The FCC 2011 pole attachment order was upheld unanimously by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/XAuJD3). The FCC had found that ILECs were included in the protections of Section 224 of the Communications Act, which gives advantages to some companies that seek to attach cables and network equipment to utility poles. Even though the order in some places “reverses decades-old Commission policy,” the commission met the required “modest demands for changing its policy,” Senior Judge Stephen Williams wrote for himself and Judges David Tatel and David Sentelle. “Upholding its decision follows ineluctably."

The FCC will look closely at interoperability and possible requirements that devices can be used across the spectrum that is sold in the pending incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman said at a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council lunch Tuesday. Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake said sequestration, even if it kicks in “as widely expected” starting Friday, won’t slow FCC efforts to hold an incentive auction next year.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski paused the media ownership proceeding to give the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council time to study the impact of waivers allowing common ownership of stations and daily newspapers on minority and women-owned broadcasters. The delay had been expected (CD Feb 21 p5) and shortly after NAB and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) backed MMTC’s plan to spend its own money on the research. Other FCC members and broadcasters generally support the delay in voting on rules first circulated Nov. 14, agency and industry officials told us, and commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell said they backed the delay.

IP-to-IP interconnection policy isn’t relevant to AT&T’s proposed wire center trials, the telco said in reply comments on its proposal Monday. The FCC need not address IP interconnection issues to OK the trials, AT&T said. Nonetheless, “because so much of the advocacy opposing AT&T’s petition focuses on these issues,” the telco took the opportunity to respond: IP-to-IP interconnection is “needless, harmful, and unlawful,” and the FCC lacks Title II authority over the interconnection of information services. Verizon argued against new regulation of broadband networks and services, and the imposition of unbundling obligations on new technologies. CenturyLink said the commission should reject attempts by CLECs to gain a “competitive advantage” by imposing “unnecessary and counterproductive regulations on next-generation IP networks and services” (http://bit.ly/XAm5ok). But state regulators, CLECs and others criticized AT&T’s request as a thinly veiled attempt to maintain ILEC power while preempting state regulations.

The fledgling business of making tablet and smartphone apps that are synchronized to TV programming got a boost Tuesday. Fox said it will syndicate its synchronized “companion” TV content through San Francisco-based Watchwith’s platform to app makers such as Shazam, Dijit Media, Viggle and ConnecTV.

Cablevision sued Viacom over their December carriage agreement. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleges Viacom illegally forced Cablevision to carry and pay for “14 lesser-watched ancillary networks its customers do not want,” like MTV Hits and Centric, “in order to carry must-have networks such as Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central.” That raises perennial concerns for pay-TV distributors that object to such bundling, analyst Todd Juenger of Bernstein wrote investors.

Crest Financial, which owns 8.34 percent of Clearwire’s Class A stock, urged the FCC to reject a move by Sprint to acquire the rest of Clearwire. Crest submitted a report to the FCC, which it said shows that Clearwire’s spectrum is worth two to three times as much as Sprint will pay. Meanwhile, Softbank, which is buying control of Sprint, and Sprint jointly rebutted comments filed by the Consortium for Public Education and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie, Pa., against that transaction. Dish Network weighed in as an opponent of the Softbank/Sprint transaction.

The FCC Media Bureau solicited comments on a letter from the Coalition for Broadcast Investment (CBI) that asked the commission to loosen its foreign ownership restrictions on broadcast licensees. The CBI includes companies such as Disney, Clear Channel, CBS, Hearst, Univision and groups such as the National Association of Black County Officials, National Black Chamber of Congress, and Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. The coalition asked in August that the FCC clarify that it will conduct case-by-case evaluations of proposals for foreign investment in broadcast holding companies that exceed a 25 percent stake.

Delays in the deployment of federal broadband funds and infrastructure are partly caused by cumbersome environmental and historic preservation requirements, federal witnesses will say at Wednesday’s House Communications Subcommittee hearing. But poor oversight of funds and grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have resulted in duplicative overbuilding of broadband infrastructure in some areas, regional telecom executives in Colorado and New England plan to counter. (See separate report in this issue.) That’s according to written testimony posted on the subcommittee’s website Tuesday.

Data caps harm consumers, content creators and online innovation, panelists said Tuesday at the 2013 Public Knowledge Policy Symposium. On a later panel, representatives from Time Warner Cable and Dish Network spoke about the need to use the 2014 deadline to reauthorize the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) to examine the success of the current broadcast regulatory regime.