The FCC defended its denial of Spectrum Five’s request for a review of the International Bureau’s decision to grant EchoStar special temporary authority to move its EchoStar 6 satellite (CD July 10 p20). Spectrum Five appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The FCC questioned whether Spectrum Five has standing to appeal the ruling and asserted that the decision made was well within agency authority. Spectrum Five is a privately held company formed in 2004 to develop and operate satellite systems, and does not yet have any satellites in operation. “This case lies in the heartland of agency discretion: the Commission’s judgment involving the technically complex allocation of orbital slots and the evaluation of the public interest in light of arrangements with foreign nations,” the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1g4o2RU). “Spectrum Five questions the agency’s policy judgment, but the Commission acted reasonably and explained its actions. Nothing more is required."

CTIA unveiled a website aimed at helping wireless subscribers make sense of the apps on their phones. CTIA, its members and the app developer community “created KnowMyApp.org so you know how the most popular apps use data,” CTIA said Thursday. “With Intertek Testing Services North America, we offer data usage estimates on some of the most popular apps in the Apple and Google stores.” Offering advice to help networks and devices run better, including using Wi-Fi connections when possible, CTIA said: “Adjust your apps’ settings to stop or minimize updates unless you're on a secure Wi-Fi hotspot. Minimize apps that aren’t in use so they're not running in the background. Uninstall any apps you don’t use.”

A district court does not have jurisdiction under the Hobbs Act to review an FCC order in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case when the plaintiff does not challenge the validity of the order, the FCC said in an amicus brief filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the case from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Mark Mais filed suit against Gulf Coast Collection Bureau. Mais charged the debt collection company “violated the TCPA by using a predictive dialer to make between 15 and 30 calls to his cellular telephone number, and left four messages, in an effort to collect a debt Mais had incurred for medical services,” the FCC said (http://fcc.us/1bsBppH). “Mais’s wife had provided the cellular telephone number on his behalf at the time the medical services were rendered.” Gulf Coast sought summary judgment, citing a 2008 FCC ruling that since the calls had been made with express consent by Mais, via his wife, Gulf Coast could not be held liable for violating the TCPA. The district court let the case proceed, “holding it was not bound by the 2008 FCC decision” and “the Hobbs Act did not divest it of jurisdiction because ’the Plaintiff does not seek to collaterally attack an FCC order in any respect,'” the FCC said. The agency disagreed. “Section 402(a) of the Communications Act ... specifies that (with certain exceptions not applicable here) any challenge to a final order of the FCC must be brought under the Hobbs Act,” the FCC said. “The Hobbs Act, in turn, gives the courts of appeals ‘exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in part), or to determine the validity of’ such action.” Upholding the lower court’s decision would have many negative implications, the FCC said. “If the district court’s decision is left to stand, the validity of FCC orders and rules could be called into question in a host of collateral challenges in which the FCC is not a party and as to which its lawyers have no notice,” the agency said. “That result raises the specter of conflicting opinions from different courts as to whether a particular FCC order or rule is, or is not, valid. ... There would be little point to consolidating challenges to agency orders in a single court of appeals if the validity of the agency’s order also could be challenged during the course of private litigation in courts across the country."

The FCC should grant time extensions to stations that need to buy new equipment to comply with the commission’s proposed procedural update to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act rules, said NAB in comments filed in response to the commission’s November FNPRM on the proposed update (http://bit.ly/1aaVmBV). The proposed changes are prompted by changes in March to the Advanced Television Systems Committee algorithm used to calculate loudness (CD Nov 5 p18). Because the CALM Act legislation references the old standard, the commission proposal would update the language with the new standard. NAB supports the proposed change, and said most stations should be able to follow the proposed new standard with “relatively low-cost software upgrades” within the proposed one-year deadline. However, some stations may need to buy additional equipment, and may need time to do it, since most 2014 budgets have already been finalized, NAB said. The commission should “clarify that it will look favorably on requests for waivers for extensions of time” to comply with the proposed new standards, NAB said.

The FCC should maintain a “flexible regime” in its oversight of closed captions, said NAB in an ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1cUfWad). Broadcasting is a “diverse industry” with “some errors and latency issues that cannot be avoided, due to human and transmission issues,” said NAB. The commission should continue to allow broadcasters to use the Electronic Newsroom Technique (ENT) to provide captions, the filing said. A phase-out of ENT “could likely result in a loss of competitive local news coverage, as well as additional voices in the market,” NAB said. Instead, the commission should “work with industry to examine how ENT can be better utilized to ensure local viewers have improved access to important news and information,” said the filing.

GCI subsidy Denali Media will buy three Alaska CBS-affiliated stations from Ketchikan TV, Denali said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1dFToMb). The stations involved in the transaction are KXLJ Juneau, KTNL-TV Sitka and KUBD Ketchikan, Denali said. The deal is expected to close in Q2 2014, Denali said.

Four House members signed onto the Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA) as co-sponsors, said an NAB news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1eGw6uQ). They are Reps. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., Robert Hurt, R-Va., Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, and Bill Pascrell, D-N.J. The LRFA was introduced in the House in February as H.Con. Res. 16 (http://1.usa.gov/1bstiK2) and in the Senate in March as S.Con. Res. 6 (http://1.usa.gov/19jGhxF), said the NAB. The bill says Congress “should not impose any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge relating to the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station for broadcasting sound recordings over-the-air, or on any business for such public performance of sound recordings,” it said. The LRFA has 188 co-sponsors in the House and 12 co-sponsors in the Senate, NAB said.

Level 3 and the New York State Thruway Authority (NYSTA) “have resolved their differences and have generally settled matters” regarding placement of Level 3 facilities in NYSTA rights of way, Level 3 told the FCC Thursday (http://bit.ly/1bsEhmI). Level 3 asked the FCC in 2009 to preempt “unreasonable, unfair and discriminatory annual rents” required by the NYSTA for Level 3 infrastructure. Level 3 had argued that the rates were hundreds of times higher than prevailing charges and prevented the company from providing middle-mile broadband transport to small- and mid-sized communities along the Thruway (CD July 28/09 p7). Level 3 is “no longer seeking any relief vis a vis NYSTA” in state proceedings, it said Thursday.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Board of Puerto Rico asked to withdraw its petition to opt out of the National Lifeline Accountability Database, in a letter to the FCC posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/18N4MZh). The board had previously sought a participation waiver because it had already implemented a similar database. Due to cuts to the board’s budget, however, it won’t be able to make the Puerto Rico database compliant with the Lifeline rules, it said. “The Board commits to maintaining the current Puerto Rico database to retain its ability to eliminate and prevent duplicates in the Lifeline rolls until such time as Puerto Rico has been successfully migrated to the national system,” which will happen in the spring, it said.

It’s time for new telecom policies to match the “new marketplace,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick said in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ijg7DA). One hundred years after the Kingsbury Commitment that made AT&T a government-sanctioned monopoly in exchange for “agreeing to pervasive economic regulation,” it’s time for “early 20th century policies” to sunset, McCormick said. “Today the notion of a single voice provider is quaint, at best,” he said. “After 100 years, it’s time to leave the wireline-centric regulation of the monopoly voice era behind, focus on the broader social compact between network operators and their customers, and embrace our nation’s highly competitive, consumer driven, Internet-enabled future."