Dish General Counsel Stanton Dodge will appeal to lawmakers Tuesday for retransmission consent reform and characterize broadcaster opposition to Dish’s DVR Hopper service as anti-consumer. His written testimony circulated among lobbyists ahead of the Senate Communications Subcommittee’s second “state of” communications hearings under Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. The hearing comes as lawmakers prepare for the December 2014 expiration of Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) and the arrival of a new FCC chairman. Dodge and Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Begmayer will tell lawmakers that the outdated rules that govern the video market are hurting consumer choice and the public interest. Meanwhile, representatives from NAB and NCTA plan to say the video marketplace is working well and there’s little need for regulatory change, according to their prepared testimony.

The NPRM approved by the FCC Thursday on a proposed air-ground mobile broadband service in the 14.0-14.5 GHz band delves into a much bigger issue -- how to auction secondary spectrum rights. That issue is likely to come up on a much bigger scale as the Obama administration pushes forward on a plan to share government spectrum with carriers, also on a secondary basis. In this case, an operator offering inflight broadband would have to share a band primarily allocated to Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) use (CD May 10 p5).

The FCC Technology Transitions Policy Task Force released its much anticipated public notice on Internet Protocol transition trials Friday, but stopped short of approving AT&T’s proposal for wire center trials. Instead, if trials as proposed by AT&T come at all, they would only follow completion of a comment cycle set up by the task force Friday. Commissioner Ajit Pai called the notice a “missed opportunity.”

The U.S. and ITU hope to return to a more consensus-based approach to international telecom and Internet policy Tuesday when the ITU convenes the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF), industry and government officials told us. WTPF is the ITU’s first major telecom summit since the controversial World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), which met in Dubai in December. The WCIT, convened to update the treaty-level International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), resulted in a series of fractious votes and a revised treaty that only 89 ITU member nations signed. The U.S. was among the 55 nations that did not sign the ITRs, citing the existence of Internet governance-related language within the ITRs and in an attached non-binding resolution. The U.S. remains a signatory of the original ITRs adopted in 1988 (CD Dec 17 p1). WTPF will also tackle Internet-related topics, but industry insiders told us it will be a far different conference than WCIT.

Verizon landline customers nationwide may soon face a transition to fixed wireless, if the telco wins support for its latest goal in transitioning away from its deteriorating copper network. Verizon’s plan is Voice Link, a new technology intended for those the telco can’t easily migrate to fiber, as it has done with 335,000 customers since December 2011, Senior Vice President Tom Maguire told us. This wireless alternative will receive its first true deployment this spring on Fire Island, where last fall Superstorm Sandy wiped out the copper on the western half of the suburban New York vacation spot. Critics including Communications Workers of America (CWA) and Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld already worry about removing landline service. Maguire defended the product and its focus on consumers.

There’s very strong “rationale” for seeking global harmonization of a next-generation DTV standard, but it risks delays in implementing ATSC 3.0 or an alternative system, FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake said in an interview Thursday during the Advanced Television Systems Committee annual meeting. That’s another reason he thinks it’s “unrealistic” for the FCC to slow the fast-tracked preparations for an incentive spectrum auction to wait for deployment of ATSC 3.0, as broadcasters have urged, Lake told us, much as he said in his ATSC keynote (CD May 10 p7).

U.S. demand for spectrum will quickly outstrip supply and wireless companies are focused on expanding infrastructure and technology to keep up, officials from several of those companies said at the Winnik International Telecoms & Internet Forum Friday. To make up the gap, they said their industry is looking to alternatives to cellular towers, bandwidth sharing technology, and additional ways to clear spectrum. “There is a huge challenge facing operators on how to come up with forward-looking spectrum and spectrum utilization technology that can handle the upward turn in spectrum traffic,” said David Jeppsen, NTT DoCoMo USA vice president-business development.

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., introduced a bill Thursday that would require app developers to obtain user consent before collecting data and to securely maintain that data. The Application Privacy, Protection and Security (APPS) Act (HR-1913) “answers the call” of consumers who want “simple controls over privacy on devices, security to prevent data breaches, and notice and information about data collection on the device,” Johnson said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/11W5HOD).

The operator, which bought a 45 degrees west orbital position from the Brazilian telecommunications agency Anatel, is preparing to move EchoStar-15 satellite to that slot to demonstrate and test delivery of DTH services, EchoStar analysts have said. An EchoStar spokeswoman declined to comment. The timing for the test hasn’t been disclosed. But EchoStar has said it would move EchoStar-15 once EchoStar-16, which was launched to 61.5 degrees west last November, went into operation, which occurred earlier this year. EchoStar-16 transponders are leased to Dish Network. The 32-Ku transponder EchoStar-15 went into operation in 2010.

Mobile device users need to have their geolocation information protected from law enforcement officials as well as other individuals, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said during a mobile privacy event hosted by the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus on Thursday. Chaffetz discussed his bill -- also introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. -- which would require law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before they can access geolocation information. “It’s not just about limiting law enforcement in trying to get them to have probable cause to be able to track somebody,” he said. “It’s also to make sure that an individual can’t surreptitiously follow somebody else across state lines."