Documents submitted to the FCC “contradict the Applicants’ initial public assertions” that a combination of T-Mobile and MetroPCS won’t mean job losses, the Communications Workers of America said in a filing Monday at the FCC. CWA’s arguments are based on information submitted by T-Mobile and MetroPCS that has not been released publicly, and the filing was heavily redacted. The letter was posted by the FCC Tuesday. T-Mobile said it plans to explain why CWA’s assertions don’t add up.

Sinclair’s recent TV station buying spree has been fueled in part by a desire to aggregate more spectrum, which the company believes will be increasingly valuable, CEO David Smith told investors at a Deutsche Bank conference Monday. “We think the long-term prospects for a spectrum-space play in TV, and the opportunities it’s going to provide, are very material and we think that time is getting closer and closer,” Smith said. “These acquisitions are a mechanism to get into position to play what we think is clearly going to be a larger opportunity that exists by virtue of a platform that is capable of doing things well beyond what it’s capable of doing now,” he said. The company has been a proponent of a plan to let broadcasters provide backhaul Internet service to carriers (CD Nov 17/11 p11).

Univision’s UVideos bilingual digital video service will be made available to select Samsung CE devices later this month and will be on a total of nine platforms by the end of 2013, Carlos Alimurung, Univision vice president-digital distribution, told us at the Media Summit New York on Tuesday. That will represent more than 200 million mobile and connected devices, he said.

More operating system and device competition should mean lower smartphone subsidies across the industry over the next two to three years, said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo Monday at a Deutsche Bank investor conference. The move of two new major operating system entrants into the market -- Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 -- is a good thing because “the more operating systems you have in the ecosystem, inherently the more competitive that system becomes,” he said. “I am a true believer that as these operating systems start to really take hold … then you are going to start to see more competition which leads to lower prices. So I think it is going to follow the same way that I watched the basic phones come over time. I think smartphones will do the same thing."

The FCC should plan to slice more than $17 million in salaries and expenses and $200,000 from its spectrum auction program account in fiscal year 2013, according to a recent White House report. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) detailed exactly how the $85 billion in cuts would affect federal agencies following the president’s release of the sequestration order late Friday. Other agencies that oversee telecom and technology issues should expect to reduce their 2013 fiscal year expenditures by 5 percent, the report said.

Stakeholders centered on super-fast broadband networks defended and debated network models Monday at the Freedom to Connect conference in Silver Spring, Md., placing an emphasis on municipally owned networks and community needs. The gathering’s sponsors include Google Fiber, the Open Technology Institute, the consultants of CTC and the Atlantic Engineering Group, among others. Super-fast broadband networks are vital, executives said, describing projects in Louisiana, Minnesota, the Kansas City area and elsewhere, and the ways these projects have developed, and debating what models work best.

The FCC gave Harris County, Texas, authority to continue its work on a public safety broadband network in the 700 MHz band. The Public Safety Bureau order, signed by Chief David Turetsky, was posted Friday (http://bit.ly/VuH38q) and extended the network’s special temporary authority (STA) by another six months, until Aug. 28. The FCC gave the Texas network a six-month authorization last fall. The state has partnered with the Harris County Information Technology Center to use 20 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band for public safety for, as the FCC authorized, 14 sites in Harris County. The county was among 21 entities granted waivers to operate in the 700 MHz band initially and had planned for such a network since 2009. It’s now slated to be folded into the proposed national FirstNet public safety network.

The Internal Revenue Service should change the outdated way it considers whether media get tax-exempt status, a group of journalists, foundations and news websites said in a report that was partly backed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Rules dating from the 1970s that require organizations seeking 501(c)(3) status to primarily engage in education have led to months- and sometimes years-long delays in websites obtaining such status, said the study. Written under the auspices of the Council on Foundations and led by Steve Waldman, who wrote the commission’s study on the future of media when he was an aide to Genachowski, Monday’s report said some news websites have folded while their applications were pending. “Unnecessary obstacles seem to be getting placed in the way of nonprofit news outlets attempting to educate their communities,” Genachowski said.

The government and broadcasters are working to improve the delivery and efficiency of emergency alert system messages using wireless capabilities, broadcasters and some FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said Monday during an emergency alert system meeting in Washington. The meeting was organized by NAB and the National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations. Making the system more effective will involve improving cybersecurity and keeping pace with advancements in broadcast technology, they said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Monday criticized a decision by the Copyright Office that said it’s a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for consumers to unlock new mobile phones. Genachowski asked Congress to take action. Meanwhile, a White House official said the administration agrees people should be able to unlock their phones. On Jan. 26, the librarian of Congress issued a ruling that effectively made it illegal to unlock new phones (http://1.usa.gov/ZaI6qS). Violators face heavy fines and prison time.