Prometheus Radio Project urged the FCC to clarify and reconsider some new rules related to protecting FM translator input signals in the Sixth Report and Order on the Local Community Radio Act. The report and order “indicates that low power FM stations must protect an FM translator that receives its input signal from another FM translator station on a third adjacent station,” it said in a petition in docket 99-25 (http://bit.ly/Ve91nu). However, the revised rule seems to apply only to LPFM stations “which are on the third-adjacent channel to a translator’s primary station, and not to those which are third-adjacent to another translator,” it said. Prometheus urged the FCC to modify a rule prohibiting authorized LPFM stations from operating if an FM translator or FM booster station demonstrates that the LPFM station is causing actual interference to the FM booster station’s input signal, “provided that the same input signal was in use at the time the LPFM station was authorized.” It should be modified to require that the input signal be in use “prior to the release of the public notice announcing an LPFM application window period,” it said. Prometheus also urged the FCC to require all translator owners to update their records with an electronic “non-form filing.”
The Justice Department asked Arris and Google for more documents related to Arris’s proposed acquisition of the Motorola Home business, Arris said. The request effectively extends the government’s Hart-Scott-Rodino review of the deal until 30 days after each company complies with the request, Arris said. “Both companies intend to respond to the information request as quickly as practicable and continue to work cooperatively with the DOJ in connection with its review,” Arris said.
Fox and Comcast said they signed a new carriage agreement that includes new “TV Everywhere” rights. The deal covers Fox’s TV stations and pay-TV networks. It also lets Comcast’s TV subscribers access Fox’s websites and apps, they said. “There are also longer-term plans to make available next-day full episode streaming of select Fox programming online to authenticated” Comcast video subscribers “for viewing whenever and however they wish to access them,” the companies said.
Libraries are crucially tied to broadband use and the U.S. broadband stimulus program, said the American Library Association in a draft report released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bogi83). One in five public libraries have benefited from the broadband stimulus grants, but “more than 62 percent of libraries report that they are the only provider of no-fee public access to computers and the internet in their communities,” the report said. “Unless strategic investments in U.S. public libraries are broadened and secured, libraries will not be able to provide the innovative and critical services their communities need and demand,” the report said. Among the projects of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, there are an estimated 1,438 projects tying infrastructure to community anchor institutions throughout 42 states, Washington, D.C., and four territories, it said. There are 1,744 public computer center grants throughout 25 states and Washington, D.C., according to the document. It described the efforts happening in many specific states. The final report will be released April 1, the association said.
The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council weighed in with concerns in Monday comments to the FCC (http://bit.ly/V4ZTE9) about the request of Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System Joint Powers Authority (LA-RICS) for additional spectrum in the 700 MHz reserve channels. The council recognizes the needs of LA-RICS but expressed caution: “There are situations in which such permanent use of the 700 MHz reserve channels could conflict with use of those channels for deployable mobile trunked infrastructure as recommended in the NPSTC 2008 Petition for Rulemaking,” the council said. That infrastructure is needed in “disaster situations,” it added, and recommended the concerns “be explored further in comments to a follow-up Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that needs to be issued to address the previous 2008 NPSTC petition, among other outstanding 700 MHz narrowband spectrum issues."
Almost two-thirds of security professionals anticipate a data security breach in the next three years, and 35 percent think they're using the wrong technologies, according to a survey of 230 U.S. security professionals from data protection company SafeNet(http://xrl.us/bogi4t). While 95 percent of respondents “believe network perimeter defenses are effective at keeping unauthorized users out,” 31 percent say their perimeter defenses were breached in the past, and 20 percent were not sure if their perimeter defenses had been breached, SafeNet said. “While the overall IT and threat landscape has dramatically changed over the past several years, the security industry has been slow to adapt to those changes,” SafeNet CEO Dave Hansen said in a statement.
There have been “technical glitches” from the recent merge of the FCC Consolidated Database System (CDBS) and online public file database, NAB told agency officials. TV stations also have encountered “practical issues” as they upload paperwork from public-inspection files at main studios to the agency’s website, the association said (http://bit.ly/V4WbdV) executives told Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau and an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Materials in the CDBS don’t need to be uploaded by broadcasters to public files, which as of Feb. 4 must include many other existing items only kept on paper at TV station studios (CD Jan 31 p12). Broadcasters’ proposal to redo last year’s order requiring the public file go online, to exempt information on how much political campaigns paid for each ad, still is opposed by nonprofit groups, said a filing also posted to docket 00-168 this week (http://bit.ly/YoRwP3). “Without online access to the complete political file, it would be impossible to verify the accuracy of the aggregate figures” for total spending by campaign broadcasters want to report, said the Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition. “Aggregated information is insufficient to ascertain whether stations are meeting their statutory obligations with respect to lowest unit rate” and other things, members of the coalition including the Campaign Legal Center and Free Press told some of the same FCC officials who met with NAB.
President Barack Obama should address copyright law changes so individuals can use their devices freely, said Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Affairs Chris Lewis in a YouTube video from the public interest group (http://xrl.us/bogjav). The video was submitted as a question to Obama for his so-called fireside State of the Union “hangout” on Google Plus, scheduled for Thursday; questions that get the most “likes” will be answered live by Obama. “The U.S. Copyright office recently ruled that it would not allow Americans to choose how they use devices and media files that they bought, even when these uses do not infringe on copyrights,” including ripping a movie from a DVD to watch on an iPad or unlocking a cellphone to use it on a different network, Lewis said in the video. “Americans have already spent good money for these devices,” but they can’t use their belongings in the non-infringing ways they want to, he said. “A small and simple edit to copyright law allowing noncommercial and personal uses to be included in the exemptions would fix this unfair rule” without leading to increased piracy. Lewis said that 65,000 individuals have signed an online White House petition asking Obama to address making unlocking cellphones legal.
After the FCC didn’t act as requested by Jan. 31 on News Corp.’s petition to let all investors vote all their shares on the planned separation of its newspaper assets from most of its TV-related businesses, the firm asked the agency to act by April 1. News Corp.’s August request for declaratory ruling (http://bit.ly/YoN82t) sought a finding that the vote would be in the public interest. The company earlier last year took the unprecedented step of suspending some voting rights so it wouldn’t exceed FCC limits of 25 percent foreign interest in TV stations (CD April 19 p5). “This ruling is for the benefit of certain Class B stockholders, who currently would be subject to a suspension of 40 percent of their voting rights,” Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Government Affairs Maureen O'Connell wrote Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. The company needs time to include mention of any ruling in proxy materials ahead of a stockholder vote expected to take place in early June, said the letter posted Tuesday in docket 12-257 (http://bit.ly/159G7ZU).
Iridium filed a petition for a rulemaking to promote expanded mobile satellite service (MSS) in the Big low earth orbit (LEO) MSS band (http://bit.ly/WZgwyd). Iridium concurrently filed its petition in docket RM-11685, which pertains to Globalstar’s petition for a rulemaking to use its Big LEO spectrum for terrestrial transmissions. Iridium asked the FCC to designate the 1616-1618.725 MHz portion of the Big LEO band “for exclusive use by MSS systems employing time division multiple access techniques rather than code division multiple access techniques,” the petition said. Globalstar’s proposed changes would have a pervasive impact on the Big LEO band “that would have serious implications for the future of critical MSS in the band,” it said. If the FCC intends to pursue Globalstar’s proposal, it should consolidate the two petitions and issue one NPRM “to address the fundamental reexamination of the Big LEO band contemplated by both parties,” Iridium said. Elimination of the ancillary terrestrial component gating criteria and grant to Globalstar of full flexibility of use for terrestrial operations “could change the entire character of the band by giving priority to terrestrial services over MSS,” it added. Globalstar “has no interest in giving any of its allocated spectrum to Iridium,” said Barbee Ponder, Globalstar regulatory affairs vice president. The FCC “should summarily dismiss Iridium’s petition given the fact that the FCC recently conducted a comprehensive review of the Big LEO band in 2008,” he said in a statement. “While Iridium continues to increase its prices on its customer base for service over an aged constellation, those customers -- many of whom are former Globalstar customers -- will now have a real alternative.”