The FCC defended its progress in moving toward spectrum incentive auctions next year, responding to comments last week from Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., that the auctions “may slide into 2015,” during C-SPAN’s The Communicators (CD Aug 5 p4). “The Commission’s world-class incentive auction team of economists, auction experts, and engineers is making steady progress towards holding the world’s first incentive auction in 2014, which will free up significant spectrum for mobile broadband use,” an FCC spokesman told us. “The auction is a top institutional priority and we are on track to help deliver faster speeds, greater capacity, and more ubiquitous wireless connectivity to consumers and businesses across the country.” Gary Epstein, who leads the FCC’s incentive auction task force, told Congress last month that FCC staff is working to meet its planned timeline, with an order by the end of the year and an auction next year.

Cox Communications released Contour, a personal TV experience that would eliminate the need for “aimless channel surfing and solve the chronic problem of what to watch,” said the cable operator Monday in a news release (http://bit.ly/13SUDBe). Using the Contour app, initially available on the iPad, users can create up to eight user profiles, which will recommend different shows for each user, said Cox. Users will be able to search and watch more than 90 national cable channels live and tens of thousands of on-demand channels on their iPad and TV seamlessly, said Cox. “Contour brings to life all the features our customers tell us they want from individual viewing recommendations that are based on their past preferences to a robust library of VOD offerings and enhanced DVR capabilities -- all accessible on multiple devices via an effortless guide,” said Mark Greatrex, Cox vice president.

DirecTV will plunge into the home security market next year, building on its acquisition of LifeShield and its wireless technology, said DirecTV CEO Michael White on an earnings call last week. LifeShield, which has 100 employees and about 22,000 subscribers to its Internet Protocol-based wireless home security service, will be DirecTV’s entry into a market that has a 20 percent U.S. install base, White said. In addition to ADT, DirecTV will be up against other security companies including FrontPoint Security, Vivint and Protect America, as well as cable operators like Comcast and Time Warner Cable that are venturing into the category. LifeShield’s service will be rolled out across the satellite network in 2014 and will be a “nice add on” to the company’s monthly average revenue per user, White said. DirecTV will put direct marketing, installation and service behind LifeShield, creating a “mini” bundle with its satellite offering, White said. “We're trying to make sure we get all of the ducks in a row executionally” before putting a major push behind LifeShield, White said. Bundles with the product allow remote monitoring via an app that’s available for iPad and iPhone, said DirecTV. The systems come with a Homescreen Touchpad that’s outfitted with a dashboard replete with surveillance and system safety widgets. The addition of home security will further expand DirecTV’s offerings of advanced technologies, including whole-home systems, that have about 4 million subscribers, up 55 percent from a year ago, said Chief Financial Officer Patrick Doyle. With programming costs increasing an average of 8 percent, DirecTV isn’t ruling out packaging a terrestrial antenna with its receiver to get broadcast networks, White said. DirecTV used to build the tuners into the receivers, and if retransmission fees and programming costs “get to a certain point, everything is on the table,” White said. DirecTV’s cost of installing such an antenna could be around $150, so it’s “probably not as attractive as it needs to be, but it’s a more attractive alternative than it used to be,” White said. “We'll see how the costs evolve.” Among its carriage agreements, DirecTV may consider dropping its Pac-12 college football package, because the conference wants to “put more into a bundle that’s already too big and tax all of the customers at a rate that we don’t believe is fair” for those who aren’t interested in it, White said. Meanwhile, DirecTV settled in July a 13-year-old patent infringement lawsuit filed against it by Pegasus Development Corp. and Personalized Media Communication (PMC), the company said in SEC documents. The suit, filed in December 2000 in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., alleged DirecTV infringed four patents, including one covering the use of digital key information to decode a digital or analog information transmission that was encoded to prevent unauthorized access. The case also involved the so-called ‘825 patent that was granted PMC’s John Harvey and James Cuddihy in 1990 and described a signal processor system with a means for demodulating carrier transmissions. Gemstar, the remnants of which are now part of Rovi, was once an exclusive licensee for the patents, according to court records. DirecTV, which struck a tentative agreement with PMC in May, settled the case for an amount that won’t have a “material effect on our consolidated financial position,” the company said.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau came up with a solution for an 800 MHz dispute between Sprint and Mississippi State University over how MSU’s radios should be rebanded, said an order released Friday (http://bit.ly/13tkJ29). The case was referred to the bureau for “de novo review, after remand, from Wave 3 Stage 2 mediation by the 800 MHz Transition Administrator,” said the order. “We find that MSU will receive comparable facilities if its existing 3-site scan radios are retuned to the new NPSPAC band,” said the Public Safety Bureau. Although MSU had opposed that solution in part because it said it would violate FCC rules, the bureau waived “conformity for emission mask H” for the radios because they don’t pose an “interference hazard.” Though both Sprint and MSU each accused the other of bad faith during the rebanding negotiations, the bureau rejected both accusations. The bureau also rejected several of MSU’s cost estimates for the rebanding operation, the order said. Although many of the costs are subject to change based on conditions associated with the rebanding, the bureau’s ruling means that Sprint could pay over $250,000 in costs for the rebanding.

Vonage generally supports the FCC’s proposed rural call completion reporting framework, it told agency officials Tuesday, an ex parte filing said. But competitive concerns already keep Vonage on its toes, the VoIP company said. “The company has strong incentives with respect to both call completion and call quality as each weigh heavily in a consumer’s decision to retain Vonage’s services. Vonage strives to retain customers and avoid excessive customer churn.” Vonage cautioned against adopting the “false ringing rule,” which would prohibit ringing tones until the call is actually being connected. “It would not address the underlying problem of excessive post-dial delay caused by excessive call setup time. Prohibiting false ringing could have unintended consequences such as extended silence after the call is placed. This could lead to confusion and increased hang-ups by the calling party, which would increase (rather than reduce) the incidence of call completion problems."

An Internet Society survey on Internet governance aims to “gain greater insights into multistakeholder governance perceptions and processes at all levels -- national, regional and international,” said the group on Friday. The survey, open until Sept. 30, is part of a larger Internet Society effort to discuss multistakeholder Internet governance. The society said it plans to incorporate the results into its preparations for upcoming international telecom fora where Internet governance is likely to be a major topic of discussion. Those include the 2013 Internet Governance Forum, Oct. 22-25 in Bali, Indonesia, and the ITU’s World Telecommunication Development Conference, March 31-April 11, 2014, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, said the society. The survey will also be an informational guide to Internet governance, with questions providing “background information on key topics, and interactive links enable respondents to learn more about how the Internet works,” said Constance Bommelaer, Internet Society senior director-global policy partnerships, in a news release. “We hope this survey will empower and encourage participants to engage in the multistakeholder dialogue and let their voices be heard” (http://bit.ly/13s9AyD).

Twenty-three senators urged federal spectrum policymakers to quickly transition federal users off the 1755-1780 MHz band by September 2014 and pair the band for auction with the 2155-2180 MHz band, in a letter made public Friday. “We write today to urge you to take advantage of an opportunity to increase the value of this spectrum band at auction while also harmonizing United States spectrum policy internationally,” the letter said. Pairing the bands would “yield substantially greater auction revenues than if those bands were auctioned separately. It would also bring our national spectrum policy in line with the 17 of the G-20 countries who already have allocated these two paired bands for commercial use. Pairing these bands is good for our spectrum policy and for first responders,” it said. “Time is of the essence, and a sense of urgency is required if we are to capitalize on this opportunity to maximize revenue,” the senators wrote. The letter was sent to the departments of Defense and Commerce and the FCC and was signed by every member of the Senate Commerce Committee and several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The senators asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn to provide regular updates on the status of each agency’s efforts to achieve such a goal. Responses to each agency’s efforts to resolve outstanding issues were requested by Sept. 1.

Two new bills to increase transparency of government surveillance were unveiled last week; Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., introduced the Surveillance Transparency Act (http://1.usa.gov/13thfNd), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., introduced the Surveillance Order Reporting Act (http://1.usa.gov/145XBq1). Both bills would make it easier for companies to publicly provide information on the government surveillance requests they receive, including the number of orders they received and complied with and the number of users affected by those requests. In a statement (http://1.usa.gov/15luCAV), Lofgren called her bill “a needed first step to free Internet companies to provide the public information on how many surveillance orders they receive and how many of their users are affected.” These bills give “American Internet companies the ability to set the record straight on exactly what the government requests, enhancing user trust online,” said Computer & Communications Industry Association CEO Ed Black in a statement.

The State E-rate Coordinators’ Alliance weighed in on what services should be eligible for cost recovery in the year ahead, said an FCC filing posted Friday. The agency should look at the administrative costs of applying for and receiving universal service funds due to the “burden” they create, it said. “At the very least, and as an alternative to making all administrative fees eligible (including the cost of administering the universal service fee collection), all other administrative fees should be deemed to be ‘reasonable charges’ incurred by schools and libraries in obtaining service and should be eligible” for reimbursement. The FCC should also “clarify that its current rules do not require the bundling of eligible component purchases and installation,” the group said. The agency also needs to determine whether bundled end-user equipment is eligible, it said. There’s also some ambiguity about the terms “interactive communications features” and “collaboration tools,” which need to be clarified, the coordinators said.

The FCC should protect low-power TV and translator services, said the Alaska Broadcasters Association in an ex parte filing Friday. While the spectrum used by the close to 400 LPTV and translators in Alaska is “unlikely to be valuable for wireless broadband service, there is a risk that a broadly written FCC decision to clear spectrum in the lower 48 states could have an adverse effect in Alaska,” said the filing. Requiring Alaska’s LPTV and translators to change channels and buy new equipment could make it “impossible for them to continue in operation,” it said (http://bit.ly/11AlWUa).