Days after President Barack Obama pledged surveillance reform (CD Aug 12 p5) and on the heels of various National Security Agency revelations, ABC News said Michael Morell, Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire would be members of that review group, citing “a source with knowledge of the matter” (http://abcn.ws/1bXCpVP). The report said the names would be released Thursday. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released on Wednesday documents -- including an opinion by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) -- indicating that NSA conducted unconstitutional surveillance of Americans’ electronic communication for years (CD Aug 22 p11). After the documents were declassified and published online (http://bit.ly/15e8IxI), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and privacy advocates called for more oversight of the surveillance programs.

A Government Accountability Office report on patent infringement litigation released Thursday could encourage members of Congress to push harder for patent reform this fall, attorneys at several patent reform advocacy organizations told us. Lawmakers have introduced at least six bills to address what they see as abuse from patent assertion entities (PAEs) this year, with another bill expected soon from the chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. The GAO report “provides actual data on the extent of the problem,” said Cathy Sloan, vice president-government relations for the Computer & Communications Industry Association. “To the extent that Members of Congress were not already deeply involved in solving this problem, it would give them more reason to get involved."

As the fight continues over Verizon’s plan to rebuild its network on Fire Island destroyed during Superstorm Sandy using wireless infrastructure, one big question that arises is what’s wrong with wireless anyway as an alternative to the plain old telephone service. With small carriers across the U.S. deploying wireless-only systems and larger carriers making wireless a big part of their IP transition plans, some industry observers are asking if the FCC needs to change its regulatory worldview of wireless substitution. Last week, the FCC Wireline Bureau opted not to “automatically” grant Verizon’s Communications Act Section 214 petition (CD Aug 15 p1) to discontinue domestic phone services, but to instead request additional data from Verizon.

Mobile operators should take a three-step approach to creating heterogeneous networks (hetnets) to boost coverage and capacity to meet user demand for data-hungry services, said Ericsson Mobile Broadband Director Hanna Maurer Sibley in an interview. The first is to “improve” existing macro cells with more spectrum, advanced antennas and advanced radio base stations, she said. Operators should then “densify” the macro network with a small number of strategic cells to improve capacity, she said.

The FCC doesn’t have to wait for a full rulemaking proceeding on shared services agreements (SSAs) to rule against the ones associated with the Gannett/Belo merger, said the American Cable Association, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and multiple public interest groups in reply comments filed in docket 13-189 Tuesday. To avoid overlaps that would conflict with media ownership rules, the terms of the merger call for some TV stations involved in the transaction to be transferred to other companies but still share services with Gannett under SSAs (CD July 26 p1).

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen appears to be putting together a plan to pair some of the S-band spectrum that Dish already owns with LightSquared L-band spectrum, for a 40 MHz national network that would make Dish a big player in the wireless industry, industry sources said Wednesday. Industry officials who attended the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum this week said they had heard from others there that the plan had been hatched and was moving forward. Dish representatives have already been at the FCC to discuss using the S-band for downlink, agency officials said Wednesday.

Telcos have accepted more than $385 million from the FCC to help expand broadband in unserved areas, the commission said Wednesday. “Broadband is no longer a luxury,” said acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn in a statement. “I'm delighted that requests for support in this round have exceeded our expectations.” The commission expects the funding to help connect up to 600,000 homes and small business that lack broadband.

IPTV operators recognize the need for personalization to appeal to customers who want TV on multiple devices, said industry experts during a Azuki Systems and Parks Associates webinar Wednesday. TV watching patterns are moving from a multicast to omnicast model, with video-on-demand and DVR service and all channels available inside and outside the home, said Steve Sklar, CenturyLink vice president-consumer products. The challenge is enhancing the customer experience, which can be achieved through TV Everywhere, he said.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Officials from FirstNet recognize the challenges and past concerns about the proposed network but remain committed to building it, they said this week at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials meeting. FirstNet Deputy General Manager T.J. Kennedy, a former Raytheon executive and first responder, stressed the need to provide such a network for public safety officials sooner rather than later.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The growing conventional wisdom that FirstNet should not replace but augment land mobile radio (LMR) misses the mark, one tech CEO argued in an interview. “I will say flat-out that [of the] 90-something percent of the voice needs that public safety has, our platform can do on commercial cellular networks, LTE and even 3G -- large, large fraction of what public safety needs, we can do it today,” Covia Labs CEO David Kahn told us at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials meeting this week. “Given that companies, and it’s not just Covia Labs, are making tremendous progress on voice systems over LTE that are able to do what public safety needs a very large fraction [of the time], why is FirstNet saying we're not going to be a voice network?”