The FCC Enforcement Bureau adopted a consent decree with KSBJ Educational Foundation for the apparent unauthorized operation of a fixed earth station. Last year, the International Bureau dismissed KSBJ’s request for special temporary authority to operate an earth station because the request was defective, the Enforcement Bureau said in an order (http://bit.ly/1bT6PsE). The International Bureau later granted a second request but because it appeared that KSBJ, based in Humble, Texas, may have operated its earth station after the station license expired, “the International Bureau referred this matter to the Enforcement Bureau for investigation and possible enforcement action,” the order said. KSBJ agreed to make a voluntary contribution of $16,000 to the U.S. Treasury, the order said.
National Religious Broadcasters continued to urge the FCC to take action on the rulemaking to allow noncommercial stations to raise funds on the air for other nonprofit organizations. It will serve a vital public interest “not only by facilitation of the charitable impulses of listeners and viewers, but also by aiding non-profit groups in meeting critical community needs,” NRB said in an ex parte filing in Media Bureau dockets 12-106 and 13-249 (http://bit.ly/18ZSlat). NRB also repeated its support for the effort to revitalize the AM band, it said. The filing recounted a meeting this week with Commissioner Ajit Pai.
Intelsat requested 30-day special temporary authority beginning Jan. 23 for its Nuevo, Calif., C-band earth station. Intelsat intends to use the earth station, call sign E040125, “to provide launch and early orbit phase services for the ABS-2 satellite that is expected to be launched” Jan. 23, it said in its application to the FCC International Bureau (http://bit.ly/1ce0ZEX).
Gray Television will sell two stations it’s in the process of acquiring from Hoak Media to Nexstar Broadcasting for $33.5 million, Gray said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1i4PKBf). The Hoak deal involves eight stations, and Gray announced plans in November to divest Hoak stations in Panama City, Fla., and Grand Junction, Colo., to satisfy FCC ownership rules. In a related deal, Mission Broadcasting, which is affiliated with Nexstar, will acquire another station from Parker Broadcasting, Gray said. The deals will increase Nexstar’s “portfolio of stations that it owns, operates, programs or to which it provides sales and other services” to 108 stations in 56 markets, reaching close to 16 percent of all U.S. TV households, said Nexstar a new release (http://bit.ly/JMnyoy).
EBay completed the $800 million acquisition of mobile device payment company Braintree, which will be a PayPal service and run by Braintree CEO Bill Ready, said eBay in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ce23Zx). Braintree handles payment for companies like Airbnb, OpenTable and Uber, and its Venmo app allows for payments by mobile devices, said eBay. It projected Braintree will have $12 billion in payment volume this year, a third “driven” by mobile payments. PayPal will handle $20 billion in transactions on mobile devices this year, eBay CEO John Donahoe has said.
Disney countered the Center for Digital Democracy’s filing with the FTC over Disney’s alleged noncompliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Wednesday (CD Dec 19 p15). “Contrary to any suggestion in the press release and complaint filed by the Center for Digital Democracy, we are fully mindful of our obligations under COPPA and have robust processes in place to meet them. CDD never brought their concerns to us and instead issued an inflammatory and inaccurate release,” said Disney in a statement. COPPA, , which was revised a year ago by the FTC, gives parents more control over their children’s online data (CD Dec 20/12 p19).
The FCC International Bureau dismissed Gogo’s request for special temporary authority to communicate with the Eutelsat 172A satellite at 172 degrees east in the 14.0-14.5 GHz and 11.7-12.2 GHz bands. That satellite isn’t authorized to operate in the 11.7-12.2 GHz frequency, the bureau’s Satellite Division said in a letter to Gogo (http://bit.ly/1bSYLor).
T-Mobile filed at the FCC a list of counties, or parts of counties, it serves in which it can’t use triangulation to locate callers to 911. All made the list “because of insufficient quantity, density, and/or geometry of cell sites in those areas to support network-based triangulation,” T-Mobile said. The nine-page list (http://bit.ly/1beRGhZ) adds 62 counties to the previous list from 2011. The FCC’s 911 location-accuracy rules require carriers to identify callers with a defined level of accuracy on a county-by-county basis, but provide exceptions where dense forestation or the lack of triangulation mean those levels can’t be reached.
Americans, not Europeans, are leading the way on wireless and the use of data, CTIA President Steve Largent said in a Thursday blog post. “There is a troublesome trend occurring where some people are suggesting that the mobile environment in Europe is better for consumers than the U.S.,” Largent said (http://bit.ly/1i4TO4n). “This is bothersome and unfortunate since these individuals fundamentally fail to understand reality, or selectively choose facts to support their beliefs. Around the world, it is understood that the United States is leading the mobile revolution.”
T-Mobile representatives met with FCC Wireless acting Bureau Chief Roger Sherman and others from the bureau to press for spectrum aggregation limits in the TV incentive auction. “The participants observed that low-band spectrum has superior in-building penetration and propagation characteristics than other spectrum,” said a filing on the meeting (http://bit.ly/19fjBEg). “Low-band spectrum is necessary to compete in the wireless marketplace and AT&T and Verizon currently control the vast majority of low-band spectrum.” T-Mobile said Verizon Wireless and AT&T hold 86 percent of commercial spectrum below 1 GHz in the top 10 U.S. markets and more than 80 percent in the top 50 markets.