The FirstNet board will extend the negotiation period with the seven partially suspended broadband stimulus grantees, it said in a resolution released Wednesday. NTIA suspended the seven grants devoted to public safety broadband networks, last summer due to concerns the projects might conflict with FirstNet and waste money. The FirstNet board began working with the projects, funded in part by NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, in February in order to reauthorize them as FirstNet pilots, setting up a 90-day window to negotiate spectrum leasing. FirstNet board member Sue Swenson has handled the negotiations for FirstNet. “There continues to be substantial progress in such negotiations, but Sue Swenson has advised the Board that she and each of the recipients have concluded that an additional 30-day extension of the negotiations period is required for such negotiations to be completed,” the resolution said. “Each of the recipients has notified Sue Swenson by electronic mail that it agrees to an additional extension in its negotiations process with FirstNet.” Negotiations will continue through July 12 now, it said.

Eliminating waste in the Lifeline program will require “the most efficient possible use of limited administrative resources” at the Universal Service Administrative Co. and at affected carriers, Smith Bagley Inc. told the FCC Wednesday (http://bit.ly/11HPrTy). A commission proposal for a biennial independent audit -- defined in the 2012 Lifeline reform order -- should avoid “unnecessary duplication” of existing oversight mechanisms, and comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, SBI said. Smith Bagley, which has done business as Cellular One, asked that interested parties be given the opportunity to comment on the proposed scope and procedures of the audit prior to final adoption by the commission. The audits “should focus on a high-level review of internal company procedures and controls regarding the aspects of the Lifeline program that present the greatest risk to the program,” SBI said.

Purple Communications weighed in Wednesday on the FCC’s reforms to the VRS program (CD June 11 p1), applauding policies it said will help standardize the industry and create a level playing field for competitors. “We appreciate the efforts of staff to ban certain anticompetitive behavior, and remove certain barriers to competition,” said John Goodman, chief legal officer or the VRS provider. “Purple advocated for many of the positions adopted by the FCC and is pleased with several of the competition reform policies in the Order.” Purple differs with the commission on some of the long-term rate reforms, which a company spokeswoman said could affect provider labor cost structures, future investments in innovation and service levels to deaf consumers. But ultimately the firm supports the reforms. “Much of this new policy helps correct the competitive framework for the industry and combined with excellent products and high quality service, these new policies will benefit Purple and its customers,” said President John Ferron. A spokeswoman for VRS company Sorenson declined to comment on the order.

A lack of higher Internet speeds in schools could slow implementation of digital textbooks and online assessments designed to replace standardized tests, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at NCTA’s Cable Show Wednesday. Urging the cable industry to support President Barack Obama’s recently announced initiative to improve school bandwidth, Duncan said to take advantage of the latest wave of education resources, “most schools will require bandwidth they don’t have right now.” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said she expects her agency’s efforts to make Obama’s ConnectED initiative happen to be “well under way” by the start of the school year in the fall, though she said it would “take a lot of work.” Rosenworcel said the effort represents a chance to update policies and infrastructure that haven’t been updated since 1998, the era of the “Information Superhighway.” Duncan said the cable industry needed to assist with ConnectED “as fast as you can,” saying providing schools with faster Internet could be accomplished for a small fee added on to monthly cable bills, which he compared to the price of a postage stamp. Duncan said digital textbooks could represent a significant change for students, since typically textbooks are purchased in seven-year cycles. “We know information is changing by the minute,” said Duncan. “In education, we change far too slowly.” Discovery Education Senior Vice President Scott Kinney said that with digital textbooks, educators can “take that content and literally update it overnight.” Duncan told the NCTA audience that he hoped children would look back and “know the cable industry did the right thing.” Technology has changed how teachers and parents deal with education, Douglas Levin, State Educational Technology Directors Association (STEDA) executive director, also said at the show Wednesday. Technology is different because kids have access to smartphones and tablets and the content is rich, said Levin. For educators to make full use of this technology, they must understand how to use it, said executives from Common Sense Media, Discovery Education, STEDA, Cable in the Classroom and Partnership for 21st Century Skills. While 96 percent of teachers think technology programs are important to prepare young people for their future, only 18 percent understand how to bring technology into the classroom, according to the Leading Education by Advancing Digital Commission, a group that advises the FCC and Department of Education. This technology enhances teaching and learning because it speeds up the delivery of content and teachers can get updated information overnight. “We deliver our services over a browser on a cloud platform. When the Higgs Boson particle was discovered, we had the capability with this cloud database to include an article or video that is published overnight so teachers who go back that service, they have access to that content,” Kinney told us. Common Sense Media President Amy Guggenheim Shenkan identified three key initiatives for the organization. It wants to empower parents to make good decisions about what their kids should watch, create learning ratings to assess potential in digital content and deal with education to help kids and educators develop learning inside and outside the classroom, she said. “We want to create a learning system for consumers and make it easy for educators to find great content,” said Shenkan. Creating digital citizenship education was key to Cable in the Classroom and Common Sense Media. “We want to have Internet safety and security and for kids to have a positive media footprint,” said Frank Gallagher, Cable in the Classroom executive director. Close to half of the K-12 schools across the country use Common Sense digital literacy media, said Shenkan. Shifts in technology allow schools to meet long-standing goals that were previously unachievable, said Levin. As school districts continue to slash budgets, schools are “trying to meet their needs with technology” while they are “starting to compete with schools at a global level,” said STEDA’s Levin. “Learning is 24/7 and opportunities need to be available inside and outside the classroom,” he said. Systems need to focus on student needs, said Steve Paine, Partnership for 21st Century Skills president. “Good systems are student-focused and student-centered. Technology in the hands of an unskilled teacher is irresponsible,” said Paine.

The International Trade Commission sought comments by June 21 on public interest factors arising from Emir Tiar and E.T. Radcliffe’s June 7 complaint alleging violations of Section 337 of the Tariff Act by Disney, Thunderbird and Mindset’s imports of a TV show, the ITC is to say in Thursday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/194XGLO). The petition alleged Mr. Young, a kid’s program shown on the Disney Channel, violates a copyright held by Tiar on an earlier pilot program it purportedly copied. The allegedly infringing show is being produced in Canada and imported into the U.S., the petition said. Tiar and Radcliffe are requesting exclusion and cease and desist orders against the proposed respondents. A Disney spokeswoman had no immediate comment.

A spectrum of opinions is likely in the FCC proceeding on a study on the impact of cross-ownership of broadcast stations owned by minorities and women, a broadcast attorney said. The FCC is seeking comments on the study commissioned by the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council (CD June 11 p21). The agency needs to wait for public comment on the findings “before any decisions in the ownership proceeding are made,” said Wilkinson Barker’s David Oxenford on his blog (http://bit.ly/ZJO1Y2). The MMTC-commissioned report by BIA/Kelsey found there was little evidence of such cross-ownership as being the cause of financial concerns, he said. Already citizens groups, like Free Press, “have come out with comments challenging the conclusions reached by the study,” wrote Oxenford. It seems that there will always be those who object to any sort of consolidation, “even between newspapers struggling to maintain their place in the media mix in many markets and broadcasters,” he said. With the continued controversy and the possibility that the decision will be pushed aside until the next quadrennial review, the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule may outlive the newspaper industry itself, he added.

Satellite communications “on the move” (SOTM) solutions provide advantages for many mobile applications, Gilat executives said Wednesday during a webinar. It offers broadband communications up to 10 Mbps on the uplink and provides real-time communication, said Doreet Oren, product marketing director. SOTM solutions are used for digital satellite news gathering (SNG), broadband on trains, emergency response and other applications, she said. Digital SNG through SOTM allows news teams with small vehicles to reach areas where larger vehicles can’t reach, said Miki Barak, director of satellite on the move antennas. It enables news teams “to be first on the scene with a smaller footprint,” he said. In providing broadband Internet on trains, SOTM allows operators to control and monitor the network feed and it provides end users with Wi-Fi access in train cars, he said. Gilat provided satellite Internet service on cargo trains for an experimental project in Africa, Barak said. The company also implemented a collision prevention application collecting and transmitting GPS data and voice to the control center, he said: The application “collected the GPS location of each train and provided the controlling and monitoring of the whole network.” To provide the service, Gilat offers a satellite and cellular combination, he said: This gives better coverage and provides a better user experience “while the train moves at a high speed, and between cities where the areas are less dense with poor cellular coverage.” The solution is enabled by a low profile tracking antenna, which fits on any standard vehicle, said Oren. It also features a block upconverter transmitter that can save costs and allows low power consumption, she said.

Michigan needs statewide broadband access, argued Jim Byrum, president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association, in a Wednesday American Agriculturist op-ed (http://bit.ly/14Xv6rl). “Policymakers from township halls to Capitol Hill must focus on creating and updating telecom policies that support the expansion of robust broadband networks to ensure that people in every part of the country and our state have access to the tools necessary to thrive and succeed,” he wrote. “Michigan’s agricultural industry has been a major economic driver over the past decade, bringing in $91.4 billion annually to the state. To continue that trend, the industry must have access to critical communications infrastructure like mobile broadband networks.” He cited the need for investment and pointed to AT&T’s $1.5 billion investment over the past three years. He slammed “out-of-date government regulations requiring expensive maintenance of old copper-wire phone lines.”

Warren Communications News reporters won two journalism awards in this year’s competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists Washington, D.C., chapter. Both were in the category Newsletter (Washington Reporting). Bryce Baschuk, assistant editor of Communications Daily, won for his story (CD Jan 19/12 p5) on senators who sponsored the Stop Online Piracy Act abandoning the legislation when websites worldwide blacked themselves out in protest. Adam Bender, at the time associate editor of Communications Daily, was a finalist for his story (CD March 5/12 p5) on a company that prepared license applications for not-yet-available spectrum.

A new study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that mental distractions exist for drivers even when they use a hands-free device and the voice-to-text feature of cellphones while behind the wheel. “The research found that as mental workload and distractions increase, reaction time slows, brain function is compromised, drivers scan the road less and miss visual cues, potentially resulting in drivers not seeing items right in front of them including stop signs and pedestrians,” AAA said (http://bit.ly/11fV6xh). “This landmark study is eye-opening and sobering,” said Lon Anderson, AAA Mid-Atlantic’s managing director-public and government affairs. “It proves that hands-free is not a safety ’silver bullet’ and that talking on a cellphone while driving is dangerous, no matter whether hand-held or hands-free. The evidence is in. The issue here is taking your mind off the road while driving as much as taking your eyes off the road, and both are always dangerous.” CTIA respects the AAA study, said spokesman John Walls. “Since 1999 when we launched our first public outreach to today’s ‘It Can Wait’ anti-texting campaign that’s supported by four of the major wireless carriers, the industry is proactively increasing driver awareness on the dangers of unsafe behavior,” he said. “We hope that future studies on this matter will assess the full range of activities and potential distractions, such as eating, drowsiness, personal grooming and reaching for moving objects, to better understand the scope of the situation and to develop technology to enhance the safe driving experience.”