Reply comments to the FCC’s proposed rules for making on-screen emergency alerts more accessible to people with trouble seeing and hearing show a wide rift between disability advocates and industry groups and companies over how such rules should apply to IP-based video and devices that can display such video. AT&T, Verizon and CTIA each largely supported comments made earlier in the docket by the CEA, Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) urging the commission to limit its new accessibility requirements to devices and services of broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). But Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. (TDI), along with seven other groups that work on behalf of the deaf and blind, argued the rules should apply to all video distributors.

Large and small carriers reiterated their stances on how the FCC should structure a spectrum screen, in replies to a notice of proposed rulemaking in docket 12-269. Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and public interest groups urged the commission to separately evaluate a licensee’s spectrum holdings below 1 GHz. AT&T and Verizon Wireless asked the commission to allow the screen to function as a safe harbor. Replies were due Monday.

LAS VEGAS -- Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs kicked off the Consumer Electronics Show Monday evening with a preshow keynote on the future of mobility and a pitch for small-cell technologies as well as other products made by his firm. Jacobs highlighted a new generation of smartphones and tablets, which will put more demands than ever on wireless infrastructure, and announced a new generation of processors, the Snapdragon 800 for smartphones. He didn’t dwell on the widely feared spectrum crunch brought on by the kinds of smartphones and tablets he highlighted.

The FCC got its argument wrong, said petitioners in the Arlington, Texas, v. FCC Supreme Court case, defending what they see as the rights of municipalities against the possibility of federal encroachment. The case examines the Chevron doctrine, which dates to 1984 and concerns a federal agency’s ability to determine its own jurisdiction. The petitioners, NARUC, the State and Local Legal Center and other parties had argued that de novo review is appropriate in cases determining an agency’s jurisdiction (CD Nov 21 p1). The FCC and T-Mobile, the Competitive Carriers Association and PCIA have defended Chevron deference to agency authority (CD Dec 21 p1). The petitioners’ 31-page reply in docket 11-1545 (http://xrl.us/bn9xin) insisted on their original interpretation.

Progress toward combining T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS remains very positive, executives from both carriers said Tuesday during a presentation at a Citigroup investor conference. T-Mobile CEO John Legere said he believes the entire process is progressing ahead of schedule and that he’s “anxious that we will become the new company relatively soon."

Verizon Wireless and AT&T say they had a record-breaking Q4, with both releasing some information on their performance ahead of official quarterly earnings announcements set for later this month. Verizon Communications, which owns a majority of Verizon Wireless, will release its full Q4 earnings Jan. 22; AT&T plans to release its full results Jan. 24.

LAS VEGAS -- USTelecom President Walter McCormick said a quick tour of the massive floor at the Consumer Electronics Show will demonstrate to anyone who pays attention why the FCC should act on the group’s December petition for declaratory ruling asking the agency to determine that ILECs should no longer be considered dominant in providing switched access services. Others on a panel chaired by McCormick expressed hope that the FCC’s Technology Transitions Policy Task Force will mean the FCC becomes better able to keep up with the speed of technological change.

The data roaming decision reaffirms the FCC’s Title III authority to pass net neutrality rules, the commission told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in its surreply brief late Friday (http://xrl.us/bn9sts). That December decision, Cellco Partnership v. FCC, also supports the agency’s position that its net neutrality order doesn’t impose common carriage requirements, it said. Verizon had argued last month that the Cellco decision -- which upheld the rule requiring carriers to offer roaming agreements on “commercially reasonable” terms -- supported its position that net neutrality rules impose “per se common carriage” obligations on broadband providers (CD Dec 26 p1).

Some long-pending proposals to increase broadcast ownership by minorities and women got more support. The Diversity Competition Supporters (DCS) said there was broad consensus in initial comments late last month (CD Dec 28 p3) on a FCC public notice about a recent Media Bureau broadcast ownership report for several of the 47 proposals they want the FCC to consider. In replies posted to docket 09-182 Monday and Friday, more commenters endorsed some of those ideas.

Sprint Nextel and AT&T oppose a joint proposal put forward in the New York Public Service Commission’s proceeding on its state USF and intrastate access charges. The two major telcos have argued for months that intrastate access issues should be resolved in litigation, not as part of a multiparty negotiation. “There should be no further delays in reforming New York intrastate originating access rates,” Sprint said Friday in its comments to the PSC (http://xrl.us/bn9sqr), calling Verizon’s current proposal, introduced in November and attracting wide support, “an effort to delay reform further.” Parties who signed on to the November joint proposal include PSC staff, the New York State Department of State Utilities Intervention Unit, the Cable Telecom Association of New York, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Frontier, Level 3, a group of smaller ILECs, Time Warner Cable, tw telecom and Windstream.