Commenters urged the FCC to correct “obvious” errors with the Alaskan capital expenditure coefficient in the agency’s quantile regression model, in comments filed Monday. The Matanuska Telephone Association asked the commission in May to strike the use of the negative coefficient. “It is not clear why the Quantile Regression Model yielded a negative coefficient for Alaska, but the stark reality is that it is more expensive to build network in Alaska than in the Lower 48, not less,” General Communication Inc. said (http://bit.ly/15hiFGZ). GCI urged the commission to grant the petition. In so doing, the agency “should not be under any illusion” that this would address “even a significant minority” of the shortcomings of the USF reform rules with respect to Alaska, said the company. Several factors, including unique geography and topography, low population density and harsh climate, contribute to the high costs faced by Alaskan carriers, said the Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative and Copper Valley Telephone Cooperative (http://bit.ly/15hj9Nv). “While we understand that the WCB staff is working to produce a new result for 2014, it is not acceptable to penalize Alaska carriers during the entirety of 2013 while these data errors are being corrected.” If the quantile regression analysis is to be used at all, said NTCA, the commission must “redouble efforts” to ensure that “its inputs are accurate and its outcomes promote the provision of specific, sufficient and predictable high-cost support” (http://bit.ly/10uMZ4T). The negative coefficient for Alaska is a “clear error,” but other erroneous outcomes based on faulty data “may not be as immediately clear,” said the association. It urged the commission to scrub and scrutinize its inputs. The Alaskan costs were also the topic of a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday. (See related report above in this issue.)

The First Responder Network Authority is looking for a chief counsel, according to a job posting on USAJobs.gov (http://bit.ly/19OpC9D). The salary range is listed at $119,554.00 to $179,700.00 and applications are due July 1.

The Media Institute postponed Thursday’s luncheon with Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt because of the death of his mother, the institute said Tuesday.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology said a 45-day public test of LS telcom’s proposed white spaces database will begin June 24. “This is a limited trial that is intended to allow the public to access and test LS telcom’s database system to ensure that it correctly identifies channels that are available for unlicensed radio transmitting devices that operate in the TV band ... properly registers radio transmitting facilities entitled to protection, and provides protection to authorized services and registered facilities as specified in the rules,” OET said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/14h5Q0u).

Reports of U.S. online surveillance programs and involvement in the process around EU data security and privacy legislation are “disappointing,” said European Digital Rights in a Tuesday letter to U.S. Ambassador to the EU William Kennard. The group demanded that the U.S. cease “any and all data collection measures which are not targeted and not based on concrete suspicions” and “any and all foreign data collection measures that are not part of appropriate mutual legal assistance agreements that have treaty status.” Non-U.S. individuals should have “at the very least, equal rights to US citizens at all stages of an investigation,” the group said. Regarding the U.S. involvement in the EU legislative process, the group referenced a U.S. document from December 2011 that commented on provisions in a leaked draft of the EU legislative text. The U.S. should “desist in [the] future from lobbying on proposals that have not been released by the European Commission” and “only communicate future position papers to the European Union that are clearly identifiable as documents emanating from the US administration,” the group said.

A new CEA working group will develop industry standards or “best practices” for designing consumer electronics products that reduce driver distraction, CEA said Tuesday. The Driver Device Interface Working Group was authorized by CEA’s Portable Handheld and In-Vehicle Electronics Committee to address the safety of portable and handheld CE gear used in cars, and also commercial vehicles, boats and aircraft, CEA said. “We believe that safety is paramount in a moving vehicle,” said CEA President Gary Shapiro. “A driver’s highest priority should be safe driving and control of the vehicle at all times.” GPS and hands-free Bluetooth devices already “reduce the amount of time a driver must look away from the road,” he said. “It makes sense to encourage development of these technologies rather than to try to regulate every possible distraction.” CEA has been sharply critical of past policy proposals to reduce driver distraction that call for broad regulations or outright bans on the use of CE gear while operating vehicles. Instead, “policymakers should encourage the use of the many innovative driver safety technologies coming on to the marketplace” to reduce driver distraction, CEA has said.

Arianespace has a new contract with Telespazio to launch the Göktürk-1 satellite for the Turkish government, said Arianespace in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/13R2GBI). The Göktürk-1 satellite will be launched from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana in 2015 by Arianespace’s Vega light launcher into synchronous orbit at an altitude of about 700 kilometers. “This is the fourth contract for Vega, after Sentinel 2 and 3, and DZZ-HR for Kazakhstan,” said Arianespace Chairman Stéphane Israël. The Göktürk-1 system will provide high-quality panchromatic and multispectral products for a wide range of applications, including cadastral surveys, environmental monitoring and homeland surveillance, it said.

Broadband unbundling in the U.S. would be bad decision because it could harm investment and productivity performance, said Martin Thelle, Copenhagen Economics managing director, in a Monday presentation of his white paper at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. Unbundling in the European Union contributed to the investment gap in information and communication technologies, and 25 to 30 percent of labor growth productivity would disappear if the EU did not unbundle services on that continent, said Thelle. “Fixed broadband unbundling would not likely provide real benefits to the present-day US telecommunications markets, which are characterized by multiple-competing broadband infrastructures and country-wide players,” said Thelle in a paper he co-authored (http://bit.ly/11MJim0). Unbundled broadband would reduce prices, but it would also reduce incentives to invest and create broad, mobile and fiber networks, said Thelle.

The FCC proposed $21,000 in fines for TV stations missing deadlines to file kids’ programming reports, in Media Bureau notices of apparent liability Tuesday. Sunshine Broadcasting faces a $15,000 possible penalty because WARP Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., and WIMP Miami missed many quarters’ filing deadlines (http://bit.ly/13R0x93). Concilio Mision Cristiana Fuente de Agua Viva faces a $6,000 fine because WQHA Aguada, P.R., didn’t file on time for 17 quarters (http://bit.ly/100P469).

Low-power FM backers cheered a coming period for LPFM applications to be received by the FCC (CD June 18 p6), while a broadcast lawyer who has been “skeptical” the window will begin as a public notice Monday promised Oct. 15 said delay is possible. The “wonderful development ... puts the public back in the public airwaves,” said former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, special adviser to Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative. It will be the first time LPFM “is possible in cities like Miami, Houston, and Philadelphia, where these stations can reach hundreds of thousands of local listeners,” said Prometheus Radio Project Policy Director Brandy Doyle in a news release Monday night (http://bit.ly/19OglOG). “While it’s still possible that, as we get closer to October 15, there might be some slippage, the Bureau is obviously confident enough at this point to issue the notice and get the ball rolling,” wrote the broadcast attorney, Harry Cole of Fletcher Heald, on the law firm’s blog (http://bit.ly/11XphMQ). “Once the window has closed, the Bureau’s staff will weed through them, toss the defective ones, and group the rest according to mutual exclusivity."