The NTIA concluded Friday that more work must be done to understand the challenges to federal agencies with operations in the 5350-5470 MHz and 5850-5925 MHz bands before the agency can conclude that they can be safely reallocated for Wi-Fi or other unlicensed use. The NTIA report comes after FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced plans at CES for a proceeding on the two bands (http://xrl.us/bn953e). NTIA had no comment beyond the report.

AT&T is buying 39 of Verizon Wireless’s lower 700 MHz B-block licenses for $1.9 billion cash and the transfer of several AWS licenses. The announcement quickly drew criticism from groups advocating for public interest concerns and the interest of smaller carriers. The AWS licenses that Verizon Wireless will receive in the deal cover western markets, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Fresno and Portland, both carriers said. The two carriers are also pursuing related spectrum agreements through private equity firm Grain Management. AT&T said it will lease three 700 MHz B-block licenses in North Carolina that Verizon Wireless is selling to Grain for $189 million -- those cover the Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham markets. AT&T also plans to sell Grain an AWS license covering Dallas, which Verizon Wireless will then lease. The FCC and the Department of Justice will need to clear the transactions covered in the deal; AT&T said it anticipates those transactions will close in the second half of the year (http://xrl.us/bocbhj).

A partisan split among the four regular FCC members on media ownership rules (CD Jan 18 p1), which may be so intractable it can’t be resolved with the unanimity Chairman Julius Genachowski seeks, could be partly addressed by using a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council proposal as the basis for a compromise, commission officials said. They said some at the commission are considering parts of MMTC’s proposal last week as a potential pathway to a compromise on how much to deregulate ownership. A much bigger determinant in the outcome of draft rules first circulated Nov. 14 remains what revisions if any Genachowski makes to the Media Bureau order, agency and industry officials said.

The FCC Friday released model rules for broadband and wireless facility siting aimed at state and local governments. “This provision will accelerate deployment and delivery of high-speed mobile broadband to communities across the nation,” the FCC said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bocbtp). “This action will create greater certainty and predictability for providers that today invest more than $25 billion per year in mobile infrastructure, one of the largest U.S. sectors for private investment.” The commission also launched a proceeding looking at how to expedite the use of temporary cell towers, cells on wheels (COWs) and cells on light trucks (COLTs), to expand cell capacity during big events like the Presidential Inauguration or the Super Bowl.

The government’s need to maintain the integrity of an investigation can outweigh the public’s right to access judicial information, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled(http://xrl.us/bocb3t). It denied an appeal from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU in U.S. v. Appelbaum, the case of three Twitter users who were not notified when the federal government sought information from the social media site in relation to an investigation of WikiLeaks and the unauthorized publishing of classified documents.

State regulators have struggled to come to terms with a problem that more and more have heard about from state residents: call completion issues. They're especially common in rural areas, from what officials can tell, they said in interviews last week. They said the FCC will have to play a key role in solving the problem. On circulation at the commission is a notice of proposed rulemaking (CD Jan 25 p1) that would mandate telcos and carriers collect data so the FCC can compare urban and rural rates of dropped calls and identify where the problem is. Several state commissioners have monitored the issue, some more formally than others, and one state commission is trying to impose penalties in the only way it’s authorized to. NARUC adopted a resolution in the summer calling on the FCC to “expeditiously” identify providers which contribute to call completion problems and take “appropriate and swift action” in penalizing them. State regulators aren’t sure how to approach the problem now, some expressing growing frustration.

A federal appeals court should not block Dish’s Hopper DVR PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop features, said parties sympathetic to Dish’s arguments, in amicus briefs filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The briefs were filed in response to Fox’s appeal of a U.S. District Court, Los Angeles, decision not to grant Fox’s motion for an injunction. The CEA and Computer Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed a joint brief supporting Dish. So did the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Public Knowledge and the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW). And a group of law professors also threw their support behind Dish. A Fox spokesman declined to comment.

A broad coalition representing broadcasters and wireless companies Thursday called for changes to the proposed bandplan for an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum. The call came in a letter to the FCC on the eve of a deadline for initial comments on the much-anticipated auction. As expected (CD Jan 24 p1), the letter objected to a proposal to put some broadcasters in the so-called duplexer gap, surrounded by wireless operations. The letter was signed by NAB, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, Qualcomm and Intel.

NARUC will tackle spectrum sharing, emergency communications coordination and the FCC’s “repeated abuses of informal rulemaking,” according to draft resolutions released this week (http://xrl.us/bob6pm). State regulators will consider the resolutions at their winter meeting in Washington in February. The proposed resolutions delve into past controversial territory, such as addressing FCC referral to the Federal-State Joint Boards on Separations and Universal Service. USTelecom objected to joint board referral provisions at the past two NARUC meetings, in Baltimore in November (CD Nov 14 p5) and Portland, Ore., last July (CD July 25 p8), although both of the resolutions passed.

Verizon is raising questions about whether the amount of time proposed rules for the Experimental Radio Service would allow for companies to object to experimental license applications when they are filed is adequate. FCC officials tell us the issue is starting to heat up. The commission is tentatively slated to take up a report and order at its Jan. 31 meeting on experimental licensing rules (CD Jan 11 p12), the main item on the preliminary agenda (http://xrl.us/bob7g7).