A chain of truck stops can’t start a wireless TV service that would require waivers to operate in a band used by broadcasters, cable programmers and the federal government, said the FCC. The “entirely new use” of the cable-TV relay service band to run a multichannel video distribution system at Flying J truck stops throughout the U.S. shouldn’t be pursued by a waiver, said an order approved by commissioners and released Tuesday. It said such a change is “the province of a rulemaking.” Since 2006, when Clarity Media Systems first requested the waivers that were a year later denied by the Media Bureau, that company’s owner, Flying J, has filed for bankruptcy and in 2010 combined with another truck stop chain.

The Conference Group lacked standing to challenge an FCC decision that audio bridging software by InterCall must pay into the USF, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/14oHjbd). The Conference Group, a provider of audio conferencing services, had argued it was harmed by the commission’s ruling, which it said imposed new duties on all audio bridging service providers (CD April 16 p8).

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said Tuesday that now that the comment cycle is complete it’s time for the FCC to make clear that it’s embracing a “Down from 51” plan for the 600 MHz band and that an alternative plan floated in a May 17 public notice is now off the table. Reply comments on the notice were due Friday (CD July 2 p1) as the agency works toward a 2014 target date for an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum.

The question of VoIP provoked sharp disagreement. The RLECs of the Iowa Telecom Association (ITA) do “not believe any of the commenters offered any compelling reasons to alter the Board’s precedent that interconnected VoIP is and should remain subject to certain regulatory requirements,” they said (http://bit.ly/15dzMgh). The Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate (OCA) pushed for certain VoIP regulation, running counter to Verizon, AT&T and the Voice on the Net Coalition. “Since virtually all retail rates have been deregulated in Iowa since 2008, the push for preemption or deregulation of VoIP services must be to free VoIP carriers from regulatory oversight of crucial consumer protections,” the consumer advocate said (http://bit.ly/1b5lZez). It pointed to “enforcement of service quality standards, consumer privacy protections, and access to connection to the entire network” and “carriers’ public safety obligations, including providing reliable access to 911 services” as well as the board’s complaint process. Providers are “at times unresponsive to consumer complaints,” it added.

An FCC rule that will require all broadcast stations to post detailed information about their political ad sales online instead of just maintaining hard copies in their offices will be burdensome and difficult for smaller stations to comply with, said Fletcher Heald’s Peter Tannenwald, an attorney for many independent broadcasters. The rule is already in effect for the big four network affiliates in the top 50 markets, and set to apply to all broadcasters starting July 2014, but the FCC asked for comments on possible changes to its implementation, in a June 27 public notice (CD June 27 p20).

There is a “growing consensus” in favor of a “Down from 51” plan for the 600 MHz band following an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, CTIA told the FCC in reply comments. NAB made similar points. Both major trade groups also highlighted an issue that has gotten less mention to date: problems posed by potential co- and adjacent-channel interference in a variable band plan. NAB asked why the issue has been ignored by FCC staff that is developing rules for the auction. Reply comments were due Friday on a May 17 Wireless Bureau public notice exploring the advantages of a “Down from 51 reversed” band plan as well as on a proposal to use time-division duplexing (TDD) instead of frequency-division duplexing (FCC) (CD June 18 p1).

Tribune will likely avoid falling afoul of FCC ownership rules through shared service agreements in St. Louis and Denver, said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. He also pointed to previous Tribune efforts to sell off its newspaper properties as a possible solution to the cross-ownership conflict in Virginia. “There’s not a lot of formal levers for the FCC to grab onto,” he said, describing the deal as being “not as bad” as a recent plan for Gannett to buy Belo Corp.’s TV stations, which also featured a market overlap (CD June 14 p7). No mention was made of how Tribune and Local TV will get past cross-ownership rules during a conference call Monday held by the companies. The deal would allow Tribune to create “synergies” between its print, video and digital properties, said CEO Peter Liguori on the call. BIA/Kelsey Chief Economist Mark Fratrik said he believes the companies would not pursue the deal without believing it will be approved by the FCC. “They obviously have good legal counsel; good FCC counsel,” he said.

CAMBRIDGE, U.K. -- The inherently global nature of the digital economy and the companies that lead it is forcing data protection authorities (DPAs) to boost cross-border cooperation, said Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart Monday. One focus of that increased coordination was a joint Canadian-Dutch investigation of California-based WhatsApp, a mobile messaging platform, said Stoddart and Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Netherlands Data Protection Authority. The company has begun to clean up its act, but the situation isn’t yet resolved, Kohnstamm said. Mobile apps in general, and geolocation services in particular, create privacy headaches which industry is trying to cure, said other speakers at a Privacy Laws & Business conference.

Arris will use the Motorola brand for set-tops and other networking gear for at least 12 months and maintain separate software platforms in building on its $2.35 billion acquisition of Motorola Home from Google, said Jonathan Ruff, Arris senior director-technology, in an interview last week.

A trio of House lawmakers said they want to debate the issue of government and corporate surveillance of Americans during separate interviews set to air this weekend on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo.; Justin Amash, R-Mich.; and Michael Capuano, D-Mass., spoke less than a fortnight after reports of an order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that gave the National Security Agency authority to collect phone metadata from millions of Verizon subscribers (CD June 7 p1) and the existence of a program authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that permitted NSA collection of Internet user data from non-U.S. citizens.