The FCC granted the application of BVM Helping Hands,Grayslake, Ill., to modify the construction permit for WSFI(FM) Antioch, Ill. The application included a request for a limited waiver “to allow otherwise prohibited overlap with NCE [noncommercial educational] station WBSD(FM) Burlington, Wis.,” it said in an order (http://bit.ly/14GqHc8). BVM also agreed to operate on a third adjacent channel to WBSD, and to receive overlap from it, but not cause overlap to it, the commission said. Chicago Public Media and Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, Antioch, Ill., filed petitions to deny the application, and the commission found that the parties “have not raised a substantial and material question of fact warranting further inquiry,” it said.

It should no longer take years to create accessible versions of communications technologies, said acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn Thursday at the M-Enabling Summit, according to a prepared version of her speech. It’s important to talk about how to make new technologies more accessible to seniors and people with disabilities “now, as opposed to later,” because past failures to consider accessibility in a technology’s early stages of development resulted in “retrofit solutions that were more expensive and less effective,” Clyburn said. The FCC has worked hard to make sure seniors and people living with disabilities were being reached in its push to drive up the broadband access rate. The FCC has also been working hard to ensure implementation of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, including rules expanding availability of closed-captioning, text-to-911, video descriptions and creation of the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program, Clyburn said.

The “technically reasonable size” of a duplex and guard band as part of the 600 MHz band plan following an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum is 10 to 12 MHz, Intel executives said in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and staff. Intel “also recommended that the FCC define the technical parameters for any services in the duplex gap and guard band in advance of the auction and a manner that avoids causing harmful interference to adjacent mobile licenses,” said an ex parte filing on the meeting (http://bit.ly/114TaHR). “Otherwise these adjacent channels would no longer be fungible with the other auctioned licenses. In general, Intel advocates that the FCC create auction and service rules that maximize flexibility for the marketplace to determine technology and service outcomes.”

John Dingell, D-Mich., former chairman of the House Commerce Committee, Friday became the longest-serving member of Congress, ever, surpassing the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. Dingell, 86, marked his 57,176th day as a member of the House. He won a special election in 1955 to replace his father, John Dingell Sr., who died in office. “Administrations have come and gone, wars have been fought, and the great headlines of the day have all but faded, but the gentleman from the Great State of Michigan presides,” Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said Friday. Dingell became the longest serving member of the House in history Feb. 11, 2009.

The FCC could do serious harm to the prospects for a successful incentive auction if it limits any carrier’s ability to buy spectrum, said AT&T Senior Vice President Bob Quinn in a blog post. “Some are arguing that the Commission should engineer the auction rules to ensure that Sprint and T-Mobile (both of whom chose not to participate in the last major auction for 700 MHz spectrum) win spectrum,” Quinn wrote (http://bit.ly/15HLazH). “If the incentive auction rules are manipulated to essentially set aside spectrum for these or other providers, less revenue will be generated. Broadcasters, fearing they will not receive top dollar for their spectrum due to that set aside, will contribute less spectrum to the auction. This will, in turn, jeopardize the entirety of the auction including the critical goal of raising the billions of dollars necessary to fund FirstNet, a result that would harm all consumers by depriving our first responders of the tools necessary to fight 21st century threats and protect our country.” Quinn cited a recent letter to the FCC by the Public Safety Alliance on the importance of raising enough money through the auction to pay for FirstNet: “As the PSA reminded us, ’the upcoming incentive auction represents the best and perhaps only chance for the next several years to raise the billions of dollars necessary to fund FirstNet.'” Steve Berry, president of the Competitive Carriers Association, said in response Friday that smaller carriers want AT&T and Verizon Wireless to participate in the auction but not to “walk away with the entire pie” as they largely did in the earlier 700 MHz auction. “AT&T guys want the same thing that Verizon got in the [700 MHz] auction,” Berry said. “They want to bid on a large number of licenses and have no limitations. ... It makes no sense whatsoever to let the two largest carriers walk away with the entire pie.” Sprint and T-Mobile are members of the CCA. “The only way the incentive auction will raise billions of dollars is through healthy competitive bidding that ensures everyone, not just AT&T, has a fair shot,” said T-Mobile Federal Regulatory Vice President Kathleen Ham. “If AT&T is allowed to scare off competition, as it is trying to do now, it will deter bidding by other parties, reduce what AT&T pays for valuable low-band spectrum, restrict the amount of money collected by the government and foreclose on meaningful future competition in wireless broadband.”

Multiple officials urged the FCC to develop standards suitable for digital cable. Montgomery County, Md., receives complaints about digital cable service quality, according to an FCC ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/15TvRVh). The filing described a meeting among NATOA Executive Director Steve Traylor, Montgomery County Office of Cable and Broadband Services Cable and Broadband Administrator Mitsuko Herrera and several members of the FCC Media Bureau. Comcast, RCN and Verizon have switched to digital cable systems in Montgomery County, Herrera said at the meeting, describing the process by which the county deals with complaints. She and another county official recommended the FCC “act expeditiously to adopt updated technical and operational requirements applicable to digital cable systems,” according to the filing. The “lack of digital standards issued by the Commission made it more difficult to resolve technical issues with the cable operators,” Herrera said, noting the county doesn’t have its own standards.

Retired Adm. Mike Mullen will join Sprint’s board as the company’s “Security Director” following the close of the SoftBank/Sprint transaction, Sprint Nextel said Friday (http://bit.ly/11pjcW2). Mullen “will oversee Sprint’s compliance with the company’s National Security Agreement with the U.S. government and serve as the U.S. government’s contact for all security-related matters,” the company said. Mullen, 66, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 2007 to September 2011.

The Minority Media & Telecom Council urged the FCC to relax the foreign ownership of broadcasting stations restrictions. It also reiterated its stance supporting the adoption of a package of AM radio improvement proposals, like migrating AM radio to TV channels 5 and 6, it said in an ex parte filing about a meeting with staff of acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn (http://bit.ly/ZWbkAc). The commission also should adopt a rule waiver proposal allowing AM stations “to move FM translators farther away to rebroadcast stronger signals,” it said in several dockets including 09-182 and 07-294. MMTC continued urging the FCC to seek public comment on MMTC’s cross-ownership study (CD May 31 p1) and to direct SoftBank, Dish Network and Sprint Nextel to provide information showing how the proposed transactions to purchase Sprint “would benefit women and minorities and increase broadband access for underserved communities."

Wi-Fi can play a big role in emergencies, and the U.S. can do more as a nation to “harness our civic instinct to come together in times of crisis to keep data flowing,” former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in an article posted on the MIT Technology Review website (http://bit.ly/126XB9O). The article was co-written by Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain. “We can start with an idea that needs no additional technology,” they wrote. “Many people and companies operate Wi-Fi access points. Each of these points -- whether used by apartment roommates, Starbucks patrons, or cell subscribers who get Wi-Fi ‘off-load’ from their service providers -- is connected to the Internet and often remains so even if cellular voice and data towers are out or overloaded.” The Internet offers “tremendous” potential benefits, the article said. “The same folks who contemplated rushing to a hospital to give blood, or merchants who deplete their stores of bottled water without fretting about the cost, can share their network access in a way that can make a huge difference to fellow citizens in distress. More ambitiously, recall that citizens in the midst of an emergency without working cell service still possess, in their smartphones and laptops, two-way radios that make their cell and Wi-Fi services function. So-called ad hoc networking technology can bind these radios together during times of crisis, creating a network that could be useful even if no one within it had access to the broader Internet."

The FTC should “examine the practices of patent assertion entities (PAEs) that wrongfully target end users” and use its authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act if it uncovers unfair and deceptive practices, 18 House lawmakers told FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez in a Friday letter (http://1.usa.gov/15TuUMQ). The letter -- sent by Reps. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, and Judy Chu, D-Calif., and signed by members including Reps. Zoe Lofrgen, D-Calif., Jared Polis, D-Colo., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah -- cited examples of PAEs targeting “end users who are the downstream users of technology,” including “individual consumers, non-profits, local governments, and small to large businesses.” In a statement (http://1.usa.gov/18cfgAs), Chu urged the FTC to get involved, saying the agency “has a role to play in ensuring every American consumer is protected from those who use wrongful business practices to make a quick buck.” An update to the patent system is needed “to protect end users from these abusive and costly lawsuits, [or else] patent trolls will continue to stifle American innovation and job creation,” Farenthold said in a statement. The FTC could not confirm that it had received the letter.