The FCC Media Bureau will “closely scrutinize” pending and current transactions that involve sharing arrangements and deals to give one station right of first refusal purchase rights over another, the bureau said in a public notice Wednesday evening (http://fcc.us/1gaJJwk). “This is not a change in our underlying rules or the policies on which they are based,” said bureau Chief Bill Lake in a news release (http://fcc.us/1glEAGt). Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly objected to the notice being issued on delegated authority. “This abuse of delegated authority is all the more unfortunate because it is entirely unnecessary,” said Pai in a statement (http://fcc.us/1iC9sWv). “Our policy has been changed without a commission vote. That’s not the way we should do business.” O'Rielly said (http://fcc.us/1lXAOGX) that “this guidance presupposes the media ownership item [is] to be voted later this month and may deter future transactions that could increase local news and other beneficial diverse programming for communities."

A draft order to make joint sales agreements attributable “appears flawed and not in the public interest,” said FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a written statement Monday. “Even before receiving the specifics of the proposal, I strenuously disagree with the intended direction.” O'Rielly and fellow Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai have not been involved in the drafting process for the new rules (CD Feb 12 p1). The draft order was set to be circulated to all commissioners Monday. O'Rielly said the JSA proposal would impair the ability of broadcasters to offer local programming and “would establish a very subjective ‘Mother-May-I’ approach to obtain or retain a JSA, which is a recipe for market uncertainty and reduced offerings.” O'Rielly said he hopes the order will be “dramatically changed” before being presented to the commission. The JSA report and order was listed on the commission’s released tentative agenda for the March 31 meeting, along with an NPRM seeking comment on disclosure of shared services agreements. The meeting will also feature a draft order banning joint negotiation of retransmission consent negotiations and an FNPRM seeking comment on whether to eliminate the network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules. The commission will also consider an FNPRM kicking off the 2014 quadrennial review, the agenda said (http://fcc.us/1cPAnWZ).

The FCC Wireless Bureau extended to May 16 the deadline for replies in a proceeding to decide whether to expand mobile wireless services on planes. They were originally due March 17 (CD Jan 16 p17), and CTIA on Feb. 28 sought a 60-day delay (CD March 5 p17). The bureau agreed with requests for an extension made by CTIA, AeroMobile and Panasonic Avionics, stating that an extension is warranted to ensure the FCC obtains a complete and thorough technical record.

The FCC will take up rules for the AWS-3 auction and a first report and order on rules for the unlicensed use of the 5.1 GHz band at its March 31 open meeting, the agency confirmed Monday. Industry officials have said the AWS-3 auction is eagerly awaited, though it is widely expected to raise less money than the TV incentive auction, the other big auction on the FCC’s plate. The 5.1 GHz rules are aimed at opening an additional 100 MHz of spectrum for unlicensed use in the Unlicensed-National Information Infrastructure-1 (U-NII-1) band (CD March 3 p1), following rules expected to be harmonized with the 5.7 GHz U-NII-3 band. The AWS-3 notice proposes service rules for the spectrum, a senior FCC official said Monday. A notice on auction procedures is to follow as well as a notice on the process for clearing the band, much of which is now in use by federal agencies. The notice doesn’t address the lower part of the former J-block (2020-2025 MHz), the official said. What is in the notice is the 1695-1710 MHz band, to be offered on an unpaired basis broken into a 5 MHz and 10 MHz block, licensed in Economic Area chunks. Also to be offered in the auction are 1755-1780 and 2155-2180 MHz. They will be offered in three paired blocks: A 5 x 5 MHz paired block at 1755-1760 and 2155-2160, sold as smaller Cellular Market Area licenses, with the remainder offered in two 10 x 10 EA-sized paired blocks, the official said.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court shot down the federal government’s attempt to hold phone records for longer than five years. It did so in an opinion dated Friday and signed by FISC Judge Reggie Walton. The federal government had requested to hold the records longer in an amendment to the minimization procedures. But “the amended procedures would further infringe on the privacy interests” of U.S. citizens, Walton said, pointing out that most people whose phone metadata is collected in bulk by the government never had been subject to investigation. The government had indicated it wanted to keep the metadata due to certain civil cases it was involved in, but it did not provide many details. The purported need for the metadata is totally unrelated to foreign intelligence needs, Walton observed. He also criticized how this metadata could be “improperly used or disseminated” if kept longer.

FTC Commissioner Julie Brill emphasized telemedicine, data de-identification and the U.S.-EU safe harbor agreement as issues she believes will dominate her agenda in the coming months, she said Friday during a wide-ranging Q-and-A at the International Association of Privacy Professionals conference. While discussing the FTC’s working relationship with other federal agencies, Brill brought up the commission’s overlapping healthcare data security jurisdiction. “I think there will be a lot of interesting things coming up around telemedicine,” she said. Siloed privacy laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act will be less effective in this data-driven economy, Brill said. “This is information that doesn’t know any silos.” A number of privacy experts have called on Congress to give the FTC sole authority over healthcare data security. Brill also extolled the virtues of FTC Chief Technologist Latanya Sweeney. “She’s a de-identification expert,” Brill said. “We're all hoping to work more deeply with her on how we can provide guidance, best practices and information to industry.” In a Thursday Q-and-A at the conference, FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez also highlighted Sweeney’s upcoming de-identification work (CD March 7 p13). Brill said “we don’t have her for very long,” so the commission will “milk her for everything we can get while we do.” Sweeney is on leave from Harvard University while at the FTC (http://bit.ly/O3rOBG). Brill also stressed the degree to which the FTC is involved in ongoing safe harbor improvement discussions. She and Ramirez meet frequently with their European counterparts, Brill said. “I'm a big believer in playing well during a standoff,” she joked. As part of the ongoing improvements to safe harbor, Brill said she would like to see alternative dispute resolution fees abolished. “Why a consumer would have to pay to have their dispute resolved to me is just ... “ she said, pausing. “We gotta get beyond that.” Brill also said she would like safe harbor to eventually include “some form of accountability mechanisms.” That move “would give people more comfort, she said. These two issues don’t “need to be negotiated,” she said, calling them “low-hanging fruit.”

Globalstar is optimistic that NCTA, its members and the FCC can move toward a mutually acceptable resolution on expanding use in the unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII). Globalstar and NCTA discussed specific antenna requirements and NCTA’s proposal “represents a significant step toward resolving the technical issues pending in this proceeding,” Globalstar said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-49 (http://bit.ly/1chimpy). With NCTA’s antenna standard, a notification requirement for significant outdoor U-NII-1 deployments and a 2 dB noise rise backstop, Globalstar is hopeful that the FCC can move forward this month with an order, the company said. The FCC should apply the antenna requirement generally to outdoor U-NII-1 access points that operate up to 1 watt, it said. The FCC shouldn’t adopt NCTA’s proposed exemption from this requirement for outdoor U-NII-1 access points “that operate at a maximum conducted power of 250 mW or lower.” The filing is a response to NCTA’s letter to the Office of Engineering and Technology (http://bit.ly/1fdX2fk).

The FCC’s E-rate NPRM netted more than 1,500 comments and ex parte filings offering suggestions; now the Wireline Bureau wants more “focused comment,” it said in a public notice Thursday (http://fcc.us/1mZPkiX). Comments are due April 7 in docket 13-184 on how best to meet the agency’s proposed goals for the E-rate program. “Based on the extensive input the Commission has received, it appears that meeting the Commission’s proposed goals for the E-rate program will require that, in the near term, the program focus on providing the support necessary to ensure schools and libraries can afford high-speed connectivity to and within schools and libraries, even as the Commission develops a long-term approach that allows applicants to scale up capacity while driving down costs,” the bureau said. The bureau is seeking comments on three specific areas: (1) How best to focus E-rate funds on high-capacity broadband, especially high-speed Wi-Fi and internal connections; (2) how the agency might phase out support for traditional voice services in order to focus more funding on broadband; and (3) whether the commission should authorize “demonstration projects or experiments” to help the agency “test new, innovative ways to maximize cost-effective purchasing in the E-rate program.” The bureau asked for comments on a pilot program proposed by the American Library Association “aimed at temporarily increasing the discount level for targeted libraries, prioritizing based on public-private partnerships, and providing technical assistance in order to ‘catalyze innovation’ in advancing library services.” Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, who now represents the Urban Libraries Council, thinks the bureau is taking a “very innovative” approach to funding. Hundt suggests libraries measure the bandwidth per user at peak hours and “specifically suggest very efficient mechanisms to raise the bandwidth per user at peak hours.” It’s important to test Wi-Fi connectivity throughout the building, and determining whether slow bandwidth is due to a wall, a bad router or the need for more fiber, he said. “You don’t have to do it for all 9,000 systems or all 100,000 buildings; you do it for a statistically significant sample,” he said. Libraries should also “suggest model administrative practices” such as model contracts, model bidding and model applications, he said. “Ensuring that our nation’s schools and libraries have access to high-speed, high-capacity broadband connections is a national priority,” said Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., in a statement. “I am pleased that the FCC has released a Public Notice today charting the next course on the path to modernize the E-Rate program."

The FCC should identify carriers that have supplied Customer Proprietary Network Information to the government, NARUC said in a filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1cC7zkv). The commission should then “investigate whether the carriers have complied with Section 222 and the FCC’s implementing regulations,” NARUC said. Section 222 of the Telecom Act requires carriers to protect CPNI. Due to recent media reports that AT&T and other carriers have been compensated by the NSA to provide CPNI, it’s incumbent on the FCC to investigate which carriers have supplied data in violation of the rule, NARUC said. “The FCC has the authority, the resources, and the clear obligation to investigate these matters,” it said. NARUC was responding to a petition by Public Knowledge and other public interest groups seeking a declaration that the sale of consumer phone records to the government violates the Act.

Correction: The Kansas City where Google Fiber began was in Kansas (CD Mar 5 p16).