SAN FRANCISCO -- Civil liberties groups weren’t shy about airing publicly their dissatisfaction with the proposals of a sprawling coalition they've joined to seek a revamp of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), members of the Digital Due Process Coalition, said they support its efforts but want to go considerably further in imposing probable cause and warrant requirements for government agents to get information about e-mail, cellphone calls and other newer forms of communications.

The Google-Verizon deal takes wireless off the table in the FCC effort to reclassify broadband to be regulated under Title II of the Telecom Act because wireless is different, Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke explained in remarks at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum. The exclusion of wireless, at least for now, was one of the most controversial aspects of the agreement when it was unveiled two weeks ago (CD Aug 10 p1).

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia tossed out two key provisions in rules for designated entities (DE) approved prior to the AWS-1 auction in 2006, which were also in effect during the 700 MHz auction that started the following year. Council Tree, which took the FCC to court, claimed victory Tuesday even though the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit did not invalidate the results of either auction.

Cellphone tax law, public safety, cybersecurity and universal service are among issues expected to get Congressional attention when members return from recess next month, Hill and industry officials said. But with elections in early November, Congress is quickly running out of time to finish pending legislation on those and other matters. “On telecom, the final few weeks will mostly be about laying the groundwork for a busy 2010-11 in areas like spectrum, privacy and broadband regulation,” said Concept Capital analyst Paul Gallant.

Recent moves by wireless carriers to cuts prices, including Sprint Nextel’s likely move to a $40 pre-paid rate plan for unlimited wireless data, provide additional evidence that the industry is competitive, officials said this week. The topic has been a sore point since the FCC approved the latest version of its annual wireless competition report, which unlike previous reports does not find that the U.S. wireless market is competitive (CD May 21 p1).

Consolidation in the wholesale satellite capacity market has made it less competitive than other satellite markets, said Spacenet, in comments to the FCC. The company was responding to the International Bureau’s public notice requesting information for the annual satellite competition report. The wholesale market is “dominated” by Intelsat and SES World Skies, which “now control some 83 percent of the data network services transponders serving the U.S.,” said Spacenet, which buys wholesale capacity from operators. New entrants to the market are unlikely since Intelsat and SES World Skies already control or have rights to 2/3 of the 31 orbital slots able to provide service to the U.S., they said. The agency shouldn’t treat all satellite capacity as “fungible” since a change in satellite providers is a difficult process, requiring major adjustments to terminals and earth stations, Spacenet said.

An appeals court’s recent reversal of an FCC finding that unscripted curse words aired during prime time broadcasts are indecent could be applied to another case involving the appearance of a woman’s buttocks, the U.S. government said. The case on fleeting swear words reversed by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York (CD July 14 p1) wasn’t on the subject of scripted airing of nude adults, as occurred in the 2003 NYPD Blue episode now at issue. Yet the three-judge panel’s decision on Fox v. FCC “does not turn on such distinctions,” said the government’s brief.

The FCC is putting out feelers to industry leaders and interest groups on the Universal Service Fund contributions formula, industry lobbyists said and records show. The commission said in April it was overhauling broadband regulations and overhauling the service fund and has said it plans a rulemaking notice in the fourth quarter. In recent days, lobbyists and industry leaders have been at the FCC for various ex parte meetings.

Questions about what kinds of pay-TV distributors are entitled to use the FCC program access rules to seek carriage of vertically integrated-programming are better answered in a separate rulemaking, rather than in the context of a condition to approval of the Comcast-NBCU merger, Time Warner Cable argued in its reply comments in the merger review. Such a rulemaking could also answer questions about online distributors’ duties to provide closed-captioning and the emergency alert system, it said. “To the extent these issues need to be addressed, the full range of OTT [over-the-top] providers’ regulatory responsibilities should be considered in a proceeding of industry-wide scope, instead of adopting a standalone condition that would purport to give online entities rights under the program access rules,” it said.

A record spectrum donation of as many as 155 low-power TV stations from a non-profit religious broadcaster to a group that trains women and minorities to run stations points up the sagging market for TV stations of all types, said brokers and executives we interviewed. That Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world’s largest Christian TV network, is giving up most of its low-power TV (LPTV) stations to the Minority and Media and Telecommunications Council illustrates the recent dearth of deals for LPTV and full-power broadcasters, they said. Trinity will keep about 95 of its LPTV stations and upgrade them to digital, said attorney Colby May, who represents the broadcaster. He estimated it may cost $100,000-plus to upgrade from analog each station being donated by Trinity, which had been assessing its portfolio of 250 LPTV stations.