More than 223 million active numbers were registered on the Do Not Call Registry as of September, the FTC said in a biennial report to Congress Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1ienpbz). During fiscal year 2013, 2,875 businesses and other entities paid more than $14 million to access the registry, the FTC said. The agency cautioned that VoIP calls, Caller ID spoofing and automated dialing technology have “made it easier for individuals and companies who disregard the law to make high volumes of calls at very little cost.” That has led to an increase in illegal robocalls, peaking at about 200,000 complaints per month to the FTC by the end of FY 2012, it said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau asked for comments on a waiver request by ClearRF, which manufactures cell-signal boosters. The company asked for six to 10 months to sell boosters that don’t conform to rules that take effect March 1. Comments are due Jan. 14, replies Jan. 21, said a Monday public notice (http://bit.ly/18Ip0Ds). “ClearRF’s Dual-Band Cellular Signal Amplifiers allow you to receive improved cellular signal on your phone, air card, laptop, cellular router, or any cellular device, wherever you happen to need it; your vehicle, boat, desktop workspace, or RV,” according to the company’s website (clearrf.com).

Two mid-size cable operators are integrating Wi-Fi hotspots, part of a nationwide effort by several operators to provide connections in regions served by their systems to broadband subscribers of any participating company. (See separate report above in this issue.) Most broadband subscribers of Bright House Networks and Cox Communications “can now enjoy even more access to CableWiFi, the nation’s largest WiFi network,” said the operators in a news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1cstWgA). It said “the new hotspots are strategically located to serve areas where customers are most likely to benefit from Internet access” out of their households, with thousands of hotspots in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and other markets.

Neustar added area code 854 for portions of South Carolina served by the existing 843 code, the North American Numbering Plan Administrator said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1ienhsG). Neustar had forecast that numbers in the 843 area code would be exhausted by the end of 2015, it said.

Sony agreed to sell Gracenote to Tribune Co., ending a five-year effort to broadly deploy the music database service and position its automatic content recognition (ACR) software as part of a proposed Internet-based alternative to cable TV. Sony also had planned to use Gracenote to “enhance and accelerate” its digital content. The agreement is for $170 million, less than the $260 million Sony paid for Gracenote in 2008. The Gracenote sale will result in a gain of about $60 million to Sony’s operating income, Sony said. The Gracenote deal is expected to close in Q1, Tribune said. ACR software was designed to enable hardware to recognize the channel, program and advertisement that was playing on a screen. It was developed around an audio technology that was originally created to compare a song’s characteristics, or waveform “fingerprints,” with an archive of music fingerprints. Gracenote also developed the eyeQ interactive program guide (IPG), which it once positioned to compete with Rovi’s TotalGuide IPG. The eyeQ could well play into Tribune’s base of TV and movie metadata, which will be expanded with the addition of Gracenote’s base of 180 million music tracks. “This transaction extends and complements” Tribune’s metadata business while also “deepening” its “slate of subscription services,” said Tribune CEO Peter Liguori in a statement. The acquisition includes Gracenote’s portfolio of 90 patents as well as a business that provides data and information on 1 million TV programs and movies to 30 countries and is installed in 50 million vehicles. Gracenote counts Apple iTunes, MTV and Amazon among its customers.

The FCC should expand the kinds of spectrum included in its screen to evaluate potential spectrum concentration issues, Verizon officials said in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. The FCC should update the screen “to include all suitable and available spectrum,” said an ex parte filing on the meeting (http://bit.ly/1jBGbv4). “They noted that Sprint is aggressively deploying its 2.5 GHz Broadband Radio Service and Educational Broadband Service spectrum to provide 4G LTE service, confirming that this spectrum must be added to the screen. The Commission should also add to the screen the 40 MHz of AWS-4 spectrum held by Dish. As it stands today, the spectrum screen cannot provide a meaningful tool to evaluate potential spectrum concentration issues because it omits substantial amounts of spectrum that are available for, and are actually being used to provide, commercial mobile broadband services."

Entercom donated KWOD(AM), Salem, Ore., to the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. MMTC plans to train new entrants in broadcast ownership, said Entercom and MMTC in a press release (http://bit.ly/1hzQCuX).

Members of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 14 on the group’s recommendations for changing U.S. surveillance law, committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Sunday. The group’s set of 46 recommendations, released last week, included recommending that the government no longer store phone metadata on U.S. citizens (CD Dec 19 p4). The group’s recommendations “make clear that it is time to recalibrate our government’s surveillance programs,” Leahy said in a statement. “Momentum is building for real reform.” Several of the group’s recommendations align with Leahy’s USA Freedom Act (S-1599), the committee said.

The Free State Foundation questioned a report by Britain’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) that wireless subscribers there pay lower prices and get a better deal than consumers in the U.S. “The intense pressure on telecom companies in the UK and other countries in Europe to reduce consumer prices has caused those companies to lose revenue and delay investment in infrastructure and innovation,” wrote FSF Legal Fellow Sarah Leggin (http://bit.ly/1hzNq2f). “Moreover, the plans available for such low prices do not include the data capacity that the average wireless customer today demands. As such, the low prices offered by wireless companies in the UK are not a proper basis for assessing the differences in consumer welfare between the wireless marketplace in the U.S. and the wireless marketplace in the UK."

Communications Daily won’t be published Wednesday, Christmas Day. Our next issue will be Thursday, Dec. 26.