LAS VEGAS -- The FCC should at least consider selling 600 MHz spectrum in smaller license sizes than economic area (EA) licenses, FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said Tuesday, following a keynote at the Competitive Carriers Association’s annual conference. Carrier executives told us the FCC may be considering license sizes somewhere between EAs and the much smaller cellular market area (CMA) licenses, possibly something along the line of component economic area licenses (CEAs), a category previously developed by the FCC. CCA recently adopted a position in favor of CMAs over EAs for the incentive auction (CD June 20 p1).

ORLANDO, FLA. -- Communities are seeing the effects of broadband development in their economies, said industry experts at the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) conference general session Tuesday. Kansas City, Kan., has seen an explosion of startups, and the city recently had its bond rating upgraded, said Derek Slater, Google policy manager. “We need 21st century metrics to measure the effectiveness of broadband in 21st century economy,” he said. “We need different measurement paradigms to see how broadband impacts the local economy.”

MobiTV announced an HDMI dongle solution at the IBC2013 show that’s designed to give MVPDs a low-cost entry to TV Everywhere services. The dongle offers wireless, IPTV and DSL operators a way to enter the home, leverage existing customer relationships and broaden their branded offerings, the company said in a news release. With the dongle, MVPDs can take advantage of the second screen “as the tablet or smartphone becomes the remote control,” and create a better user experience in the living room, the company said.

LAS VEGAS -- The upcoming incentive auction of TV spectrum will likely be the biggest event in the next 10 years for the wireless industry, said Neville Ray, T-Mobile chief technology officer, during a Tuesday keynote speech to the Competitive Carriers Association. Verizon Wireless controls 54.7 MHz of sub-1 GHz spectrum and AT&T 48 MHz, so other carriers are desperate for the 600 MHz spectrum the FCC will auction, Ray said.

A vocal advertising stakeholder is pulling out of a working group seeking a Do Not Track (DNT) solution, prompting calls for legislative or regulatory solutions to the problem, several privacy and consumer rights stakeholders told us. The Digital Advertising Alliance said Tuesday it would leave the DNT working group at the World Wide Web Consortium, the same day the W3C group’s new chairman finalized a proposed plan for moving forward.

The Department of Defense is engaged in deterrence to address the challenges of the changing security environment in the cyber and space realm, said Madelyn Creedon, DOD assistant secretary-global strategic affairs. Elements of deterrence in the nuclear defense arena can be applied to cyber and space, she said Tuesday during a Stimson Center event in Washington. Effective deterrence must incorporate denying a benefit by limiting the effectiveness of an adversary’s attack, imposing a cost and encouraging restraint, she said. Encouraging restraint involves convincing an adversary, or a potential adversary, she said, that “an acceptable outcome can be obtained without taking the action that we want them to avoid."

Public and private parties must be “tenacious and persistent” in the ongoing fight to combat online piracy, said Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Tuesday at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event. They quoted a new report from NetNames, sponsored by NBCUniversal, that said 432 million Internet users explicitly sought infringing content in January. The report found 13.9 billion page views recorded on piracy-focused websites that month. A Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) official said some of the report’s numbers may overstate the extent of the problem.

The FCC should deny several transfers of control associated with Sinclair’s $985 million buy of Allbritton TV stations, said the American Cable Association and some public interest groups in three petitions to deny filed Monday. Sinclair’s plans to address market overlaps by transferring stations to third-party companies with which it has shared service agreements are intended to let Sinclair “simultaneously control multiple broadcast outlets in the same markets in a manner that defies the public interest and is prohibited by the Commission’s rules,” said Free Press and Put People First. ACA objects to the deal because it will allow “collusion” in retransmission consent negotiations. The FCC should examine the company’s right to be a broadcast licensee in administrative law court because of previous violations of ownership rules by Sinclair, said Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. “If there is any question the viewing public can fairly expect the FCC to address, it is whether the nation’s largest television broadcaster is -- or is not -- basically qualified to be a licensee,” said RPC.

LAS VEGAS -- Executives from T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular predicted in a discussion of the spectrum sale at the Competitive Carriers Association’s annual meeting Monday that the federal government could raise enough money to pay for FirstNet before the incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum even gets under way as early as next year.

Extending the New York Public Service Commission’s comment period on Verizon’s request to serve Fire Island, N.Y., solely with its fixed wireless product from July 2 to Sept. 13 helped the commission receive more than 1,000 public comments from state legislators, town governments and local fire departments. Meanwhile, Verizon agreed Sept. 10 to install fiber on Fire Island (CD Sept 11 p3), but many industry observers and state regulators said the telco’s decision does not extend to areas of New Jersey also affected by Hurricane Sandy (CD Sept 12 p3). The commission is now asking for comments by Sept. 30 on Verizon’s tariff amendment filing to withdraw a provision to use Voice Link as the sole service on Fire Island (CD Sept 16 p18) .