Los Angeles and California at large should allow for innovation, specifically in the form of the transportation company Uber, wrote FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai in a Tuesday Los Angeles Times op-ed (http://lat.ms/12zqh75). Uber allows users to hail rides through its smartphone app. Pai described the battles the company has had with the California Public Utilities Commission, as well as recently L.A. It has faced opposition largely due to incumbents wanting to protect their market, he said. “Heavy-handed regulations hurt the very consumers they're supposed to help,” Pai said. “Consumers fare best when the barriers to business entry are low, which helps ensure that the market -- any market -- becomes competitive and stays that way.” Pai said these hurdles exist in many ways, noting how professional boards can impede telemedicine “by requiring state-by-state licensing or in-person consultations and even restricting who can sell tooth-whitening services.”

The FCC International Bureau granted Bay City Television’s application to deliver programming via satellite to XETV-TV Tijuana, Mexico. XETV, licensed to Radio y Television, operates in analog mode on Channel 6 at 100 kw maximum visual effective radiated power and in digital mode on Channel 23 at 403 kw maximum visual effective radiated power from Mount San Antonio, Texas, the bureau said in a public notice (http://fcc.us/13J4oHy). It said if the transmitter coordinates or technical operating parameters of the foreign station are altered subsequent to the authorization, “this program authorization will be subject to immediate termination without right to hearing."

Oregon awarded Aviat Networks a $13 million contract, the company said in a news release Tuesday http://bit.ly/14GhS52). It said the contract encompasses microwave backhaul equipment and radio support services to “provide the foundation for integration of state agency and other public safety radio systems into an interoperable network” for “police officers, transportation workers and other public safety officials” to communicate across jurisdictions.

Rancho Cordova, Calif., chose Amtel to manage its mobile devices and documents, the company said in a Tuesday news release (http://yhoo.it/1509YCy). “Benefits range from over $200,000 saved annually by enabling secure paperless document sharing among staff and city council members, to over-the-air distribution of approved mobile apps like Evernote for taking digital notes in city council meetings.” The management helps the city in the Sacramento metropolitan area with about 65,000 residents permit and forbid certain apps and track by GPS all the devices.

Digital music service providers will be able to get licenses more easily and musicians will get royalties faster under rules approved Tuesday by the European Parliament Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee, it said. The report, which responds to a European Commission proposal, calls for simple and transparent licensing of copyrighted music, and will spur more legal offerings and better access to online content for consumers, said author Marielle Gallo, of France and the European People’s Party. In the future, instead of having to deal with authors’ collective management societies in every EU member country, music service providers will be able to get licenses from a small number of such organizations operating across borders, JURI said. It backed an amendment ensuring that smaller and less popular repertoires also have access to the market by requiring collecting societies to issue licenses under the same conditions for all music inventories. Lawmakers also amended the EC proposal by cutting the deadline for payment of royalties to rights owners from 12 to three months from the end of the financial year in which the revenue was collected, the committee said. Its negotiators will now start talks with EU ministers.

All mobile operators with 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz and 2.1 GHz spectrum can now offer 4G services, said the U.K. Office of Communications, in a statement (http://xrl.us/bpfdjw) Tuesday. The move came after a request by Vodafone and Hutchison 3G to remove regulations barring use of the spectrum for 4G technology, and by Vodafone and Telefónica for an increase in the maximum permitted power for 3G technology in the 900 MHz band, it said. The decision achieves the longstanding goal of liberalizing all mobile licenses to remove roadblocks to deployment of the latest available technology, it said. While operators may not want to roll out 4G services immediately, consumers will benefit by having the bands freed for 4G before the market transitions to the technology in the future, Ofcom said. Operators can now plan their moves without having to go through a further regulatory process, it said.

Ex-FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, now of the Hudson Institute, will testify Thursday before the House Communications Subcommittee on how to improve the agency’s processes. The 10:30 a.m. hearing will discuss two draft bills. Free State Foundation President Randolph May and NARUC General Counsel James Ramsay are also scheduled to testify, as are law professors Stuart Benjamin of Duke and Richard Pierce of George Washington University.

The Telecommunications Industry Association urged government-private sector cooperation and more sharing of information on cyberthreats from the federal government, in comments to the Department of Homeland Security Monday. DHS sought comments as its National Protection and Programs Directorate reviews the 2009 National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) to make it conform to Presidential Policy Directive 21, Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. NIPP’s “network approach” to information sharing needs improvement, TIA said. “As far back as 2007, the Government Accountability Office found that the [Homeland Security Information Network] did not develop a comprehensive inventory of key state and local information-sharing initiatives, creating the risk that ‘effective information sharing is not occurring and that HSIN may be duplicating state and local capabilities.'” Among the other principles DHS should keep in mind are that “policymakers and regulators should ensure that they address economic barriers for owners and operators of critical infrastructure in efforts to secure cyberspace” and “the global nature of the information and communications technology (ICT) industry necessarily requires a global approach to address cybersecurity concerns,” TIA said.

In his statement approving the SoftBank/Sprint/Clearwire deal, Commissioner Ajit Pai said his colleagues on the commission had “graciously accommodated my suggested changes,” on the way to release of a final order Friday (CD July 8 p1). FCC officials told us Monday the changes Pai advocated were centered on the spectrum screen used in evaluating the merger and how much Broadband Radio Service/Educational Broadband Service should be counted by the agency. Rather than developing new rules based on the specific transaction, the FCC essentially kicked the issue down the road to be considered as part of the spectrum aggregation proceeding also before the commission, officials said. In a key line, the order (http://bit.ly/10EuNDR) said: “We do not find the proposed transactions to be the appropriate proceeding to consider whether to modify the screen to include more than 55.5 megahertz of the 2.5 GHz band.”

The FCC’s 15th Annual Video Competition Report should highlight the growth of retransmission consent fees and contain details about how often separately owned broadcasters jointly negotiate retrans agreements, the ACA told FCC staff, according to an ex parte filing Monday (http://bit.ly/1ahJdA6). Along with information about retransmission consent, the ACA asked that the report include info on cable system closures and “the impact of such closures on competition” and “the regulatory and non-regulatory conditions contributing to these system shutdowns,” the filing said. “Inclusion of this data, information, and analysis is not intended to prejudice the Commissions’ [sic] decision making in any pending or future proceeding, and ACA would expect that whatever is reported to Congress in the Report on these matters would be objectively presented,” said the filing. The video competition report is scheduled to be voted on at the FCC’s July 19 open meeting.