Consumers suffer and “bear the brunt” in cases such as the CBS-Time Warner Cable retransmission dispute, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., in a statement Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/13o5g5h). “In a trend that is becoming all too common, the recent blackout between Time Warner Cable and CBS has left millions of customers without access to the programming they were promised,” she said. The trend is “disturbing,” and the companies should resolve their differences quickly, she said. “It is time we reexamine whether our current laws offer the level of protection they deserve."

Globalstar’s revenue for the second quarter 2013 decreased to $19.8 million, down from $20 million in the same period last year. Service revenue increased 9 percent to $15.4 million in the quarter, but equipment revenue was adversely affected by a delay in the release of SPOT Gen3, its next-generation personal tracking device, “associated with product testing and final certification,” Globalstar said in a press release (http://bit.ly/18y6t8l). The company reported a $126.3 million net loss for the quarter compared to $27.5 million in 2012, it said. The greater loss was driven in part by a non-cash loss on extinguishment of debt of $47.2 million resulting from refinancing notes in May, it said. The company plans to launch the final satellite of its second-generation constellation, “fully restoring the service capability of our Duplex growth engine,” it said. Globalstar also said it hopes the FCC will make a decision on the company’s pending petition to use its mobile satellite service spectrum terrestrially to support mobile broadband applications.

The Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee field hearing will feature FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel among its witnesses. The group includes representatives from AT&T, Comcast, CenturyLink, Cox Communications, the Arkansas Educational Television Network, Windstream, SuddenLink, Arkansas Broadcasting Association, Arkansas Economic Development Commission, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Farm Bureau, Fast Access for Students, Teachers and Economic Results and Arkansas Research and Educational Optical Network. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., the subcommittee’s chairman, released the list of witnesses Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1cQzv8e). The hearing will take place in Little Rock’s Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas board room Monday at 9 a.m. CDT. Arkansas “has stepped up when it comes to broadband deployment, but we need to continue the momentum,” Pryor said in a statement. “I'm looking forward to hearing directly from businesses and officials about how we can work together to connect Arkansans to the Internet and all the benefits that come with it.” The subcommittee will approach these witnesses in three panels, said its website (http://1.usa.gov/16f2Rbe).

Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are “copyright cowards” for calling for strong intellectual property protections in trade agreements and being proponents of trade promotion authority, which “empowers the White House to unilaterally negotiate and sign trade agreements,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/13Dkcax). The senators’ offices did not respond to requests for comment. Trade promotion authority “places a time-limit on Congressional debates on trade treaties, prevents Congress from proposing amendments, and reduces Congress to an up-or-down, yes or no vote on the entire treaty,” leading to a situation where “radical changes to digital policies are controlled almost entirely by the executive,” the group said. The post applauded Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for taking “a stand” against Michael Froman’s confirmation as the U.S. Trade Representative “due to lack of assurances from him during his nomination hearings” that he would “improve transparency in the negotiating process."

SiriusXM will spend $530 million cash to buy Agero Inc.’s connected-vehicle services business, it said Thursday. The business is a big supplier of telematics services to the automakers, SiriusXM said. After the acquisition is complete in Q4, SiriusXM will provide connected-vehicle services to more automakers than any other telematics supplier, it said. SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer called the acquisition “a natural fit” for his company. The deal will speed “SiriusXM’s development in architecture supporting connected vehicle services, as well as the ability to provide services over both satellite and cellular networks,” he said in a statement. On his company’s quarterly earnings call last month, Meyer said SiriusXM wants to be “a leader in the connected-car architecture as it rolls out” (CD July 26 p13).

Lemko Corp. and Telesat signed an agreement enabling both companies to bring advanced broadband services to rural and remote communities in Canada. The companies plan to bring wireless broadband to unserved and underserved communities, Lemko said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/17Q5YUV). Telesat plans to deliver Lemko 2G, 3G and 4G LTE solutions to Canada’s hospitality and resource sectors “as well as into enterprise markets,” Lemko said.

Sprint will install the NextRadio application in FM-enabled wireless devices, beginning with HTC One and HTC EVO 4G LTE. When compared with streaming, NextRadio, by Emmis Communications, “consumes about three times less battery life than other music apps,” Sprint said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/17rT4xp). Data for the app is supplied by TagStation, a cloud-based engine that allows stations to upload branding images that will display as default artwork in the NextRadio app,” Emmis said in a news release (http://bit.ly/16SacOX). The app also can provide album art and artist information, listener feedback and song tagging, it said. The app “comes preloaded on HTC One from Sprint for all new activations,” Sprint said. Emmis earlier reached a first-of-its-kind deal with Sprint for the carrier to include FM chips in some smartphones, with broadcasters paying the carrier (CD Jan 10 p10).

The FCC should grant Chesapeake Television a waiver of the “significantly viewed” exception to the agency’s rules for several communities in Maryland over the objections of Anne Arundel County, Fox and a local cable provider, said Chesapeake in a filing Thursday (http://bit.ly/16NKo4t). Chesapeake applied for the waiver in July (CD July 8 p13) for its Fox affiliate WBFF-TV Baltimore for its broadcasts to Columbia, Glen Burnie and Ellicott City -- where it said WTTG Washington no longer meets the significantly-viewed criteria. Opposition filings from Fox (http://bit.ly/14P1WOQ), Anne Arundel County (http://bit.ly/13nJoHj) and cable provider Broadstripe (http://bit.ly/1cGeDkQ) all attacked Chesapeake for using “dated” Nielsen data from 2007 and 2008, said the broadcaster. Chesapeake’s recent filing said that those are the most recent years for which data were available. Although the opposition filings said WTTG’s low over-the-air viewership doesn’t reflect its large audience on cable, no ratings data supporting the argument was submitted, said Chesapeake. The broadcaster also disputed the argument that WTTG’s Washington-based content is more relevant to residents of the Baltimore-Washington area than WBFF’s would be. “The FCC cannot base a ruling on general feelings of comity and feel-good notions of ’ties’ between DC and Baltimore,” said Chesapeake. “Under FCC precedent, the actual ratings data provided by Nielsen must prevail."

Sprint’s partnership with Ciena helped the carrier test and deploy one of the longest 100 Gbps circuits in the U.S. -- a “live transmission that required no signal regeneration” over 1,304 miles between Chicago and Fort Worth, Sprint said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1bzOccF). The circuit, now integrated into its optical network infrastructure, uses Ciena’s WaveLogic 3 coherent optical processors on Ciena’s 6500 Packet Optical Platform. Having a longer distance between regeneration points “provides reduced latency, hardware benefits and improved reliability, flexibility and performance for customers,” Sprint said. The two companies have also successfully completed a live 400 Gbps trial on Sprint’s fiber network in Silicon Valley. The trial also used Ciena’s 6500 platform and WaveLogic 3 cards, Sprint said. It anticipates that the trial’s error-free results will mean the carrier can add the “network equivalent of high-speed traffic lanes for customers with high-demand requirements.” Sprint has been using Ciena’s 6500 platform as part of its Network Vision network infrastructure upgrade program. Sprint said Ciena’s technology is helping the carrier scale its core optical backbone network to 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps initially, with anticipated upgrades later to 400 Gbps and above. “The delivery of 100Gbps and 400Gbps speeds will be critical as we launch our Ethernet Wave Services and support a growing wireless infrastructure,” said Wayne Ward, Sprint vice president-business and product development.

The FCC should extend commenting deadlines for its further NPRM on closed captioning over Internet Protocol, said several consumer groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing in a joint filing Wednesday (http://bit.ly/19vxo9v). Comments on the proposed rules -- part of the FCC’s implementation of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) -- are due Sept. 3 and replies Sept. 30. Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Inc., National Association of the Deaf and other groups want a 60-day extension for comments to Nov. 2, with replies due Dec. 2, so they'll have more time to reach a consensus with the consumer electronics industry, said their filing. “We have spoken with a CEA representative and are optimistic that we will be able to convene a meeting between consumer and industry representatives by early October,” said the consumer groups. “Extending the comment and reply comment deadlines would allow the meeting to occur before comments are filed, thereby affording an opportunity to improve the quality of the record.” The groups also need the extension because their pro-bono legal counsel, the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law and Policy Clinic, is “generally inoperative” during the summer, making it hard for the groups to file comments in September, said the filing. The FCC should grant the extension “to ensure that people who are deaf or hard of hearing, the primary beneficiaries of the IP captioning rules under the CVAA, are not denied the ability to weigh in on the critical accessibility issues raised in the FNPRM,” said the consumer groups.