Expect more reports and investigation of the post-derecho 911 outages, several government and industry officials told the D.C. Council in a public hearing Thursday. Multiple 911 centers lost service in northern Virginia during the June 29 storm due to Verizon’s backup power failures. The company has scrambled to fix deficiencies (CD Aug 15 p1) as several entities, from the FCC to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), to the Virginia State Corporation Commission, began opening proceedings on the failures.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s controversial report on spectrum sharing proposes a national process for sharing, but sharing itself is not new, said Preston Marshall, who worked on the report, during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation panel Friday. “There’s really nothing in this report that we don’t do today,” he said. The report, released in July (CD July 23 p1), has raised concerns both with carriers and on Capitol Hill (CD Sept 14 p1). In a key conclusion, PCAST recommended that the administration direct agencies to identify 1,000 MHz of spectrum that could be shared with the private sector.

The Department of Justice’s consent decree last month approving Verizon Wireless’s buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox contains conditions that will lead to a continuing role for DOJ monitoring business practices well into the future, officials said. Under the decree, Verizon has to send DOJ annual reports providing details on where Verizon is rolling out fiber and explaining why it’s not profitable to do so. The consent decree provides a monitoring role for the government that some experts say shows a new trend of greater involvement of the government after the fact, years after a deal is complete.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau denied a request from the Bay Area Regional Interoperable Communications System Authority (BayRICS) for special temporary authority to build a public safety network in the 700 MHz band, ahead of the national FirstNet, in an order Thursday. The group representing governments in and around San Francisco had been one of the most high-profile of the systems seeking to deploy an early network in the 700 MHz band. The bureau said BayRICS did not meet the criteria established by the FCC in a July order for grant of an STA (CD Bulletin July 30). Buildout of BayRICS could hamper FirstNet rather than help its deployment, the bureau said.

Judges seemed skeptical that the FCC’s mandatory data roaming order imposed common carrier obligations on Verizon Wireless and other carriers, in oral argument Thursday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Wiley Rein attorney Helgi Walker, arguing for Verizon, said the order opened up a “vast new frontier” of Title III authority. The FCC argued it had plain authority to enact the rules under the licensing provision in Section 303(b) of the Communications Act. A divided commission approved the measure last year, requiring carriers to offer data roaming on “commercially reasonable” terms and conditions, as proposed in the National Broadband Plan (CD April 8/11 p1). Verizon quickly appealed.

Verizon Wireless has enough spectrum to meet its needs for four or five years, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said Thursday at a Goldman Sachs investor conference. The carrier received FCC approval in late August for its purchase of 122 AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and an additional 30 from Cox Communications (CD Aug 24 p1). “This was an absolute strategic acquisition for us,” he said. Verizon Wireless expects to complete its deployment of LTE in its current 3G coverage footprint by the middle of next year via its 700 MHz spectrum. Once that happens, the carrier could start using its newly acquired AWS spectrum for LTE coverage, Shammo said.

Colorado telecom companies are struggling to form a consensus on the state’s plan to overhaul its telecom rules and high-cost fund, as demonstrated by reply comments with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission made public after our deadline Wednesday. The PUC initiated the new rulemaking in August, heard initial comments Aug. 29, is holding meetings throughout September and will formally address concerns in hearings Oct. 1-4. Colorado’s biggest companies show broad agreement on deregulating VoIP and reducing the state’s high-cost fund but parties are still divided on whether the state commission should help fund broadband. Rural advocates have previously worried about how the reform may hurt rural broadband buildouts (CD Sept 10 p5).

Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee were unable to resolve their differences Thursday over a bill aimed at updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Though committee members adopted an amendment to the House-passed HR-2471, a bill that would let companies like Netflix share users’ viewing choices with their permission, Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., delayed a vote on the bill until the committee’s next executive business meeting, which stakeholders said would occur after the election. Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told us the delay was due to Leahy’s failure to address serious concerns with the amendment and said the committee is unlikely to consider the bill until 2013.

Liberty Media won’t increase its ownership of Sirius XM past 50 percent in the “very short term,” pending an FCC decision on its bid to take control of the company, CEO Greg Maffei said Thursday at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York City. Liberty, which increased its ownership in Sirius to 49.5 percent last week from 47.5 percent, has been buying up shares this year, seeking a return on the investment it made in the satellite radio company. Liberty invested $350 million in Sirius in 2009 and loaned it $180 million, likely sparing the company bankruptcy as it faced maturing debt.

Progress in the rollout by two broadcaster technology coalitions of mobile DTV, now commercially available to about half of Americans, was cited by senior House Communications Subcommittee members of both parties. Speaking at a Capitol Hill mobile DTV and mobile emergency alert system (M-EAS) demo Thursday, they said those new technologies’ use of spectrum already allocated to broadcasters helps meet increasing consumer demand for streaming video. Lawmakers recognized consumption of mobile DTV -- TV stations sending live shows to portable devices and as of this summer one model of Samsung cellphone on MetroPCS (CD Aug 10 p10) -- doesn’t use wireless spectrum or incur data consumption charges to cellphone subscribers.