If the FCC’s quantile regression analysis (QRA) caps were in place from 2006-2012, they would have caused “tremendous financial uncertainty” that could have prevented carriers from investing in broadband, said industry-sponsored research. The study (http://bit.ly/1bhvQAv), by former FCC Chief Economist Simon Wilkie, examined the effects of the FCC’s 2011 modifications to the USF’s high-cost loop support mechanism. A better implementation would be to use the caps not as an immediate limit on support, but as a “trigger” for further individualized attention from the agency, Wilkie said. An FCC spokesman said the reforms “provide much-needed fiscal discipline” on the fund.

NTIA’s Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee now has in hand final reports from all five of its working groups looking at sharing in the 1755-1850 and 1696-1710 MHz bands, but, following an extensive argument, put off votes on the reports until members can read them in detail. But early indications from at least one of the working groups is that sharing may not be possible and some Department of Defense systems will have to be moved before spectrum can be used by carriers for LTE.

The proposed design of research into the critical information needs (CIN) raised concerns among all three commenters on the CIN work on new and old media alike. A dozen nonprofits including the umbrella organization Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NAB and five communications academics from Howard University raised different issues with the research design. Comments on a May public notice from the FCC Office of Communications Business Opportunities were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 12-30 (http://bit.ly/14IvBuD). The possible barriers-to-entry studies OCBO asked about, which would cost about $1 million (CD May 29 p2), could be used for making decisions about media ownership rules and some said would be required under the Adarand Supreme Court precedent if the commission ever targets relief to women, minority and/or other groups.

Though a growing amount of video content is being viewed on mobile devices, TVs remain the most popular device for watching video, especially among older viewers, said a “TV Untethered” study by the Council for Research Excellence (CRE). U.S. mobile TV viewers tend to be younger than traditional TV viewers, with a mean age of 35, said Laura Cowan, co-chair of CRE’s Media Consumption & Engagement Committee (MCEC) and LIN Media research director, during a briefing on the study in New York Wednesday.

The FCC released a lengthy NPRM exploring the future use of 1755-1780 MHz and three other spectrum bands -- 1695-1710, 2020-2025 and 2155-2180 MHz. The NPRM, which circulated before the July 4 holiday (CD July 16 p4), was released Tuesday night. It wraps together into a document that runs 102 pages many of the requests various parties have made on the spectrum as well as various developments from the federal government. It treats all the bands together as Advanced Wireless Services-3 spectrum. The commission approved the NPRM 3-0, though Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai voted to approve in part and concur in part.

DENVER -- Industry voices and regulators both state and federal wrestled this week with the principles NARUC has begun to articulate as part of its telecom task force on federalism. President Philip Jones formed the group last November, and its members have produced two drafts of principles facing two rounds of comments so far. Stakeholders’ responses split, some praising the tentative principles of collaboration the task force advanced, while others suggested it misses the mark in its definition of communication and stances on such controversial topics as interconnection between Internet Protocol-enabled service providers. One goal of Wednesday’s NARUC sessions in Denver was to directly engage stakeholders that commented critically on the latest draft paper, task force member Chris Nelson, vice chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, told us last week (CD July 22 p18).

AT&T believes its $1.2 billion bid to buy Leap Wireless will “accelerate our entry into the prepaid segment much more so than we would have been able to do by ourselves,” said AT&T Mobility President Ralph de la Vega Tuesday on a quarterly earnings call. For Q2, the carrier added a net 551,000 postpaid subscribers and 11,000 prepaid subscribers (CD July 24 p16). AT&T began offering a new prepaid service, Aio Wireless, in early May (CD May 10 p19). The carrier believes there is “a strong growth opportunity” in prepaid, de la Vega said.

Public interest groups clashed with trade associations and media owners over cross-ownership rules in comments filed in docket 09-182 on the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council’s cross-ownership impact study. Monday was the filing deadline for comments on Impact of Cross Media Ownership on Minority/Women Owned Broadcast Stations, which was released in May (CD May 31 p1). “The MMTC Study is not adequate to support the conclusion that any cross-ownership rules should be changed in this proceeding,” said the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters in its comments. Groups such as NABOB and Free Press attacked the study for not being sufficiently quantitative and having a small sample size, while trade associations and others pointed to what they said is a lack of evidence supporting cross-ownership rules and urged the FCC to change them. “The record in fact supports broader reform of the broadcast ownership rules, including the local television and local radio rules, to allow broadcasters to achieve economies of scale and scope and enhance their service to the public,” said NAB.

Legislation like the 1992 Cable Act opened the door for broadcasters to make money on retrans as the number of over-the-air customers declines, Bergmayer said. “You want to look at ways to ensure that broadcasters … are not able to take this government granted privilege to just sort of leverage it … to basically drive up peoples’ cable bills,” he said. “We've seen increasing consolidation in the broadcast market,” with companies like Sinclair and Tribune “consolidating local broadcasters to increase their leverage in retransmission consent,” he said: While over-the-air broadcasting “seems like an obsolete technology, it’s as profitable as ever because of the public policies the FCC has set up in other bureaus."

The FCC should use unclaimed money from the Connect America Fund to jumpstart the development of “gigabit communities,” proposed the Fiber to the Home Council Americas on Tuesday. In a petition, the association of telecom providers, utilities and municipalities said the unspent CAF USF money should be distributed as “catalyst funding” to support deployment of ultra-high speed networks with symmetrical gigabit services for community anchor institutions and surrounding neighborhoods.