The FCC’s mobile broadband measurement app will be released Oct. 30, officials said Friday. The initial release will be on the Android platform, and with a less-capable iPhone version to be released later. The iPhone version won’t have nearly the same functionality, officials said, due to system-level restrictions in its operating system. “We can’t do scheduled testing,” which is “very important to us,” said Walter Johnston, chief of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Division of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology.

DENVER -- Control4 home automation technology is being integrated into Dish’s Hopper whole-home HD DVR system, Dish said at a Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association Expo news briefing Thursday. Dish also vowed to be ready with 4K content delivery when consumer demand warrants.

Inmate calling service provider Securus lost a battle at the FCC Thursday. The Wireline Bureau denied its request to be able to block VoIP calls to services such as ConsCallHome, which uses VoIP routing to offer numbers local to the prison, reducing costs to make the call. Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn commended the bureau’s order, and called such services “innovative” and likely to reduce recidivism. “Call blocking is largely antithetical to the fundamental goal of ubiquity and reliability of the telecommunications network,” said the order (http://fcc.us/14MlyDE).

The FCC approved 2-1 Thursday, over Commissioner Ajit Pai’s second dissent of the meeting, an NPRM on whether carriers should be required to report data on tower outages during emergencies. The dissent was expected (CD Sept 26 p3). Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel indicated she also had questions about the NPRM. FCC and industry officials told us the NPRM was largely “bureau driven” with the Public Safety Bureau’s strong support. Consumers Union (CU) asked the FCC to require carriers to release to consumers the data that they must already file at the FCC.

The Senate Intelligence Committee now has two warring proposals for how to update U.S. surveillance law. Both were debated Thursday during an open Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. One proposal would end bulk metadata collection, while the other is more moderate and largely upholds the current program, despite advocating certain limits. Three top intelligence officials defended the government’s phone metadata surveillance.

In a 2-1 vote, the FCC approved and released an NPRM Thursday (http://fcc.us/1fs0xoA0) that proposes eliminating the UHF ownership discount and “tentatively” decides that only ownership groups that already exist or had pending applications in front of the commission by Thursday would be grandfathered in if the rulemaking process leads to an order.

The private sector must be just as involved as the U.S. government in improving cybersecurity -- particularly when it comes to economic cyberespionage and intellectual property theft, said former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff Thursday. Chertoff is now of counsel at Covington & Burling and chairman of the Chertoff Group, which consults with companies on cybersecurity issues. Industry actors can no longer consider increasing their cybersecurity protections a “luxury” -- it’s now a necessary protection of economic growth and profitability, he said at a Covington & Burling-George Washington University Cybersecurity Initiative event. Cybertheft has become the “preferred pathway” for entities to steal intellectual property -- and it’s the most visible cyberthreat the U.S. faces, Chertoff said. Recent studies have confirmed the Obama administration’s position that the pace of economic cyberespionage and intellectual property theft are accelerating, Chertoff said. He said the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property (IP Commission) and others have estimated the theft of U.S. intellectual property is worth up to $300 billion annually.

The FCC approved, on a 3-0 vote Thursday, launching a rulemaking aimed at cutting red tape on deployment of distributed antenna systems and small cells and allowing for faster deployment of temporary cell towers. The NPRM was the only item to get a unanimous vote Thursday.

The FCC likely would again be hit hard in any government shutdown, though it’s escaped some of the continuing impact of the budget sequester, said agency and industry officials in interviews this week and last. They said that as a fee-funded agency with a large amount of its $300 million-plus annual budget spent on labor, the commission continues to avoid furloughs. That’s unlike some other parts of the government, where employees have been forced to take days off during the ongoing sequester.

Federal grants were successful in bringing high-speed Internet access to health clinics and higher education institutions in Arkansas, but more work needs to be done to bring broadband to schools, said Tony Wilhelm, NTIA associate administrator, at the Connecting Arkansas conference Thursday. President Barack Obama’s ConnectED initiative will help schools become more competitive through the FCC’s E-rate program, and students will have new opportunities to learn, said Wilhelm: “New technology makes for individualized learning that equalizes opportunities in rural and urban areas of the state."