokeswoman.

Free Press’s criticisms of a media ownership study by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council have little merit, MMTC said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1510s6W). The list of minority-owned stations that are no longer minority-owned “was derived directly from FCC’s databases,” it said in response to Free Press’s claim that some of the stations were erroneously identified (CD Aug 8 p3). Free Press’s “mischaracterization of the peer reviewers is pure hyperbole and unsubstantiated by the record,” MMTC said. The FCC’s data on minority and female owners is “incomplete at best,” and the MMTC’s repetition of that incomplete information doesn’t move the issue of cross-ownership impacts forward, said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. Although MMTC said it had no knowledge of who survey conductor BIA/Kelsey contacted until the study was complete, Wood said the council should have then disclosed any prior business relationships with survey respondents.

The FCC must not review Verizon’s Section 214 request in Fire Island, N.Y, “as if it were a routine matter,” the Computer & Communications Industry Association told the commission Wednesday (http://bit.ly/16dAUNk). “The underlying issue the FCC must decide is whether, in the wake of a disaster, an incumbent carrier can decide unilaterally to replace landlines with less capable service, which has not been tested on a large scale,” the association said. The commission should consider the effects on networks’ interconnectivity in the wake of a disaster, the effects on consumers of the changes to this “basic public utility service,” and “Verizon’s abuse of regulatory process and disregard for the goals and mandates of the Telecommunications Act,” CCIA said. “Allowing Verizon to replace landline networks with experimental fixed wireless free of FCC standards and safeguards will set the precedent that phone companies are allowed to retreat to substandard technology in the wake of a disaster. Even if Voicelink [sic] can be improved to become successful, future experiments are uncertain, which puts consumers and the entire telecom ecosystem at risk."

C.H. Guernsey & Co. was selected to assess the cybersecurity risks in Kentucky’s jurisdictional electric cooperatives and to review plans in place to mitigate the risks, said the Kentucky Public Service Commission Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/13GBRDz). The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners selected the Kentucky PSC to receive a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund the study, said the Kentucky PSC. Guernsey will work with three to six electric distribution cooperatives to determine what risks they face, what protections are in place and further steps needed to protect their systems, said the PSC.

T-Mobile executives reported on a series of discussions with FCC officials on why the FCC should auction the H block at the same time as the 1695-1710, 2155-2180 and 1755-1780 MHz bands. T-Mobile Vice President Kathleen Ham made the carrier’s case to Matthew Berry, chief of staff to Commissioner Ajit Pai (http://bit.ly/13DAO7o). Pai has said he favors an earlier H-block auction if the spectrum is ready for sale at an earlier date than the other spectrum blocks (CD Aug 19 p1). T-Mobile is the leading industry advocate of delaying an H-block auction.

The National Security Agency used a now-defunct collection program to obtain thousands of emails and other communications exchanged between American citizens before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruled in October 2011 that the program was unconstitutional, said the FISC opinion that U.S. intelligence officials released Wednesday. Officials planned to also release two other related documents Wednesday, but they weren’t available at our deadline. The NSA began collecting communications through the program beginning in 2008; the NSA had been diverting “wholly domestic” communications into the same repository it had been using to examine foreign communications, said the opinion. The NSA did not reveal to FISC that the communications were being collected improperly until 2011. At that time, the government “advised the court that the volume and nature of the information it has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe,” then-FISC Judge John Bates said in the opinion. The NSA revised its data collection procedures after FISC ruled the program was unconstitutional, removing the collected communications it determined were fully domestic in 2012, according to the documents. The government released the documents after the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the government to release them in accordance with a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). EFF said in a statement that the documents’ release “is just one step in advancing a public debate on the scope and legality of the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs."

The FCC authorized support for 93 winning bids in last year’s Mobility Fund Phase I auction, in a public notice released Wednesday. All of the winning bids were by a single company, Allied Wireless Communications (http://fcc.us/1aswha8).