The FCC Wireless Bureau is seeking comment on Key Bridge Global’s proposal that it be designated a database manager for link registrations by licensees in the 71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz and 92-95 GHz bands. Federal and non-federal users currently share the three bands on a mostly co-primary basis, but the government holds the 94.0-94.1 GHz portion on a primary basis, the FCC said. Key Bridge is asking the FCC to designate it as an additional manager under the 2004 WTB proposal or waive Key Bridge from the original 2004 filing deadline. Key Bridge says it will comply with the duties and responsibilities included in the 2004 FCC order. Comments are due Dec. 12, reply comments Dec. 23, the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1aDIinM).

Comments on the FCC Wireless Bureau proceeding to improve wireless facilities’ siting policies are due Feb. 3, and replies March 5, the FCC said in a Federal Register notice (http://1.usa.gov/18olNDr). The FCC seeks to promote the deployment of infrastructure “that is necessary to provide the public with advanced wireless broadband services, consistent with governing law and the public interest,” it said.

Several consumer groups objected to a CableCARD bill under consideration in the House Commerce Committee. Consumer Action, Consumers Union, Free Press, National Consumers League, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge sent a letter Thursday to Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., slamming HR-3196 (http://bit.ly/1cdjpjR). Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Gene Green, D-Texas, introduced the bill in September. The bill proposes ending the integration ban requiring cable operators to use CableCARDs instead of built-in security in set-top boxes. TiVo has strongly lobbied against the bill. It “would drive up cable bill prices, reduce consumer choice, and slow down video innovation,” the consumer groups said in their letter. They say it would undermine the existing CableCARD system. Latta’s “legislation stands on its own merit,” Latta Chief of Staff Ryan Walker told us when asked about the letter. Walker labeled HR-3196 a “bipartisan deal” and said the integration ban “went beyond congressional intent.” The bill now has six co-sponsors, with Jim Matheson, D-Utah, signing on Tuesday. Latta is seeking more cosponsors, Walker said.

The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $20,000 fine for the Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission for violations of the commission’s equal employment opportunity rules at six public television stations in the state, said a notice of apparent liability issued Thursday. The stations -- WMPB(TV) Baltimore, WCPB(TV) Salisbury, WFPT(TV) Frederick, WGPT(TV) Oakland, WWPB Hagerstown and WMPT Annapolis -- failed to notify job referral sources about vacancies, to assess their own EEO performance, and provided “incorrect factual information of a material nature to the Commission without a reasonable basis for believing that the information was correct and accurate,” said the NAL. Between June 2008 and May 2010, the Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission filled 11 vacancies at stations, without notifying a broadcasting school that had requested notice of vacancies about the job openings, the NAL said. The commission requires licensees to provide information about vacancies to organizations that request them, said the NAL. MPBC told the FCC it hadn’t received any such requests, but in its public file listed CSB Broadcasting School as having requested that information. MPBC said the contact information for CSB had been misplaced during an employee change, said the NAL. A $20,000 NAL for EEO violations was also issued against AMFM Broadcasting Licenses, licensee of Illinois stations WNUA(FM) Chicago, WGCI Chicago, WKSC-FM Chicago, WGRB(AM) Chicago, WLIT-FM Chicago, and WVAZ(FM) Oak Park, said an NAL. Between August 2009 and July 2011, AMFM filled 36 vacancies without notifying several organizations that had requested the information.

Arts and culture contributed 3.2 percent or $504 billion to overall GDP in 2011, said a report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis released Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/ISasFW). The gross economic output for arts and culture production was $916 billion. Cable TV production and distribution accounted for $100 billion in output, while the “motion picture and video goods and services” added $83 billion, said the report.

The office of the U.S. Trade Representative seeks comment by Jan. 3 on the “operation, effectiveness, implementation of and compliance with” U.S. telecom product and services provisions in U.S. international trade agreements, said a USTR notice to appear in Friday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1kfCdTZ). USTR seeks input on areas including whether any World Trade Organization member is acting in a manner inconsistent with its obligations under WTO agreements affecting market opportunities for telecom products or services. The office asked about telecom trade issues in countries including Australia, Canada, Mexico and Singapore. Comment also is sought on whether any measures or practices of a WTO member nation or for which a free trade agreement or telecom trade agreement with the U.S. impedes access to its telecom markets. Submit comments to www.regulations.gov, docket USTR-2013-0039.

NTIA is trying to “get to the bottom of what do people want, versus what they actually need,” on spectrum allocation, said Chief of Staff Angela Simpson at a Practising Law Institute telecom seminar Thursday. “It’s very difficult differentiating,” she said, especially when counsel is “sometimes advocating wants as needs.” NTIA is looking into what constitutes “effective” use of spectrum, said Simpson. The agency will meet with the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee next week to take the lessons CSMAC has learned on spectrum management and “turn them into a game plan,” she said. It’s “imperative that the government agencies and private sector continue to find innovative ways” to solve complex spectrum access issues, she said. Spectrum sharing needs to be a key tool, she said. As time goes by and more spectrum gets allocated, relocating spectrum users becomes more complicated, she said. Spectrum sharing is “not a pie in the sky proposition,” but is really possible now, said Simpson. NTIA is staying active in President Barack Obama’s ConnectED initiative, she said. The agency plans to work closely with the FCC, Department of Education and all other stakeholders to achieve Obama’s goal of connecting K-12 to high-speed circuits within the next 5 years, said Simpson. NTIA expects the lessons it learned from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program to play a role in this discussion, she said. BTOP projects connected 10 percent of U.S. schools to broadband, in a way that saved “significant amounts of money,” said Simpson. She said she hopes the FCC can use those lessons as it looks into E-rate overhauls. The multistakeholder process works, as can codes of conduct. NTIA plans to use such a process in consumer privacy issues, and NTIA will take the lessons it learned from 2013 and expand it to 2014, said Simpson. Facial recognition technology has the potential to significantly improve many services, but brings with it potential privacy concerns, she said. NTIA plans to explore the issue and see what progress it can make on those issues, she said. The agency plans multistakeholder discussions on facial recognition technologies, it said earlier this week (CD Dec 5 p11).

EAGLE-Net representatives are scheduled to appear before the Colorado Legislative Audit Committee Monday to provide an update on its “new joint venture,” a committee spokeswoman told us (http://bit.ly/18bOCs0). EAGLE-Net appeared before the committee in September to give an update on the network’s next steps following its audit (CD Sept 26 p16). At the September committee hearing, EAGLE-Net CEO Mike Ryan said EAGLE-Net was in negotiations to find a network operator. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., questioned EAGLE-Net’s choice of Affiniti as its operator in a letter to NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling (CD Nov 1 p8). Gardner asked NTIA to look at how Affiniti was formed as a merger between Trillion Partners and Sting Communications, how it plans to work with providers that have been overbuilt by fiber, Affiniti’s fiscal sustainability, and to provide detailed plans of where Affiniti plans to build to unserved and underserved areas in Colorado. EAGLE-Net released an RFP Wednesday seeking price quotes to build a 27.6 route-mile fiber network from Durango to Cascade Village (http://bit.ly/18FXdDK). Proposals are due to EAGLE-Net Dec. 23.

"Everything everybody thinks about clean energy is wrong,” and in “the same way that they were wrong about telecom 20 years ago, when I became the FCC chair,” said Reed Hundt, discussing what his new e-book, Zero Hour, says about building so-called clean power. Twenty years ago, many underestimated the impact of the Internet on long distance and other types of phone and telecom service, he said in an interview Wednesday. “All these statements were wrong for the exact same reason that everyone underestimates what will happen with clean energy,” in that Moore’s Law will apply to power generation too and will lower costs, said Hundt. “The power platform is where the knowledge platform was in 1993,” said the e-book (http://amzn.to/1jmDSJO). “From approximately that date, digitization, regulatory reform, and low cost capital changed the platform of all modes of information consumption in less than a decade.” Hundt, an FCC chairman under President Bill Clinton, now is CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital.

Tennis Channel filed a cert petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s decision on the channel’s carriage complaint against Comcast, Tennis Channel said Wednesday. “The lower court strayed from longstanding federal discrimination law to invent an arbitrary and unfair standard for deciding cable carriage complaints,” said Tennis Channel in a news release. “The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has spoken emphatically and unanimously that Comcast did not discriminate against the Tennis Channel,” said a Comcast spokeswoman in an email. “We are confident that this ruling will continue to be upheld.” The D.C. Circuit ruled that the FCC -- which had decided in favor of the Tennis Channel complaint and was the defendant in the D.C. Circuit case -- had failed to show that Comcast unlawfully discriminated against the channel, and said the defendants hadn’t presented evidence to refute Comcast’s contention that the decision not to offer Tennis Channel on a sports tier wasn’t based on financial analysis (CD May 29 p1). Tennis Channel had sought an en banc review of the D.C. Circuit decision, but that request was denied in September. The ruling “misstated and misapplied” discrimination law, and “fundamentally changed” the future standard for discrimination cases, said Covington & Burling attorney Stephen Weiswasser, who represents Tennis Channel, in an interview. “Congress expressly charged the FCC with the responsibility to establish procedures and decide carriage discrimination complaints,” said the Tennis Channel release. “The court’s decision not only failed to recognize where that responsibility lies, but also rewrote a vital portion of Congress’ 1992 Cable Act and federal discrimination law.” Weiswasser said the cert petition also points to cases in the jurisdiction of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals where a different discrimination standard was applied, and argues that this means there is a split between the two circuits. A circuit split would make it more likely for the Supreme Court to get involved, said Fletcher Heald appellate attorney Harry Cole, who isn’t involved with the case. Both Cole and Weiswasser said the odds are long for any one case to be granted cert by the high court. “We think we have an important legal principle involving federal discrimination law and an important point of competition,” said Weiswasser. “But it’s always hard to know what’s going to happen.”