The FCC should look for new bands for wireless microphones to use, said NAB and CTIA in comments posted online in docket 14-166 Thursday. “It is critical for the FCC to immediately identify new bands on which wireless microphones may operate,” said NAB, urging the FCC to identify the new bands before the incentive auction ends. The FCC should explore new bands for wireless mics but require unlicensed operations to “cease use of licensed spectrum in areas where a 600 MHz licensee has commenced service,” CTIA said. The FCC should modify rules for unlicensed use so that unlicensed operations “adequately protect the substantial investments of 600 MHz licensees,” CTIA said. CEA also expressed concern about wireless microphone interference: “The Commission must weigh the costs and benefits of expanding access to spectrum for wireless microphone operators and undertake rigorous technical analyses to address potential interference concerns before it decides on any course of action.”

Viewing video has overtaken playing games as the most popular entertainment activity on tablets, said a Futuresource Consulting report that polled consumers in France, Germany, the U.K. and U.S. Some 57 percent of tablet owners in the four countries watch video on their mobile device -- vs. 53 percent who play games -- and 24 percent pay-to-view video content, Futuresource said. The U.S. leads all markets in watching paid-for video on tablets with 34 percent of users paying for video content, it said. Large tablets appear to encourage more viewing, as 62 percent of large tablet users said they watched video on their devices compared with 53 percent of small tablet owners, it said. The TV continues to gain use as a connected device, said the industry research firm Tuesday. Nearly 80 percent of connected TV owners stream video, and 63 percent access a premium video service at least once a week, it said. Households with children under 12 are 20 percent more likely to subscribe to TV services, said the data. Netflix subscribers are four times more likely to own a digital media adapter than Netflix non-subscribers. Twelve percent of households with kids had an UltraViolet account vs. 4 percent of households with no kids, and households with kids outnumbered those without as packaged media buyers and renters by 38 percent to 18 percent. Deleting premium packages from TV subscriptions, known as cord shaving, reached 17 percent of U.S. consumers in October 2014. That was up from 13 percent in September 2013, led by 19- to 25-year-olds and households with children, said the survey. U.S. pay TV subscribers stood at 65 million last fall versus 10 million streaming VOD customers, while 35 million U.S. viewers fit into both groups, it said. Music streaming is the most popular form of music consumption in the four countries, with 29 percent of respondents reporting they listen to free music services and 42 percent to Internet radio stations. The U.S. skewed higher at 50 percent of respondents who reported listening to any type of music service. Only 5 percent of the total base said it pays for a subscription music service. The survey was conducted during September and October with a nationally representative sample of just more than 1,000 consumers in each country.

The FCC Media Bureau violated the Freedom of Information Act, including Section 552, said the Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation in a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler Tuesday. A Nov. 26 order by the bureau wasn’t given a DA number or indexed on the commission’s FOIA index for 2014, the letter said. The order wasn’t listed in the commission’s Daily Digest, its recent releases page on its website, the FCC record or in privately published reports like Bloomberg BNA, Lexis or Westlaw, it said. A public notice that a waiver was requested also wasn't published, the letter said. In the order, the bureau denied a request for a permanent waiver of the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule to allow a transfer of five FM radio stations and a daily newspaper in Virginia. “Because this order was not published nor even included in the Daily Digest, stakeholders would have no way to learn of this decision,” the letter said. The bureau didn’t immediately comment.

It's “appropriate” for video programming distributors (VPD) to bear the responsibility for closed captioning complaints, said a group of programmers including Starz Entertainment in a jointly filed reply comment in FCC docket 05-231 posted Monday. Replies responded to a narrow NPRM asking if programmers should have to keep contact information or caption quality certifications on file at the FCC. But many filers touched on the larger question of whether programmers should share caption quality responsibility with distributors. VPDs have a “direct business relationship with viewers” and a local business presence, the programmers said. “Imposing a compliance certification requirement on programmers effectively would reverse the compliance burden which VPDs have borne for nearly 20 years,” the programmers said. Comcast’s comments also focused on the responsibility question. VPDs aren't responsible for most caption problems, it said. “Comcast’s experience does not support claims that VPD equipment is at fault for the vast majority of captioning issues.” AT&T said shared responsibility would obviate the need for programmers to file certifications with the FCC. Shifting the burden and requiring certifications “would not be effective in improving the viewing experience for deaf and hard of hearing viewers or promoting the efficient resolution of consumer complaints,” PBS said. CenturyLink said it supported both the certification requirement and proposals to make programmers partially responsible for caption problems. The FCC should "allow the recently-adopted Best Practices to take effect and work with industry to improve captioning quality before making any determination that mandatory certification filings will make a meaningful difference for consumers," NAB said. "Yet another abrupt shift in captioning rules only serves to discourage industry investment in effective captioning solutions."

Security holes in the NFL Mobile app “have been resolved on both iOS and Android,” a spokeswoman for Wandera said Friday. That mobile data gateway alerted the public Tuesday to potential security issues that allegedly made highly valuable personal information at risk of being exposed by hackers, ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl game. Scanning technologies used by Wandera allegedly discovered that after NFL Mobile app users logged into the app, the app “leaks their username and password in a secondary, insecure (unencrypted) API [application program interface] call,” a Wandera news release said. An app user’s username and email address were also leaked in an unencrypted format, allowing a hacker to access an app user’s full NFL profile, which contains personal data. “We’ve looked into this vulnerability and it’s been addressed,” a spokesman for NFL Media said Friday.

Among Broadcom’s set-top box customers, “developed markets are upgrading to new media server architectures and we're starting to see the first Ultra HD boxes roll out,” CEO Scott McGregor said Thursday on an earnings call. Operators such as Dish Network in North America, Free in France and Tata in India “have begun to offer Ultra HD set-top boxes to their subscribers,” McGregor said. “We're expecting at least 15 operators across multiple regions to launch 4K television service in 2015.” In connectivity, Broadcom is seeing “increasing adoption” of new wireless technologies such as 802.11ac that help drive up average selling prices of smartphones, he said. “We're broadening our connectivity business beyond smartphones into adjacent markets,” such as wireless home audio, and “we're powering both Denon and Harman Kardon's WiFi home audio systems,” he said. “We've also received our first design win for our wireless charging solution. We continue to diversify into new markets such as Internet of Things, automotive, wearables and small cells. In the Internet of Things market, design activity remains high with our current products and we're in the process of refreshing our portfolio with purposeful products that are optimized specifically for different market segments.” In Q&A, McGregor described smart watches as “an interesting business” that’s “hard to forecast.” He cited “some people out there who see high forecasts in that and I think we would certainly get a piece of that.” Broadcom componentry is embedded “in most of the watches that have been shipped to date and we believe we can see some position in that market," he said. "There will be different kinds of growth drivers involved and we'll just have to see how the year develops."

The National Hispanic Media Coalition will promote universal and affordable broadband, telecom networks and inclusive media for the Latino community as part of its 2015 policy priorities, NHMC said in an email Tuesday. NHMC will expand public and private broadband adoption programs for Latinos who lack broadband connections and promote telecom policies that treat Latino consumers fairly, it said. The coalition will continue to urge the FCC to reclassify Internet access as a common-carrier service under Communications Act Title II, it said. It will also focus on privacy protections for Latinos in the digital age, it said.

The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted a one-year extension Wednesday of the FCC waiver for advanced communications services (ACS) accessibility rules to a basic class of e-readers, in an order in docket 10-213. E-reader makers had sought a waiver extension for an ongoing period of time, while groups representing the blind and vision impaired had opposed any extension of the initial one-year waiver (see 1411120048). The e-readers in the narrow class are primarily designed for reading text-based digital works, even though they're capable of accessing ACS, the bureau said. It won’t require e-reader manufacturers covered by the waiver to comply with section 14.20, 14.21 or 14.31 of the commission’s rules until Jan. 28, 2016. The bureau urged manufacturers to consider accessible design early on in development stages in future generations of e-readers "to provide ACS as one of their primary functions." "We're disappointed to hear that, but we're glad they haven't granted a permanent waiver," said a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind. "We don't feel that e-readers should be exempt at all [from ACS rules]. The content of e-readers is 1s and 0s, so it's not inherently visual and can be rendered as pure Braille or other formats." The federation will submit further comments to the FCC, he said. A lawyer for the Coalition of e-Reader Manufacturers that had sought the waiver extension for Amazon, Kobo and Sony declined to comment.

The FCC's decisions in the incentive auction order make it harder for broadcasters who choose not to sell their spectrum, NAB and Sinclair said in their final briefs filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday. The order's use of TV Study, a 39-month construction deadline and other policies “steamroll” broadcasters in order to secure more spectrum for the auction, the broadcasters said. But NAB's and Sinclair's arguments that the Spectrum Act requires the FCC to use “outdated” OET-69 software are “unreasonable,” the FCC said in its own final brief. The older software can't perform the calculations “necessary to ensure that all stations that will remain on the air following the auction are assigned channels in accordance with the provisions of the Spectrum Act,” quickly enough, the FCC said. The commission's argument that changing the software still fulfills the Spectrum Act's directive not to change the “methodology” doesn't measure up, NAB and Sinclair said. With TVStudy, the commission also is changing the data inputs for terrain elevation and the station specific grids used by the older software, the broadcasters said. “There may be some sense” to the FCC’s argument against using archaic software, NAB said. “But there is sense, too, in Congress’s judgment that the certainty that comes with a familiar standard is critical to achieving a successful, voluntary incentive auction.” In a joint brief CCA, CEA and CTIA also attacked NAB for trying to force the commission to use “archaic software.” The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcaster's coalition also filed a final brief attacking Sinclair's challenges against the construction deadline. “The post-auction transition period reasonably balances the competing public interest objectives of preserving television service and expediting the introduction of new wireless service on reclaimed spectrum,” EOBC said.

The established multichannel video programming distributor ecosystem is “most certainly going to lose a meaningful number of existing subscribers -- the only question is how many millions and how fast?” said BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield in a research note Monday, after a weeklong review of Sling TV service. “After playing with Sling TV, it is hard not to love the ease-of-use, similar user interface across devices and quality of the experience,” Greenfield said of the $20-per-month plan that offers content from Disney (including ESPN), along with Turner, Scripps and A&E in the future. BTIG “remains confident that free, over-the-air broadcast television networks will not be part of the base Sling TV package,” Greenfield said, saying a “subset of broadcast stations may end up being offered as a premium add-on to Sling.” Among Greenfield’s highlighted callouts: Sling TV's linear channel navigation capability, which offers extra kids’ and news/info packages available as add-ons to the basic service. He said he was able to watch the Australian Open on Sling TV’s iPad version while simultaneously browsing channels. He cited free video-on-demand, which enables users to watch shows that already have started airing or aired earlier in the day. Transactional movies-on-demand allows users to rent movies in SD or HD for a 24-hour viewing period, which includes being able to start a movie on one device and finish on another that’s part of a universal watchlist. Users can pause, rewind and fast forward linear content on some channels, he said. He also said the quality of the video stream fluctuated, at one time delivering at a 3.7 Mbps bitrate and at another time a 4.7 Mbps data stream. On bandwidth consumption, Greenfield said a Sling TV subscriber who watches the industry average of five hours of streamed TV per day at a 4.7 Mbps bitrate would consume 320 GB of data per month. Streaming two hours per day at 3.7 Mbps would eat 100 GB per month, he said. A “significant portion of Sling TV subscribers" will pair their subscription with some combination of Amazon, Hulu and Netflix streaming, he said, resulting in monthly data consumption that will be “quite significant.”