Time Warner Cable petitioned to be exempted from municipal-video rate regulation in six California communities. The Media Bureau should find the operator’s systems in Indio, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and elsewhere face sufficient video competition because of rival services from both U.S. DBS companies and Verizon, said the request posted Thursday in docket 12-1 (http://bit.ly/1kGQV6H). It said the communities had about 90,000 occupied households total as of the 2010 census.

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).

NTCH urged the FCC to ensure that the FCC order streamlining tower construction rules near AM stations prohibits retroactive rule application. The order was approved by commissioners this year (CD Aug 20 p4). The order has changed the legal landscape for existing tower owners and operators “by promoting unlawfully retroactive application of the new rules in certain situations,” said NTCH in a petition for reconsideration posted Thursday in docket 93-177 (http://bit.ly/1dxstCq). The FCC’s retroactive action injects a potentially massive new cost into the tower financial equation “that could never have been anticipated by either the tower owners or the tenants on the towers; the entire basis of the economic relationship will have been upset,” it said. “Neither NTCH nor the public at large was provided notice of the potential for retroactive application of the new protection scheme.” The FCC had no comment.

Enrollment in the federal Lifeline program is expected to grow among Florida residents based on current economic conditions, said the Public Service Commission in an annual report to the Legislature and governor Friday (http://bit.ly/1cGMqs4). On June 30, more than 918,240 eligible Florida customers participated in the Lifeline program, it said. Many Florida residents qualify for Lifeline through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which grew by 4.8 percent in the 52 weeks to June 30, 2013, said the PSC. Twenty-four telecom companies, including four wireless carriers, participate in the federal Lifeline program in Florida, which offers a discount of at least $9.25 per month or a free Lifeline cellphone and monthly minutes from certain wireless providers, said the PSC.

Sonus Networks said Friday it has agreed to buy Performance Technologies for about $30 million. Sonus said the deal would accelerate its mobility strategy by “adding Diameter Signaling capabilities required in all-IP, IMS 4G/LTE” networks. The deal would also “expand and diversify” Sonus’s portfolio through the addition of an integrated, virtualized Diameter and session initiation protocol technology portfolio, the company said. Sonus expects the deal will allow it to expand its presence in the addressable market to almost $3 billion in 2017 (http://bit.ly/IKlTPv).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized Google Thursday for removing App Ops, “an extremely important app privacy feature,” from its Android 4.4.2 operating system update last week. The App Ops feature allowed users to install applications and directly control whether the app could collect potentially sensitive data like user location and a user’s contacts, EFF said. The group said Google told it that Google had released the App Ops feature by accident in its Android 4.3 update -- “that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.” EFF called on Google to restore the App Ops feature in order to restore the belief that the company cares about “this massive privacy problem” (http://bit.ly/1bANsRz). Google did not comment.

Verizon ended test sales of Lowe’s Iris home control system through 118 stores without expanding the trial, Verizon spokeswoman Debra Lewis said. Verizon stores along the East Coast and in Georgia and Alabama carried the Iris safety and security package and comfort and control bundle. Verizon planned to extend the Iris products to other stores if they sold well (CED March 5 p4). Verizon also demoed a home control system from 4Home at CES 2011 but never moved it to stores. “We rotate the products/accessories in our stores all the time, and our new destination stores and updated smart stores will have many home-based products for sale,” Lewis said. Lowe’s officials didn’t comment.

NBCUniversal needs “reasonable access to peer deals” to “avoid forcing parties into costly and burdensome arbitration,” said the unit of Comcast about the benchmark condition in the 2011 FCC order letting the companies combine. It noted in an ex parte filing that the commission is reviewing a clarification order. The companies have said they can’t share content with online video distributors without access to OVDs’ deals with industry peers to NBCUniversal (CD Sept 3 p11). The filing posted Thursday to docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/1cs6tGZ) said participants at the lobbying meeting with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly included NBCUniversal Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Meredith Baker -- an FCC member when the deal was approved -- Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Senior Vice President-Regulatory and State Legislative Affairs Kathy Zachem. As “the success of Wi-Fi has placed great stress on existing unlicensed spectrum resources,” Comcast -- in a separate FCC meeting on the same day as the O'Rielly conversation -- asked top aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for the agency to focus on “enabling additional Wi-Fi access.” That can occur in the 5 GHz band through designating more spectrum for unlicensed use, Cohen and Zachem told Wheeler aides, recounted another ex parte filing that was posted Friday in docket 13-184 (http://bit.ly/19mFBuR). Many connections to high-speed broadband in classrooms likely will be through Wi-Fi devices, the filing said FCC Chief of Staff Ruth Milkman, Senior Counselor Phil Verveer and Special Counsel Diane Cornell were told.

Dish Network continued to urge the FCC to grant its request to choose uplink or downlink operations for its AWS-4 spectrum. If the commission grants Dish’s waiver request, and Dish elects to use 2000-2020 MHz band for downlink, “Dish further commits to comply with any requirements imposed on Dish as an AWS licensee,” the DBS company said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-225 (http://bit.ly/19HiK9M). The FCC hasn’t made a decision on the request, which also asks for a one-year extension to build out a terrestrial network (CD Dec 5 p17). The filing recounts a phone call last week with staffers of the Wireless Bureau.

Former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Todd Dickinson, executive director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, is one of several patent stakeholders set to testify Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee (http://1.usa.gov/1bMsZOb). The hearing is set to focus on the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), which committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced in November (CD Nov 20 p20). Other witnesses from the communications industry are Dana Rao, Adobe associate general counsel, Harry Wolin, Advanced Micro Devices general counsel, and Philip Johnson, Johnson & Johnson’s chief intellectual property counsel, speaking on behalf of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform. The hearing is set for 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen.