Beleaguered Alaskan telco Adak Eagle Enterprises, whose requests for waiver of the FCC’s new Universal Service Fund rules have been roundly denied by the Wireline and Wireless bureaus (CD July 17 p14), pleaded with the commission to reconsider. In a filing Wednesday the company and subsidiary Windy City Cellular characterized themselves as “tiny companies that worked tirelessly against the odds” to offer phone service in the Alaskan wilderness “when no one else would” (http://bit.ly/1hcWStf). They urged the agency to stop its ceaseless requests for more supplemental information, which have ravaged the carriers: “The FCC is now on the verge of completely destroying the companies.” The Alaskan congressional delegation sent a letter to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn last week warning of the harm that could befall the Adak community if the commission lets its decision stand.

Sirius XM’s initiatives in telematics and programming position the satellite radio company for long-term growth, said CEO Jim Meyer. Sirius is moving ahead with plans to roll out its next-generation 2.0 platform and it expects to close this year on its acquisition of roadside assistance company Agero, he said Thursday during a Q3 earnings call. The 2.0 architecture is “the platform of choice for automakers,” Meyer said. It allows Sirius to deliver more content and functionality in new vehicles, he said. Sirius extended its agreement with Honda to 2020, which includes Honda’s rollout of the 2.0 architecture, he said.

Verizon doesn’t understand why long distance companies should have to keep detailed records on calls going to urban destinations, when dropped calls to rural areas are what the FCC is worried about. The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, whose rural members are the ones most directly affected by dropped calls, agrees with Verizon. The circulating rural call completion order is scheduled for a vote Monday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and NPR will start a two-month pilot test in December to broadcast entire emergency alert system messages to the hearing impaired using a first-of-its-kind EAS radio receiver, said the radio programmer and advocates for the deaf in interviews. They said that under a $360,000 contract from FEMA parent, the Department of Homeland Security, NPR has enough money for 25 member stations in five Gulf Coast states to run simulations in December and January. The contract was disclosed in February (http://n.pr/HhTmj7). The system incorporates elements of FEMA’s newer Integrated Public Alert and Warning System that gathers EAS messages written in a newer Internet friendly Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) format and uses IPAWS to deliver the messages to stations through NPR’s satellite system of sending programming to noncommercial stations.

AT&T was a key focus of congressional debate on the IP transition Wednesday. The House Communications Subcommittee, at a hearing on the evolution of wired communications networks, pressed AT&T’s Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president-external and legislative affairs, on the nature of IP-enabled services and the FCC’s urgency in conducting trials. Written testimony from the hearing’s witnesses showed friction on how some IP transition principles should be executed and how to handle such controversial topics as all-IP interconnection agreements (CD Oct 23 p6).

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., formally introduced the Innovation Act (HR-3309) Wednesday, culminating what he called months of “collaborative” discussion about the best way to curb patent litigation abuse. The bill, which closely resembles a discussion draft Goodlatte released last month (CD Sept 24 p15), balances the need for “robust legal reform measures while protecting property rights,” he said during a news conference. The bill seeks to punish bad behavior rather than target specific types of companies, he said, noting that he and others use “patent troll” as an “adjective describing behavior rather than a noun."

The Iowa Utilities Board did not make any significant changes in its staff report on telecommunications regulation, but it established a roadmap for the IUB going forward, Iowa Telecommunications Association President Dave Duncan told us Wednesday. The staff report (http://bit.ly/HfqPf0), attached to an order to end the IUB’s notice of inquiry, listed some statutory changes to clean up the legislation based on comments and a workshop in September (CD Sept 11 p16), said Duncan. “The IUB addressed some issues that were clearly outdated that needed to be cleaned up,” he said. The IUB played the next steps “close to the vest,” Bret Dublinske, Gonzalez Saggio attorney, told us. Dublinske acted on behalf of several interested parties including Sprint, tw telecom, Cox, Securus and CTIA. “It collectively raises the possibility for rulemakings and what will be teed up in the future, but a lot remains to be seen."

Expanding the ability of consumers to offload their data needs onto Wi-Fi is a better way to address the “spectrum crunch” than auctioning off wireless bands, said New America Foundation Wireless Future Project Director Michael Calabrese at an NCTA presentation on his cable spectrum report (http://bit.ly/bRNbEs) which was published by Time Warner Cable (CD Oct 10 p14). The report urges policymakers to prioritize the release of unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi use to accommodate consumers’ increasing data needs, which he said can’t be met with licensed spectrum alone. “Clearing spectrum for auction takes too long, it’s too expensive and at best delays the inevitable transition to small cells” and other ways of moving data, said Calabrese.

The FCC’s USF reforms are costing jobs, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield said Tuesday while taping an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators to be telecast in the coming weeks. Things such as the commission’s quantile regression analysis (QRA), meant to compare similarly situated companies, aren’t nuanced enough to take into account all the unique challenges faced by NTCA’s 900 members, she said. That uncertainty reduces investment and hurts NTCA’s members, Bloomfield said.

The federal government shutdown slowed the regulatory review of two major wireless transactions -- Verizon’s bid to buy Vodafone’s 45 percent of Verizon Wireless for $130 billion and AT&T’s $1.2 billion bid for Leap Wireless -- but in the end likely won’t prove a major hurdle, industry officials said this week. Verizon/Vodafone is the biggest telecom deal in U.S. history.