Requirements for video descriptions from emergency on-screen crawls haven’t changed much from what was in an FCC draft that has been circulating for a month (CD March 11 p3), said agency and industry officials. They said in interviews Thursday that the draft Media Bureau order and further NPRM hasn’t been controversial among the agency’s members, and a public-interest official said it may be approved largely intact. He said he hopes the further notice on Internet Protocol programming sent by MVPDs to connected devices in a pay-TV household gets a section added on accessibility of emergency crawls to those with both sight and hearing impairments.

Tom Wheeler, considered the frontrunner to be the next FCC chairman, saw his candidacy hit two potential roadblocks this week. Thirty-seven Senators, led by Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, asked President Barack Obama to name Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel as chairman. Fifteen public interest groups, led by the New America Foundation, released a letter Wednesday calling Obama to nominate a public interest advocate instead of Wheeler, former president of NCTA and CTIA. The public interest group letter was expected (CD March 27 p6), but industry officials said the senators’ letter was a surprise.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s certification of a group of Comcast subscribers in a class action, in a 5-4 decision Wednesday. Justices Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy said a U.S. District Court was wrong to certify a class of more than 2 million current and former Comcast subscribers for alleged antitrust violations. At oral argument in November in Comcast v. Behrend, the company’s lawyer argued that the plaintiffs’ arguments for class certification relied on a “bunk” economic model (CD Nov 6 p3).

The FCC will release a public notice seeking data on pole attachment costs and their impact on the deployment of super fast networks, Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the agency’s first gigabit community broadband workshop Wednesday. The six-hour workshop brought together industry executives, activists and officials to look at the fast networks out there today and see how they're used and what could be done to speed the deployment of more. “We need more gigabit communities in the United States,” Genachowski said. “We need to have a critical mass of a one-gigabit market to spur ultra high speed innovation here in the United States.” He counted off the fast networks developing in the U.S. -- “We're seeing communities and we're seeing companies” -- and suggested more are necessary to compete globally against countries like South Korea and Japan: “If we build super fast networks, the innovators will come."

T-Mobile USA is “canceling our membership to the Wireless Carrier Club,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said at a press conference Tuesday, saying the carrier will begin selling the iPhone 5 on April 12 and start a series of other steps to brand T-Mobile as the “Un-carrier.” T-Mobile said it will be selling the iPhone 5 for $99.99, plus a monthly $20 fee over the course of two years. The carrier will offer the iPhone 4S for $69.99 plus a $20-per-month fee over two years, and the iPhone 4 for $14.99 and a $15-per-month fee over two years. The fee is in addition to the cost of a customer’s voice, text and data plan. T-Mobile said it will offer other new smartphones on similar fee schedules (http://t-mo.co/ZqQaqh).

The House Judiciary Committee is circulating a discussion draft of a bill aimed at modernizing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a committee spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday. The aide said the draft was being circulated by staffers “to all stakeholders in an effort to bring everyone to the table to make any necessary changes or improvements to the proposal.” The draft, which would increase criminal financial penalties and jail time for those found guilty of certain computer crimes, was harshly criticized by Demand Progress, an Internet advocacy group founded by the late activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide during his prosecution for CFAA violations.

Industry commenters largely acknowledged that Telecommunication Systems (TCS) identified a real problem in its petition last August -- companies providing E-911 and next-generation 911 call routing and location information and carriers face predatory lawsuits by patent assertion entities (PAEs). But commenters disagreed whether the FCC can grant the relief sought by TCS. Qualcomm said not denying the petition would have “devastating public policy consequences.”

ILEC service quality is falling short in California, some stakeholders fear. The California Public Utilities Commission posted several comments this week on whether and how the CPUC should identify and potentially correct the facilities of the two major ILECs in the state that have been shown in the past to struggle with service quality. AT&T and Verizon argue for a limited study of their facilities with a specific focus, while others want a broader, critical look at their services.

It’s unclear how a deal to consolidate control of Verizon Wireless would change the overall dynamics of the market, industry experts told us Monday following renewed speculation that Verizon Communications was more seriously considering options for acquiring Vodafone’s 45 percent ownership of the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier.

Public interest groups are expressing some concerns about the potential appointment of Tom Wheeler as the next chairman of the FCC, replacing Julius Genachowski (CD March 25 p1). At least one official has signaled to the White House public interest groups could live with the choice, sector officials said Monday. Wheeler, 66, managing partner at Core Capital Partners, was president of CTIA from 1992 to 2003 and CEO of NCTA from 1979-1984.