NTIA mobile privacy stakeholders debated the remaining contentious issues in the newest draft of a voluntary code of conduct that would require apps, via short-form notice, to inform users what data they collect and with which third parties they share that data (http://1.usa.gov/16WmiIO). Those issues include the implications of the document’s preamble and the requirements of the short-form notice’s format. During the Thursday meeting, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling and NTIA Director of Privacy John Verdi praised the group’s progress and encouraged stakeholders to see the process through to its end.

Commerce Secretary nominee Penny Pritzker said she would seek to free up more federal spectrum for commercial wireless use, facilitate the creation of a cybersecurity framework for U.S. businesses and speed the creation of FirstNet, in comments during her confirmation hearing Thursday. Pritzker is the founder and CEO of PSP Capital Partners and a board member of the Hyatt Hotels Corp., which her father, Donald Pritzker, co-founded. Ms. Pritzker was one of President Barack Obama’s top fundraising bundlers, is a former member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and a former member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

LAS VEGAS -- Industry executives at CTIA’s annual meeting said it’s crunch time, as the FCC moves forward on developing rules for an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, which could start as early as next year. Carrier and other industry officials said the industry’s anxiety level over the auction rose a little Friday with release of the 600 MHz band plan public notice (CD May 17 p1). None of the issues facing the FCC are looking easier to solve as work on auction rules go forward, they said.

In the first major move under acting FCC Chair Mignon Clyburn, another $485 million in Connect America Fund Phase I money will be made available for fixed broadband expansion in unserved areas. Wednesday’s order, which leverages private investment and universal service funding, “will potentially connect hundreds of thousands of unserved consumers to robust broadband networks,” Clyburn said in a statement. The commission expects this to be the final round of Phase I funding, said the order approved 3-0 (http://fcc.us/10QCTsG). It said price-cap carriers will be allocated support “using the same allocations as in the first round of Phase I.” As expected (CD April 25 p1), carriers will get access to $300 million allocated for the second round of Phase I.

LAS VEGAS -- FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said it’s time for the agency to recognize reality and start to lay out some of the key rules for the upcoming incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, starting with the band plan. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who also spoke Wednesday at CTIA, said the FCC is “still at the beginning of a long haul” but the 600 MHz band plan itself must be ready by Q3. “All good deliberations must come to an end,” she said. The FCC on Friday, as CTIA’s annual show was about to begin, released a public notice suggesting more alternative versions of a band plan. On Tuesday, NAB, Verizon and AT&T said the FCC’s proposals show a “disconnect” between the commission and industry (CD May 22 p4).

As Ka-band and high throughput satellites (HTS) become more widely used in many markets, operators must continue working to ensure services are seamless and efficient, said satellite executives and HTS customers. When developing high-capacity satellites, operators need to look at the business model, said Wayne Marhefka, Hughes business development senior director. It’s apparent that the demand for high-capacity satellites is there, he said Wednesday at a Global VSAT Forum event in Washington. The shift to such satellites and Ka-band capability is going to be the next generation of broadband services, he said.

LAS VEGAS -- Some 30 emergency alerts were sent to wireless subscribers in Oklahoma Monday as tornadoes struck the state, killing at least 24 people, industry officials said during a CTIA public safety panel Tuesday. Another 17 emergency alerts went out on Sunday as the storm began. However, CTIA Assistant Vice President Brian Josef said that consumer expectations for the level of warnings they'll get on their cellphones are on the rise.

The FCC’s proposed plan for the 600 MHz band shows a “disconnect” between the commission and the wireless and broadcast industries, said AT&T, Verizon and NAB in a joint blog post featured on all three entities’ websites Tuesday (http://bit.ly/191hcK7). Echoing comments by Commissioner Ajit Pai on Friday’s public notice requesting comment on the band plan (CD May 20 p4), the three said the FCC proposals of a reversed “down from 51 plan” and a time division duplex (TDD) plan fly in the face of “hundreds of pages of comments” and two industry consensus letters. “The first has absolutely no support in the record and the second adopts a technological approach contrary to the one proposed by the majority of U.S. carriers,” they said. An FCC official responded that the PN was intended to “expand the record” on the ways “various band plans can deal with market variation so that we avoid a ‘least common denominator’ effect that could limit overall spectrum recovery and revenue generation."

Opt-out language is required on fax advertisements even if that fax was requested, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based its decision heavily on the interpretation of the FCC, which said the opt-out language was required even after obtaining a potential recipient’s consent. “We may not reject the FCC’s plain-language interpretation of its own unambiguous regulation,” the court said, reversing a lower court that found against the plaintiff. “Our reversal today, therefore, places the parties back before the district court where [defendant] faces a class-action complaint seeking millions of dollars even though there is no allegation that he sent a fax to any recipient without the recipient’s prior express consent."

The industry is at an inflection point “where we're truly escalating as a business, as an industry, and it’s being driven by the consumer market,” said Arunas Slekys, Hughes corporate marketing vice president. Hughes has about 1.1 million subscribers in the U.S., he said. Out of about 130 million households, “over 10 percent will not have terrestrial broadband in their lifetime because it’s too expensive to dig a trench and bring fiber, cable, or DSL to your home,” he said. The satellite industry went from an enterprise-driven niche market into the mainstream with consumer services, he said. “We're going to keep driving the costs down."