The FCC should release information on the spectrum incentive auction repacking before it has a finished proposal, the NAB told aides to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/130Osf7) released Tuesday. “The commission would be best served if they were more transparent and engaged more directly with outside stakeholders,” said the ex parte. Though the commission released information about the repacking process earlier this month (CD July 23 p15), “no one outside the commission or its contractors has any information” on the repacking model or a timeline for its release, said NAB. Public and ex parte conversations about the model might help “identify problems and concerns up front, rather than waiting for a final output that may require significant after-the-fact revision,” NAB said. The association also urged the commission to reveal similar preliminary information about the cross-border coordination with Canada and Mexico.

Nearly 70 percent of cable and broadband operators recognize new business opportunities presented with over-the-top (OTT) services, which outweighs the number of respondents who see competitive threats, said an Incognito Software survey released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/14WlvGF). Sixty-five respondents completed the survey from around the world, with 40 percent of the respondents having between 10,001 and 1 million in subscribers. Nearly 82 percent of respondents have upgraded their network infrastructure to cope with increased subscriber usage and 75 percent of respondents who upgraded attributed this increase to streaming video sites, the survey found. The most popular strategies for managing OTT were fair usage policies (40 percent), bandwidth caps (34 percent) and proprietary OTT services (22 percent), the survey found. Incognito Software found international operators are more likely to view OTT as a threat, with 47 percent of respondents in Latin America concerned about bandwidth consumption, 40 percent of respondents in Europe, the Middle East and Africa concerned about losing content to OTT providers, and 50 percent of North America respondents using bandwidth caps as their primary means to manage OTT. “The widespread growth and popularity of OTT content across multiple devices is forcing cable operators to rethink their business models and how best to add value to their subscribers -- and the survey results show that there is no single answer when looking at operators of different sizes and across multiple geographies,” said Incognito Software CEO Stephane Bourque. Most respondents were cable broadband providers (81.5 percent), with a smaller number of telecom providers (13.9 percent).

Eutelsat offered to buy Satmex for $1.14 billion, Eutelsat said. The acquisition, along with the recently ordered Eutelsat 65 West A satellite, “will position the group as a major satellite operator in Latin America,” Eutelsat said in a press release (http://bit.ly/11uSbnC). Satmex operates satellites at 113 degrees west, 114.9 degrees west and 116.8 degrees west, it said. Satmex benefits from frequency rights in the C and Ku bands and it has an 11 percent market share in Latin America “where it enjoys a strong franchise in corporate data networks and cellular backhaul,” Eutelsat said.

Equinox Global Telecommunications will expand throughout the Southeastern U.S., with new network routes completed between December and the middle of 2015, it said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/11uO8HR). The company said it plans routes out of Charlotte, into “diverse areas across the southeast that include North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Ohio.” It described services including “dark fiber, broadband, network maintenance and monitoring, NOC [network operations center] services, technical support and professional services including inside and outside plant design and installation.”

Companies that use smartphone apps to connect people with rides, such as Uber, Sidecar and Lyft, should be subject to regulation, said a “proposed decision” the California Public Utilities Commission will consider this fall. But the CPUC proposal “is not attempting to enact communications rules that will regulate the smartphone application used to connect passengers with drivers,” said the document, introduced by CPUC President Michael Peevey Tuesday (http://bit.ly/19xioqw). “Instead, the Commission is attempting to promulgate rules that will govern the transportation service itself.” The CPUC proposal said it applauds the technology and innovation of these companies, but it’s not persuaded to believe in a “regulatory gap because they are using a smartphone to facilitate transportation for-hire.” Innovation doesn’t remove the regulators’ need to protect consumer safety, it said. Such companies, under the proposal, would need licenses through the CPUC and be compelled to perform criminal background checks on drivers, have a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol, set up a driver training program and other requirements. The item is set for discussion at the CPUC’s Sept. 5 meeting.

Broadband Everywhere, a U.K.-based broadband provider, launched its service using the SES Broadband Services platform, it said. Broadband Everywhere can provide up to 20 Mbps download speeds to customers, “ideal for areas where there is no, or slow standard ADSL broadband services,” the company said in a press release. The service is powered by Ka-band capacity on the Astra 2F satellite at 28.2 degrees east, it said. With the planned September launch of Astra 2E, “the service availability will be further extended to a wider geographic area,” it said.

Google Fiber’s terms of service prohibition on server hosting on a residential Internet access line is reasonable network management and a common practice in the market, said Scott Cleland, NetCompetition chairman, in a blog post (http://bit.ly/132KuCF). Cleland, the author of Search and Destroy: Why You can’t Trust Google Inc., was responding to a net neutrality complaint filed Oct. 24, 2012, to the Kansas Office of Attorney General from Douglas McClendon, a potential Google Fiber customer who “does not live in a city that Google Fiber currently serves” (http://bit.ly/12G3OLf). McClendon registered a Form 2000F net neutrality complaint against Google Fiber to the FCC, which directed him to file a complaint with the Kansas attorney general. McClendon submitted the same complaint to both regulators claiming that Google Fiber’s terms of service violate net neutrality rules. Google Fiber’s terms of service do not permit hosting on any type server using a Google Fiber connection, the complaint said. “In my professional opinion as a graduate in Computer Engineering from the University of Kansas (and incidentally brother of a google VP) I believe these terms of service are in violation of FCC-10-201,” said McClendon in his compliant. Google Fiber understands how a private Internet access provider can have “the power to pick and choose what you will be able ... to do on the Internet, and they are rightly defending their commercial Internet freedom to not have to subsidize competitive resellers of its gigabit access network,” said Cleland. In terms of competitiveness, Google Fiber understands how “arbitrageurs” try and game the system by claiming net neutrality violations to try to extract commercial concessions, which make no sense for Google to provide in a commercial or competitive sense, said Cleland. Google Fiber’s current net neutrality stance is “an important implicit recognition that competitive broadband providers have no regulatory obligation to subsidize over-the-top competitors to their various businesses,” said Cleland.

Comments are due Aug. 15, replies Aug. 26, on a CTIA petition seeking reconsideration of one part of the FCC’s text-to-911 rules. In July, CTIA asked the FCC to change part of its May 17 text-to-911 order to drop a roaming requirement. CTIA took issue with only one paragraph in the order, requiring all carriers and providers of interconnected text message services to provide subscribers with automatic 911 bounceback messages by Sept. 30 (CD May 9 p4). “The Commission should not address roaming requirements until appropriate technical organizations are able to confirm that such requirements are technically feasible,” CTIA said. The comment deadline was published in the Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1cdNx3j).

Most parties commenting on the FCC’s proposed second protective order for its special access data request supported taking extra precautions to ensure the confidentiality of sensitive business information. The commenters also had some suggestions for how to make the protective order more protective. Verizon said it agrees with the commission that “extra steps are necessary” to limit how reviewing parties can access sensitive information, and proposed what it called “minor” changes: prohibiting remote access to the Secure Data Enclave, and changing its proposed designations to “something less confusing” than “highly confidential data” and “highly confidential information” (http://bit.ly/12CRafU). CenturyLink focused on the protective order’s “inconsistent treatment” of information about non-tariffed agreements (http://bit.ly/12CS8Ja). “The information in those agreements is highly competitively sensitive, as it reflects the results of individual negotiations between purchasers and providers, and is not typically made publicly available,” CenturyLink said, asking that the data be “subject to the same protections as other highly confidential information sought in the data request.” But AT&T thinks the proposed new protective order “has the potential to unnecessarily complicate -- and possibly impair -- the process of obtaining access to Highly Confidential information, especially data in electronic format,” it said (http://bit.ly/12CQUxt). AT&T encouraged the Wireline Bureau to continue to use the Second Protective Order for the mandatory data collection effort. If the bureau still wants to use the protective order, it should make some modifications, AT&T said, to “ensure that it provides parties to this proceeding with meaningful and efficient access to all of the data.” NCTA, warning of the sensitive nature of much of the collected data, suggested keeping the data private from outside parties “until it has done an internal review of the material and has made an initial determination of which information it might rely on in taking final action in the special access proceeding”; and permitting third parties to review the data “only at Commission headquarters, with no opportunity to print or download that data.” Cox asked for “additional precautionary measures on two fronts": expand the definition of presumptively highly confidential information, and restrict that access to commission staff “until the Commission has determined to rely on that information to develop new rules” (http://bit.ly/12CSpfc).

Saturday will see the start of a six-month period of “permissive dialing” for an area code change in western Kentucky, state regulators said. The 10-digit dialing will become mandatory Feb. 1, but at the end of this week, consumers will be able to dial with seven digits or 10 for local calls to the 270 area code, said the Kentucky Public Service Commission said in a news release Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/12CSjEk). The 364 area code will be added to that same area as 270 starting early in 2014, it said. The PSC called an overlay the “least disruptive” option.