The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment on a waiver request by Itron to use paging licenses it holds in the 931 MHz band for nonpaging operations. Itron makes and supplies automatic meter reading (AMR) and other advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) devices for electric, gas and water utilities, the bureau noted (http://bit.ly/13MyfxY). “Itron states that its systems are used by hundreds of utilities nationwide, enabling, for example, smart grid operations by allowing utilities to monitor business and residential meters and to control utility operations from remote locations,” the notice said. “Itron seeks to use the paging licenses it won in Auction 87 to support and improve its AMR and AMI services.” Comments are due Sept. 9, replies Sept. 24.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said Friday she will replace Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., as co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus. DeGette will serve alongside co-chair Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, whose “longstanding leadership on these issues is admirable, and I am so eager to work with him to shape policies that help protect citizen’s privacy in these complex times,” she said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/16Atk1S).

American Tower said Friday it will buy 4,456 cell tower sites from NII Holdings for $811 million; 2,790 of the sites are in Brazil, while 1,666 are in Mexico. NII Holdings’s Nextel Brazil and Nextel Mexico subsidiaries will lease the sites from American Tower over the next 12 years. The towers are generally located in major population centers and along highways, American Tower said. The company expects the sites will generate about $149 million in annual revenue. American Tower said it expects the deal to close in Q4 (http://bit.ly/19gJ3ss). The company already had 4,482 towers in Brazil and 6,721 towers in Mexico at the end of Q2, said Evercore Partners analyst Jonathan Schildkraut in an email to investors.

Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn remains committed to addressing 700 MHz interoperability, following a recent industry meeting at the agency (CD Aug 1 p1), she said Friday. “All options remain on the table.” The issue, along with prison-calling reform, has been widely viewed as her top issue as temporary head of the agency, and the FCC addressed the latter Friday. (See separate report above in this issue.) “I still contend an industry-led solution, if all of the stakeholders come together … is possible,” Clyburn said during a news conference. “I hold out hope for that.” Clyburn said she is convinced that “the lack of interoperability” in the 700 MHz band “has slowed broadband deployment, it has made it harder for those smaller carriers to compete and it limits choices for consumers.” Asked about other priorities in her remaining time at the helm of the agency, Clyburn mentioned a proposed NPRM that could lead to elimination of the UHF TV ownership discount, which is on circulation at the agency (CD Aug 6 p1).

The EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1 satellite is ready for its upcoming liftoff from French Guiana this month. It is to be launched Aug. 29 on an Ariane 5 rocket and assist Eutelsat and Qatar-based Es'hailSat “in responding to demand for the fastest-growing applications in the Middle East and North Africa,” Arianespace said in a press release. It also will initiate a Ka-band capability that opens business opportunities for both parties, it said. The satellite is equipped with four steerable spot beam antennae and four “deployable” reflectors, it said.

Marquee Broadcasting agreed to pay $9 million to buy WMDT-TV(ABC) Salisbury, Md., from Delmarva Broadcast Services, said Patrick Communications, the seller’s broker, in a news release Thursday. It said the station transmits CW programming on a multicast channel.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) should consider the “public interest” in future patent decisions, said Charles Duan, Public Knowledge director-Patent Reform Project, and Rashmi Rangnath, director-Global Knowledge Initiative, in a blog post Thursday. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman’s veto last week of an ITC injunction that would have banned imports of early-model Apple iPhone and iPad products reaffirmed that “the public interest has to be a central concern in decisions about technology policy,” Duan and Rangnath said (http://bit.ly/11PACij). Froman’s written decision urged the ITC to “examine thoroughly and carefully on its own initiative the public interest” any future cases that involve standard-essential patents (SEPs). The Apple ban “would have cut consumers off from access to phones that are significantly cheaper than the latest models of iPhones, effectively raising the prices for a significant market share of smartphones,” Duan and Rangnath said. “A ban on their import would have been particularly unjust given that Samsung’s patented technology made up only a small part of the many technologies in the iPhone 4.” SEPs more generally “should not be the only thing, or even the most important thing that determines what is in the public interest,” they said. “The ultimate determinative factor must be the public’s interest in access to valuable and beneficial technologies whether or not those technologies are approved by a standards board."

The FCC should grant YouMail’s petition for an expedited declaratory ruling, which the agency sought comment on in June, to assert that sending an immediate text message once to reply to a voicemail does not violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, CTIA said in reply comments Friday (http://bit.ly/17CNAyA). “YouMail’s service is not the type of communication that Congress was trying to address,” the wireless association said. “Instead, the YouMail mobile phone application allows the recipient of a call to send an immediate reply to a voicemail using a single text message.” The YouMail user controls whether the text is sent, it added. It encouraged the FCC to approve the YouMail petition to “ensure that innovation in the mobile marketplace is not stifled further.”

Demand Progress renewed its calls to fire prosecutors in the Aaron Swartz case, it said in a Friday release. Swartz, the founder of the Internet activist group, committed suicide in January while facing federal computer crimes charges related to downloading academic research papers on MIT’s campus. A recent MIT report (http://bit.ly/17CMCCI) showed the prosecutors were “motivated by anger at Swartz for publicly asserting his innocence,” Demand Progress said. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann are the prosecutors in the case, it said. Demand Progress also supports House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., in his calls for a briefing on the case from Attorney General Eric Holder. Issa wrote in a letter last week “the implication that the Department ratcheted up the prosecution by moving the case to ‘an institutional level’ after it discovered the petition by Demand Progress suggests that the Department acted in a retaliatory manner and that it bases its charging decisions on externalities such as an Internet campaign.” The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

Competitive Companies Inc. (CCI) signed a multi-city “Tier One” contract with Level 3 Communications, said CCI in a press release Friday (http://yhoo.it/19SBjMF). The contact calls for CCI to open network facilities in 10 U.S. cities by the end of 2013 to enable the company to provide “high capacity Internet to both private and public enterprises,” said CCI. The company will be able to offer “bandwidth services” to businesses and facilities through the tier one connection, said CCI.