Representatives from about a dozen public interest groups, meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and media and wireless and other aides, expressed the need for a diverse agency. Wheeler should “include a wide diversity of backgrounds in FCC staff,” because “at both the FCC and in the media industry, diverse inputs lead to higher quality outcome,” a Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights official told the gathering, an ex parte filing on the gathering said. The meeting included Special Counsel-External Affairs Gigi Sohn, media aide Maria Kirby and wireless aide Renee Gregory. There’s “collective and strong support for the Lifeline program” and backing for the FCC’s enforcement actions this year against carriers from the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumers Union, Free Press, Leadership Conference, National Urban League, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Public Knowledge (headed by Sohn before Wheeler recently hired her), and other groups at the meeting, said the filing posted Friday in docket 09-182 (http://bit.ly/IKdnzY). “Both old and new networks” are important, said an official of the National Urban League, recounted the filing. “The civil rights community is looking for proactive policies to increase diversity in ownership in all technologies.” A “critical barrier to broadband adoption remains cost and education levels,” and Wheeler should expand Lifeline to include broadband to help “address the persistent adoption gap,” the filing recounted the league official saying. Wheeler was said to have shown a direct style in an introductory meeting last month with association officials and another with public interest representatives (CD Nov 22 p4).

The Council of Governments applauded the FCC order to ensure reliable 911 service in a statement Friday (http://bit.ly/1bCrCNK). COG is a nonprofit association that deals with regional issues affecting the Washington, D.C., area. The FCC voted to approve an order Thursday that requires carriers to file annual audits on how they are following best practices for 911 connections (CD Dec 13 p7). The order was influenced by regional studies documenting “significant loss” of 911 service in northern Virginia during the June 2012 derecho storm, COG said. All phone companies that provide 911 service must now certify annually that they have implemented best practices including audits of their circuits, maintenance of central office backup power and reliable network monitoring systems, it said. The FCC proves the “power of regional collaboration,” said COG Executive Director Chuck Bean. “With this new rule, we are securing our infrastructure in metropolitan Washington,” he said. “The success with the FCC was built on solid analytics but the change happened because we spoke with a regional voice."

The person who replaces Gen. Keith Alexander as National Security Agency director will also be commander of U.S. Cyber Command, the White House said Friday. “Following a thorough interagency review, the Administration has decided that keeping the positions of NSA director and Cyber Command commander together as one, dual-hatted position is the most effective approach to accomplishing both agencies’ missions,” a White House spokeswoman said in a statement. Alexander had lobbied for the same person to hold both positions. The head of U.S. Cyber Command must be in the military, but some critics have argued that a civilian should lead the NSA to provide more sensitivity on civil liberties issues after the leaks about controversial NSA surveillance programs. Retaining control of U.S. Cyber Command in the hands of the NSA director will also ensure NSA’s continued “unique role” in supporting U.S. Cyber Command through “critical support for target access and development, including linguists, analysts, cryptanalytic capabilities, and sophisticated technological infrastructure,” the White House spokeswoman said. “These capabilities are essential in enabling [Department of Defense] cyberspace operations planning and execution."

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.

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.

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.

The FCC found Intelsat apparently liable for a $112,500 fine by permitting another entity to assume its position in the processing queue for a geostationary orbit-like satellite license. Intelsat failed “to maintain the continuing accuracy and completeness of information furnished in an application pending before the commission,” said a notice of apparent liability (http://bit.ly/JgG1sE). The NAL pertains to a first-in-line application of the Galaxy 28 satellite and the proposed Galaxy KA satellite. Commissioner Ajit Pai who dissented said he is skeptical of the FCC’s conclusion. The FCC alleges that Intelsat violated rules by taking action to “transfer, assign, or otherwise permit ViaSat to assume its place in the GSO-like satellite licensing queue in apparent violation of the rules,” he said (http://bit.ly/1gwjUg7). However, any such action took place “no later than March 2, 2010, when Intelsat amended its application for the Galaxy KA satellite, thus moving ViaSat to the head of the queue,” he said. Since more than one year elapsed since that date, “I do not believe that the commission may impose a forfeiture penalty,” he said.

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 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."

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.