Republicans on the House Communications Subcommittee questioned whether new receiver performance requirements would encourage more efficient use of the nation’s spectrum assets, during a hearing Thursday. A handful of GOP subcommittee members acknowledged the harm caused by interference issues but said they remain concerned that any FCC rules for receiver standards could retard innovation and increase costs to manufacturers and consumers. Federal and industry witnesses said they're waiting on the forthcoming FCC Technological Advisory Council (TAC) recommendations on receiver performance, as well as the forthcoming Government Accountability Office (GAO) study on receiver performance and spectrum efficiency.

The California Public Utilities Commission wants a unanimous vote on what a new definition of basic phone service should be. The five commissioners met Thursday and decided to attempt to knit together two long-proposed definitions, the first introduced in January and the second in July. Both proposals have begun converging in recent months with revisions, commissioners agreed. Both seek to expand the definition of basic service to include other technologies such as wireless and have undergone much debate and multiple rounds of comments all year long. The latest revision of the second proposal has worried both industry and consumer advocates (CD Oct 26 p10).

TiVo’s could get $1 billion damages if its patent infringement lawsuit against Google’s Motorola Mobility goes to trial, Jefferies analyst Brian Fitzgerald said in a research note to clients. TiVo is confident it will demonstrate Motorola Mobility “took away an awful lot of business” it would have gained were it not for the company infringing its patents, TiVo General Counsel Matthew Zinn said on an earnings call. TiVo sued Motorola Mobility in U.S. District Court in Texarkana, Texas, alleging Motorola Mobility’s DVR/cable set-tops infringed three patents, including TiVo’s so-called time-warp patent that allows for recording one program while watching another one. Another patent covers time-shifting of multimedia content.

The FCC should develop a spectrum screen that’s clear and predictable, and not reimpose the spectrum cap the agency did away with in 2003, CTIA said in comments filed on the commission’s September mobile holdings notice of proposed rulemaking. T-Mobile said the FCC should impose spectrum caps for frequencies acquired in an auction. Meanwhile, public interest groups concerned about the concentration of licensed spectrum in too few hands said the agency should make more aggressive changes in its approach to examining spectrum holdings.

Voluntary incentive auctions for spectrum held by federal agencies will likely be discussed during the 113th Congress, said David Redl, majority counsel for the House Commerce Committee. But he and others at an FCBA continuing education panel said the incentives involved on the federal side would be very different than the ones involved in the voluntary incentive auction of TV stations’ frequencies. “At the end of the day, when we look at ways to incentivize folks in the government to relinquish spectrum authorizations, simply paying them from the federal coffers isn’t going to cut it,” Radl said. “It’s the left hand paying the right hand.”

The International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) shouldn’t try to “micro-manage” international telecom services but should deal with “high level strategic and policy issues,” EU governments said Thursday. The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) published European common proposals for December’s ITU World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai. The statement is “very diplomatic” but makes clear that a proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association for a sending-party-pays provision in the ITRs has been rejected, said European Internet Services Providers Association board member Innocenzo Genna.

A proposed FCC item on texting to 911 imposes requirements aimed only at wireless carriers and puts off any decision on texts from over-the-top carriers, agency officials said this week. That aspect of a report and order and further notice of proposed rulemaking, teed up for a vote at the commission’s Dec. 12 meeting, is raising concerns at the commission and in industry. Industry and agency officials said many Americans now use one of more than a thousand over-the-top text messaging programs as an alternative to SMS offered by carriers.

The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) should consider a set of “threshold” issues at the start of its upcoming conference -- any changes to the preamble and Article 1 of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), including the definitions used in the ITRs and the agencies the treaty-level document will apply to -- before delegates tackle any other proposed revisions, the U.S. and Canada said in a proposal filed Tuesday with the ITU. “Streamlined and rapid” consideration of changes to the Preamble and Article 1 “will ensure there is consensus from the beginning of the conference on how to proceed with revisions to the ITRs,” the two nations said in the proposal. Addressing those issues at the beginning of the conference would also allow delegates to consider the impact of other ITU meetings, including the outcomes of the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly, the proposal said.

The November 2011 FCC USF order cost a rural Texas telco more than $500,000 in support, the company said. Hill Country Telephone Cooperative asked the Texas Public Utilities Commission for money from the state’s USF this fall to make up for the loss. “I've been in telecom for 34 years, and I find these days the most challenging of my career,” Hill Country General Manager Delbert Wilson told us. “This whole [FCC] transformation order has filled our industry with chaos and uncertainty."

FCC staff delayed by a year and a half the date when cable operators must begin including Internet Protocol outputs on interactive HD set-top boxes they deploy. A Media Bureau order Wednesday partly granted TiVo’s waiver request, as expected (CD Nov 16 p4). The order came three days before an interoperability deadline that makers of consumer electronics, cable operators large and small and Verizon backed extending. The new deadline is June 2, 2014, for all but small operators, which get an additional three months. That was half the extra time the American Cable Association sought, though the ACA said it was happy to get the accommodation.