Windstream subsidiary Pinnacle said Monday it is now listed on the General Services Administration’s (GSA) IT Schedule 70, a list of vendors which GSA has pre-authorized to provide IT equipment, software and services to federal, state and local government agencies. Pinnacle’s listing on Schedule 70 means it can sell equipment and software to agencies more quickly and easily, based on pre-negotiated terms and prices, the company said. “IT and telecommunications services are consistently one of the top five expenditures for public organizations,” said Larry Foster, Pinnacle’s vice president. “Pinnacle provides an integrated lifecycle management platform to help government organizations sustain real-time operational and financial control in order to comply with OMB Circular A-87 and A-21 requirements for organizations receiving federal funds” (http://bit.ly/1bp3Wz3).

Radwin was chosen for a city-wide video surveillance deployment project in San Bernardino, Calif., said Radwin in a news release Monday (http://yhoo.it/1cI7vUd). Radwin, a global provider of sub-6 GHz broadband wireless solutions, will deploy 5,000 high-capacity point-to-multipoint and 2,000 point-to-point solutions for this project, said the company. “Our overriding goal is to enhance residents’ safety and reduce crime,” said Michael Eckley of the San Bernardino Police Department. “We deployed video cameras in critical junctures and public areas and sought the right technology to transmit video from the cameras back to our control center."

Cincinnati Bell will begin carrying the iPhone 5 on Friday, a spokeswoman told us. The regional carrier has not released further details on its iPhone offering, although other media reports have mentioned pricing information. Cincinnati Bell has been expanding its smartphones offerings in recent months, including the HTC One.

Last week’s FCC order requiring Towerstream forfeit $202,000 for willfully and repeatedly generating “unacceptable and potentially life threatening” interference to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (CD Aug 7 p14) “signals the agency’s apparent intent to impose increasingly greater penalties on broadband providers using devices in unlicensed spectrum bands which interfere with other wireless systems,” said Davis Wright lawyer K.C. Halm. “This order is one in a series of recent enforcement actions against broadband service providers using 5 GHz unlicensed ... devices which allegedly interfered with government radar systems,” wrote the lawyer for competitive telco, VoIP and ISP companies on the law firm’s blog (http://bit.ly/17k25bK). “While the FCC’s prior enforcement actions have increased in number, they have not included penalties of the size imposed upon Towerstream. Thus, the agency appears to be signaling its intent to escalate penalties to deter other providers from interfering with these radar systems.”

AT&T’s proposed buyout of Leap Wireless is a “brilliant spectrum chess move … likely strengthening its own position and weakening the potential spectrum position” of competitors Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile US, said Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche in an email to investors Monday. In July, AT&T offered to buy Leap for $1.2 billion (CD July 15 p1). The deal will not only allow AT&T to “deepen its own AWS holdings” -- it will likely mean Verizon Wireless will be limited to 30 MHz or less of AWS spectrum in about 14 of the top 40 U.S. markets, and will limit T-Mobile to 30 MHz or less AWS spectrum in 10 top markets, Fritzsche said. Leap “plays an important role for many carriers (3 to be exact) in allowing it to get the sought after 20 x 20 channel -- not just AT&T,” she said.

MCNC, a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grantee in North Carolina, finished the second and final phase of the $144 million Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiative, said MCNC in a news release Monday (http://prn.to/19dXuKo). This project makes the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN), operated by MCNC, a fiber-based network spanning more than 2,600 miles in the state with 1,696 total operated miles completed at the end of the second phase, said MCNC. The project received matching grants from the Golden LEAF Foundation ($24 million) and the MCNC Endowment ($10 million), said the organization. “The Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiative provides more proof that the investments made under NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program are bringing greatly needed broadband to community anchor institutions in North Carolina and across the country,” said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling. “MCNC has utilized nearly $104 million in broadband grants to provide every school in the state with an available broadband connection of at least 100 Mbps."

The FCC Media Bureau should grant EchoStar’s request for a waiver of the commission’s analog tuner requirements for the company’s new DVR, and should do so “no later than” Sept. 1, the company said in a comment filed Monday (http://bit.ly/14prApf). The deadline is important to allow EchoStar to offer its HD internet-enabled Channel Master K77 before fall retail line-ups are finalized, the company said. EchoStar said fulfilling the analog requirement would increase the weight, energy consumption and cost of the K77, which is intended to combine over-the-air broadcast content with streaming content from providers such as Vudu and Pandora “in a sleek, ultra-thin, energy-efficient form factor.” An analog tuner on the device isn’t needed because customers will be able to access analog channels through their TV’s tuner, EchoStar said. No objections to the waiver were filed in response to the bureau’s public notice on the matter by the reply comment deadline, which was Friday.

The FCC should review the benchmark condition in its order approving Comcast buying control of NBCUniversal, said representatives of Disney, Fox, Viacom and Time Warner in a meeting Thursday with aides to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, stated an ex parte filing in docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/11ZxhNF). The condition allows online video distributors (OVD) to license Comcast-NBCUniversal programming if a similar deal is reached with an industry peer. The companies involved in the filing object to Comcast interpretation of the rule that would require OVDs invoking it to share information about third-party contracts with Comcast-NBCUniversal. Viacom, Disney and the other companies filed an application for review of the condition in January, and the Media Bureau stayed the condition in March (CD March 8 p16). Comcast and NBCUniversal haven’t demonstrated a need for the condition, and “there is no current need or cause for the stay to be lifted,” said the ex parte filing. It said that letting Comcast “amass a body of information about competitors and the OVD programming marketplace would benefit [Comcast-NBCUniversal] and run counter to sound competitive policy."

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology modified a waiver previously granted to Curtiss-Wright Controls (CWCI) for its ground-penetrating 3d-Radar system. OET said the change “furthers the public interest without undermining the purpose of the” ultra-wideband rules (http://bit.ly/1bp1Q2f). “In this Order, we are allowing 3d-Radar to operate with stepped frequency modulation in 10 megahertz and 20 megahertz steps in addition to the 2 megahertz steps already permitted by the Waiver Order,” OET said. “This action will permit CWCI to receive FCC equipment authorization under the modified conditions.” Fletcher Heald explained the change in a Monday blog post. “As it turned out, Curtiss-Wright wasn’t tickled pink with the waiver because, between the times the waiver was requested (in June, 2010) and the waiver was granted (in January, 2012), the company had modified the ... design some,” the post said (http://bit.ly/18pt3zU). “Curtiss-Wright had apparently not expected that, in acting on its waiver request, the Commission would focus so narrowly on the details as described in the request. Needless to say, the waiver as granted would not permit operation of the device as modified.”

T-Mobile representatives met with Courtney Reinhard, aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, on an NPRM exploring the future use of 1755-1780 MHz and three other spectrum bands -- 1695-1710, 2020-2025 and 2155-2180 MHz (CD July 25 p3), said an ex parte filing. “We discussed the importance of the Commission making additional spectrum available to meet the dramatic rise in demand for wireless broadband capacity,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/14HfQW9). “We noted T-Mobile’s plans to continue to roll-out its LTE network using existing spectrum and urged that the Commission act without delay so that carriers may have access to the Advanced Wireless Service (AWS) spectrum that is the subject of this proceeding."