Ruckus Wireless is partnering with the city and county of San Francisco to deliver free public Wi-Fi for the city’s Market Street Corridor, said the company in a news release Monday (http://yhoo.it/1bUtENR). San Francisco’s Department of Technology and Ruckus worked in a public-private partnership to design, build and deploy the network, said Ruckus. The outdoor network will be available starting at the intersection of Market and Castro streets and continuing to the pedestrian corridor at the Embarcadero, it said. The city selected the company because it “overcomes” the physical and technical challenges of bringing wireless connectivity to outdoor environments with its high-capacity coverage requirements, Ruckus said. Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology is able to extend Wi-Fi signals over longer distances while adapting signals to changes to environmental conditions, said the company.

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on the way “video clips” delivered via the Internet are closed captioned, the bureau said in a public notice Friday (http://bit.ly/1k9qSYh). “We ask whether, as a legal and/or policy matter, the Commission should require captioning of IP delivered video clips.” Though full video delivered over Internet Protocol is already required to be closed captioned, the commission held off on imposing the requirement on video clips (CD April 19 p11). But consumer groups representing the hearing impaired issued a report arguing that streaming news clips are a primary source of information on sudden calamities such as the Boston marathon bombing, and the lack of captions excludes the hearing impaired (CD May 17 p7). Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., authors of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, sent a letter to the FCC earlier this month asking the commission to require captions on IP video clips (http://1.usa.gov/1ejarJ3). The PN asks about the costs, benefits and technical challenges of captioning IP video clips. It also asks for information about the differences between captioning live or near-live clips -- such as news segments -- and prerecorded clips. The PN also raises the idea of requiring captions on only a subset of IP video clips. Comments are due Jan. 27, replies Feb. 26.

Cable, satellite and telco customers can now verify their subscriptions in order to live-stream the Sochi Winter Olympics exclusively on NBCOlympics.com and via the NBC Sports Live Extra app at no extra charge, said NBC Olympics in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1hX8pig). All competition across all 15 sports will be live-streamed, and customers will also have access to exclusive content, real-time results, medal standings, event highlights and analysis, athlete interviews and profiles and rewinds of all event coverage, said the company. Customers will also gain online access to the coverage of U.S. Olympic Team Trials by verifying their subscriptions, it said. Customers verified 9.9 million devices during the London Olympic Games through the website or on the app, said NBC Olympics.

The Minority Media & Telecom Council again said it doesn’t object to some modest relaxation of the cross-ownership rule in large and medium markets, “so long as relaxation would not diminish minority ownership.” Comments were contained in an ex parte filing in dockets 09-182 and 07-294 (http://bit.ly/IQ3pwY). MMTC doesn’t believe the FCC “should further relax the television duopoly rule since that would deter growth of diverse ownership in broadcasting,” it said. “MMTC similarly feels that most shared service agreements are detrimental to minority ownership.” The filing pertained to a meeting with Maria Kirby, legal adviser to Chairman Tom Wheeler, it said.

The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition “seems to stand in stark contrast to what is in the best interests of broadcasters and broadcasting,” said NAB auction pointman Rick Kaplan in blog post on the NAB website Monday (http://bit.ly/1k9wsKg). NAB’s executive vice president was responding to testimony from EOBC Executive Director Preston Padden at a Senate hearing last week. Padden’s complaints that the incentive auction isn’t moving fast enough and could fail don’t represent the concerns of broadcasters that want to keep broadcasting, Kaplan said. The EOBC’s mission is “to make sure that its members are paid as much money as possible and paid as quickly as possible for their spectrum licenses,” said Kaplan. “The day their checks are cashed, their engagement in this auction ends; the EOBC has no interest in the subsequent repacking or consumer welfare.” NAB and the Association of Public Television Stations recognize the auction is complex, and their members don’t share Padden’s urgency, Kaplan said. Broadcasters “want to weigh the potential benefits of participation” and aren’t “quick-hit investors looking to turn a quick profit because of the government’s unique offer to buy back licenses,” said Kaplan. Congress, the FCC and the public should treat NAB and APTS rather than EOBC as representative of broadcasters, Kaplan said. EOBC’s membership is a “closely guarded secret,” Kaplan said. “I love the NAB and have the greatest respect for its leadership,” responded Padden in an email. “Auction based payments to broadcasters, based on wireless spectrum values, are the ‘incentive’ that will drive the success of the Incentive Auction and our Coalition genuinely is committed to that success."

DirecTV, Dish Network, Hughes and EchoStar emphasized to the FCC that changes to fee categories must reflect changes in law and regulation, and “must correspond with the number of full time employees performing specified regulatory functions for particular classes of payors,” they said in an ex parte filing in dockets 13-140, 12-201 and 08-65 (http://bit.ly/1bL8AID). The cable operators’ “parity” arguments are defective “because the commission does not regulate these two industries equally,” it said. In a separate ex parte filing in those dockets, SES, Inmarsat and Telesat cautioned the FCC against requiring non-U.S.-licensed satellite operators serving the U.S. market to pay space station regulatory fees. Foreign-licensed satellites don’t obtain Title III licenses “or receive the benefits that come with grant of a U.S. space station license,” the ex parte said (http://bit.ly/1997qZT). The only commission efforts that are solely focused on foreign satellites involve processing requests for market access, “a one-time expenditure of resources that the satellite companies argued does not justify a recurring regulatory fee,” it said. The FCC’s earth station licensing database doesn’t permit determination of whether an earth station is communicating with foreign-licensed satellites, it said. During a separate meeting, Intelsat supported reassessing fees for indirect full-time employees “that rarely work on behalf of satellite operators,” it said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/IQf4Mw). It also reiterated that regulatory fees should be collected from non-U.S. satellite operators with U.S. market access, it said. All the satellite companies met last week with staff from the Enforcement and International bureaus and the Office of Managing Director.

Space Systems/Loral signed an agreement with AsiaSat to build a high-power, multi-mission satellite. The satellite, AsiaSat 9, will be used for TV broadcast, private networks and broadband services across the Asia Pacific, SSL said in a news release (http://bit.ly/Jt6Tpo). It will be located at 122 degrees east where it will replace AsiaSat 4, it said. AsiaSat 9 will be designed to operate in C, Ku and Ka bands, and it’s expected to launch in 2016, SSL said.

The public would “get nothing good” out of a rumored Sprint/T-Mobile US merger, Free Press President Craig Aaron said Friday in a statement. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Sprint was considering making a bid for T-Mobile in Q1. A Sprint spokesman declined to comment. “The public doesn’t need fewer competitors and fewer choices -- not when the wireless market already has so little competition,” Aaron said. “As they did in blocking the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, the FCC and Justice Department must carefully and closely scrutinize this deal and its impacts on consumers and their wallets."

EchoStar is no longer pursuing a joint venture with Vivendi’s GVT, EchoStar said in a press release (http://bit.ly/19mP4m6). The partnership had been aimed at launching direct-to-home service in Brazil (CD Nov 14 p23).

Parties will have more time to respond to the FCC further notice on inmate calling, said a Wireline Bureau order (http://fcc.us/19HSoVb). Comments in docket 12-376 will now be due Dec. 20, replies Jan 13. The bureau said it found “good cause” to grant the request by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for a “modest time extension for all parties.” The Ohio DRC had argued the additional time would allow for “a more complete factual and legal record in this proceeding."