Congressional activity has been up in the air since the federal government shutdown began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Members are working with limited staff, their offices said. Several hearings and events -- but not all -- have been postponed as the shutdown hit amid ongoing uncertainty.

The FCC beat the shutdown of the federal government at midnight Monday by releasing an agenda for the Oct. 22 meeting and a handful of orders. The agency is now mostly shuttered, and will stay so as long as Congress fights over the closure, which by some accounts could extend deep into October. The FCC website is all but down, with only a few documents available related to auctions and the shutdown itself.

Verizon’s request to suspend its tariff amendment on its Voice Link service doesn’t go far enough for Fire Island residents, said industry leaders in comments to the New York Public Service Commission. AARP and the Public Utility Law Project of New York (PULP) recommended the PSC examine issues related to bringing FiOS to Fire Island more closely. Verizon said it will bring its FiOS service to Fire Island by Memorial Day and make Voice Link service optional (CD Sept 12 p3).

MAKUHARI, Japan -- Japanese satellite operator Sky Perfect JSAT will start the first 4K broadcasts in Japan in 2014 using the new High Efficiency Video Coding algorithm, said Masao Nito, the company’s executive director, Tuesday at the CEATEC Japan show.

The first casualties of a federal government shutdown likely will be events, including hearings on Capitol Hill, slated for this week, unless the House and Senate work out a deal that would put off a shutdown that was slated to start at midnight Monday. Bigger problems loom, including potential delays in Senate action on the nominations of Tom Wheeler and Michael O'Rielly as members of the FCC, industry officials said. NTIA has already canceled one high-profile event slated for next week.

A contracting antenna industry may combine with the unintended consequences of relocating numerous stations to threaten the FCC’s timeline for repacking broadcast channels after the incentive auction, said several panelists at the commission’s TV Broadcast Relocation Fund Reimbursement workshop on Monday (http://fcc.us/1edUHXd). Although the workshop was ostensibly to gather information on the costs repacking will impose on broadcasters that they would then need to be reimbursed for, out of the $1.75 billion relocation fund, the repacking’s timing was the focus of panelists and other attendees. Panelists said a shortage of crews that do large-scale antenna work, the legal and technical complications of altering existing towers, and the uncertainty preventing the industry from getting ready for those challenges are going to make the repacking very difficult to complete on time. “Until we know the real channel that people are going to occupy, we can do a lot of hocus pocus around what-ifs,” said Sinclair Broadcast Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken. “Three years isn’t enough -- it’s a five- to six-year transition, we need to be planning for that."

Wireline networks can get congested too. That’s one Verizon response to an FCC request seeking information on the suitability of its fixed wireless product, Voice Link, as a substitute for wireline. The FCC is considering Verizon’s Section 214 application to discontinue copper wireline services on the New Jersey Barrier Islands. Verizon amended that filing Friday to reflect its recent announcement that it would install fiber on Fire Island in New York (CD Sept 11 p3). Verizon intends to complete its fiber deployment by summer, it said.

Congress should establish an alternative voluntary system of adjudication for copyright claims of low economic value, recommended the U.S. Copyright Office in a Monday report on copyright small claims (http://1.usa.gov/19cBYbX). It proposed a centralized, three-member tribunal be housed within the office to adjudicate disputes relating to copyright infringement claims valued under $30,000 in damages.

The FCC decided to include intrastate prison calling rate changes in an NPRM because it knew states would have conflicting opinions, said state regulators in a series of interviews. Eight states have already imposed changes on their prison calling rates, but the FCC needs to take action in order to get all 50 states to participate, said Jason Marks, a former New Mexico Public Regulation commissioner who helped to pass changes in his state. “It’s not reasonable to expect all 50 states will choose to regulate for inmate services, and therefore the FCC needs to step in,” Marks said.

The FCC “should take a cautious and deliberate approach” in spectrum sharing requirements in the 5.9 GHz band, Toyota InfoTechnology Center Principal Researcher John Kenney plans to tell Congress Tuesday, citing the “safety-of-life mission” of that spectrum (http://1.usa.gov/14Yq0PP). He plans to describe the role of dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) and its role in traffic safety. The FCC rulemaking on the possibilities of spectrum sharing is “premature,” and the agency should hold off “until a viable spectrum sharing technology is developed and testing verifies that there is no harmful interference from unlicensed devices,” Kenney plans to say. “Interference that results in delayed or missed driver warnings will undermine the system’s entire foundation, rendering it essentially useless and putting the entire future of DSRC technology in the United States at risk.”