The FirstNet board signed off unanimously on two resolutions Thursday. It formally approved the first lease agreement with one of the seven suspended stimulus projects, and decided how to move forward with additional information on the budget and acquisition strategy of FirstNet management. Members met by phone.

FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn is set to meet with officials from both Canada and Mexico to discuss international ramifications of the incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, officials said Thursday. Clyburn has meetings scheduled in Ottawa next week at an ITU symposium, officials said. Commissioners got an update from its Incentive Auction Task Force on the latest developments on the auction, from Gary Epstein, head of the task force. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel urged the FCC to take the steps it can before Tom Wheeler is confirmed as chairman, ultimately replacing Clyburn.

An unsuccessful Do Not Track (DNT) stakeholder process, facilitated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), would lead to an “arms race” between browsers -- or user agents -- and the companies that seek to track users online and could lead to legislation, said DNT stakeholders Thursday. A Microsoft official during the conference hosted by Consumer Action announced changes to the company’s Internet Explorer browser that would allow websites to seek permission to collect information from users who have enabled DNT.

The newest FTC nominee will likely benefit from her political experience and the broad knowledge she gained while working on antitrust issues at the Department of Justice, observers of both agencies and those who used to work at DOJ told us. Terrell McSweeny -- whose nomination by President Barack Obama was announced last week (CD June 24 p12) -- is senior counsel-competition policy in DOJ’s Antitrust Division. She has previously served as deputy assistant to the President Barack Obama and domestic policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for then-Sen. Biden, D-Del.

Former FCC members disagree about how fast the commission should be pushing for action on the incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum. Former agency heads and ex-commissioners from both parties agreed Wednesday that Wireless Bureau staff have been impeded by the lack of a full commission, and lack of clear direction from the top. The ex-members also disagreed on whether the auction is the most complex task the agency has ever taken on, in a Q-and-A hosted by Communications Daily.

The FCC is well within its legal authority to consider spectrum aggregation caps in the upcoming incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, Louis Peraertz, wireless adviser to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, said during an Internet Innovation Alliance panel discussion Wednesday. But Peraertz also assured industry the auction is the top “institutional priority” of the FCC under Clyburn. The discussion was also sponsored by the Digital Policy Institute and The Joint Center.

Verizon has gone beyond the bounds of what the New York State Public Service Commission has allowed, said an emergency petition New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed with the PSC Wednesday. In May, the PSC authorized Verizon to end its landline service on the western half of Fire Island, N.Y., and replace it with the fixed wireless alternative of Voice Link (CD May 17 p8). The PSC limited deployment of Voice Link as a sole service option to Fire Island, but on Wednesday the AG said the telco has attempted to push the service elsewhere, citing union reports and customer accounts. Verizon denied wrongdoing.

The five-member Iowa Telecommunications and Technology Commission unanimously voted to reject the two offers from Iowa Network Services for the purchase of the state’s Iowa Communications Network Wednesday. It will send that recommendation to the office of Republican Gov. Terry Branstad this week. Branstad and the Iowa Legislature will make the final call on whether to move forward with the offers. The state issued a request for proposals for sale or purchase of the municipal network in February, as a 2011 Iowa law mandated (CD Feb 19 p7).

Wireless industry executives plan to press the government to reallocate its spectrum holdings for wireless commercial use, at Thursday’s House Communications Subcommittee hearing. Lawmakers on the panel will ask federal witnesses from the Defense Department and NTIA whether there are economic incentives that would encourage them to relinquish more spectrum for commercial use, Hill aides told us Wednesday. Scheduled to testify are Dean Brenner, senior vice president-government affairs at Qualcomm; Christopher Guttman-McCabe, executive vice president-regulatory affairs at CTIA; Karl Nebbia, NTIA associate administrator of the Office of Spectrum Management; and Teri Takai, Defense Department chief information officer. The hearing, “Equipping Carriers and Agencies in the Wireless Era,” is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn.

Intelsat and Ericsson demonstrated a 4K Ultra HD, end-to-end video transmission over satellite to Turner Broadcasting’s Atlanta facilities. It was the first transmission of a UHD signal over satellite in North America and showed that the satellite delivery chain can accommodate the next-generation signals for broadcasters, Intelsat said in a news release Wednesday. “The whole point of the demonstration was to prove that satellite transponders as they are today are ready to accommodate the bandwidth necessary to transmit 4K over the satellite,” said Peter Ostapiuk, Intelsat’s media product management vice president. “We wanted to prove that the current generation of satellites can support the 4K transmission,” he said in an interview.