Broadcasters from 10 states on Thursday told FCC officials of the importance of activating FM chips in smartphones, a perennial issue for the industry, and about some emergency alert system (EAS) concerns. A meeting with Chief David Simpson and others in the Public Safety Bureau was part of NAB's fly-in to lobby (see 1602260038) the FCC that day (see 1602250038), an association spokesman confirmed. At the EAS/FM chip meeting, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State broadcaster association representatives said Simpson's backing of industry negotiations "led to the activation of FM chips in mobile phones offered by three of the four major wireless carriers, and continued industry efforts toward further increasing the availability of radio-enabled smartphones." AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile offer or are moving to offer devices with the chips activated, Commissioner Ajit Pai has said. Verizon didn't immediately comment Monday. On efforts to allow access to emergency information in languages other than English, broadcasters said there are "various risks concerning technology, accuracy and liability that raise obstacles to translating EAS alerts at the EAS Participant-level," said an NAB filing on the meeting, posted Monday in docket 04-296. It said those concerns are "as opposed to passing through multilingual EAS alerts that are created and disseminated by EAS alert originators." More such ex parte filings will be made in coming days on the broadcaster fly-in meetings, said the NAB spokesman.

NAB opposed petitions from the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, Cal.net, Carlson Wireless Technologies, Google and Microsoft seeking reconsideration of rules for unlicensed use of the TV white spaces. The petitions call for relaxing FCC rules for the use of white spaces devices in the TV band, NAB said. “NAB continues to support unlicensed operation in the television band as long as such operations must not cause harmful interference to licensed services,” NAB said in its filing in docket 14-165. “NAB opposes certain of the changes petitioners seek to the FCC’s rules because they will unnecessarily and unacceptably increase the likelihood for harmful interference to over-the-air television viewers and other licensed operations.” CTIA opposed a request by wireless microphone advocates that the FCC relax out-of-band emissions limits for wireless mics. “The Commission’s decision was based in part on extensive testing information provided by CTIA and its members, and the Commission concluded that the requirements it adopted were necessary to ensure compliance with the Spectrum Act,” CTIA said. “The Commission should uphold this conclusion.” The FCC also should stick with a provision limiting the spectrum that can be used for wireless mics, said CTIA. The 30-MHz limit in the order “is well-supported by the record and falls squarely within the Commission’s stated policy objectives of promoting spectral efficiency and frequency agility for wireless microphones,” CTIA said.

The FCC circulated a draft video relay service item last week, according to its list of such items. An agency spokesman confirmed Monday it's an order on VRS rates. The commission late last year proposed freezing the "Tier 1" compensation rates of the three smallest VRS providers at their June 30, 2015, level for 16 months between July 1, 2015, and Oct. 31, 2016. Without relief, the rates are subject to reductions under the agency's schedule of rate cuts. The circulating order "involves the Tier I rate freeze for the smallest 3 VRS providers," said Jeff Rosen, general counsel of Convo Communications, one of the three small VRS providers. "The Commission proposed the rate freeze based on the information in the record indicating that a rate freeze was necessary to provide a true opportunity for the 3 smallest and minority-owned providers to grow to scale and compete. No commenters opposed the proposed rate freeze," he emailed Monday. "Immediate action is needed by the Commission to avert placing the smallest providers & their consumers at risk in going out of business due to the lack of a temporary opportunity granted by the Commission to compete."

Satellite market modification rules the FCC adopted in September are now in effect, and the agency is accepting market modification petitions from commercial TV stations, satellite carriers and county governments, the Media Bureau said in a public notice Thursday. The rules expand the cable market modification rule to apply to satellite market modifications, with a couple of caveats -- including an exception if the market modification is “not technically or economically feasible" (see 1509110035). Rules took effect Thursday, the FCC said, concurrent with a notice in the Federal Register, which itself cited Office of Management and Budget approval of the rules for three years.

The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force will hold a public workshop on procedures for making an initial commitment in the reverse part of the auction on March 11, the agency said Friday. The session starts at 10 a.m. and will be held in the Commission Meeting Room. “The workshop will include a demonstration of the initial commitment bidding system,” a notice from the agency said. “Commission staff will present a preview of the reverse auction bidding system for the clock phase of Auction 1001.” The session is being held in conjunction with the Media and Wireless bureaus.

Broadcasters will have just 32 hours to commit to selling their licenses in the TV incentive auction, said a public notice by the FCC Wireless Bureau. Initial commitments must be submitted during a window that opens at 10 a.m. EDT March 28 and closes at 6 p.m. EDT March 29, the bureau said. The bureau said the initial commitment module of the auction system will be available for preview starting at 10 a.m. EDT March 24, remaining open until the initial commitment window opens. “Late initial commitments will not be accepted,” the bureau said. An online tutorial on initial commitments will be available Feb. 29, as well as a user's guide for the initial commitment module of the auction system, the bureau said. Potential bidders should log in to verify that they are able to access the system, the bureau said. “Similar educational materials for the clock rounds of the reverse auction (Auction 1001), and the clock and assignment phases of the forward auction (Auction 1002) will be available in coming weeks,” the notice said. “These materials will cover information relating to the bidding and immediate post-auction processes of the incentive auction. We will provide these materials sufficiently in advance of the applicable phases of the auction so that participants have adequate time to become familiar with them before the beginning of each phase.”

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology released an NPRM and order Friday addressing TV white spaces rules. “The proposals are designed to improve the integrity of the white space database system and, as white space device deployments grow, to increase the confidence of all spectrum users of these frequency bands that the white space geolocation/database spectrum management scheme fully protects licensees and other authorized users,” OET said. OET proposes to eliminate the professional installer option for fixed white space devices and require that each fixed white space device incorporate a geolocation capability to determine its location. The NPRM addresses complaints by NAB made last year on the database. “In the accompanying Order, we decline to suspend operation of the white space databases pending completion of this rulemaking or to adopt temporary measures to ensure the integrity of each existing and new entry in the database, as requested by NAB in its petition,” OET said. “While we agree that some measures to improve white space database accuracy warrant consideration at this time, we find that the proactive measures taken thus far by the Commission and the database administrators, the current state of the databases’ accuracy, and our continuing oversight are sufficient to proceed without the need to impose the safeguards proposed by NAB, particularly in light of the disruption these proposals would cause to the white space devices initiative.” NAB filed a petition in March at the FCC citing wide-ranging problems with the database (see 1503190056). Last summer, NAB and white spaces device manufacturers reached an agreement on revised rules for the TV white spaces (see 1507170062).

Cogent has congestion-free interconnection with AT&T and Comcast, is close to getting there with Time Warner Cable and Verizon, and CenturyLink may not be far behind, CEO David Schaeffer said on a quarterly earnings call Thursday. Schaeffer said large carriers have a "Byzantine" approach to adding interconnection ports and increasing capacity. It's been an "iterative process" in which Cogent has provided its demand projections to interconnection partners, and "in every case they thought we were too optimistic," but it turned out "we were too conservative," he said. When the parties added ports, they quickly filled up, so they continue to add ports, he said. The process takes time, but Schaeffer said he's confident Cogent will be congestion free with TWC and Verizon by the end of this quarter, and he's hopeful it will get there with CenturyLink in early Q2. Internationally, he said Cogent has negotiated additional port capacity with Orange, though they haven't yet reached a long-term agreement. He's also hopeful of reaching an agreement soon with Telefonica. But Cogent is suing Deutsche Telekom in U.S. federal court (see 1512090070) for allegedly breaching its contract to provide settlement-free upgrades, and there has been no improvement since Cogent's complaint was filed. "So we think this will probably be full adjudicated," he said. Schaeffer said the interconnection improvement is helping the company increase business. In its earnings release, Cogent reported Q4 service revenue growth from a year earlier of 12.1 percent (on a constant currency basis). Cogent had $3.7 million in legal fees in 2015 advocating for net neutrality, the company said.

Apple is asking a federal court to throw out the Department of Justice and FBI motion to compel the company to unlock an iPhone connected with the Dec. 2, 2015, San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack (see 1602220026). In Thursday's 36-page motion to U.S. District Court in Riverside, California, lawyers for Apple wrote that the case goes beyond "one isolated iPhone." They said it's about the government seeking a "dangerous power" from courts, one that hasn't been granted by Congress: "the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe." Apple also said that no court has ever authorized what the government now wants. While the government said it's only seeking unlocking for this one device, Apple said the government knows that's not true and "has filed multiple other applications for similar orders." It said that state and local officials have "publicly declared their intent to use the proposed operating system to open hundreds of other seized devices -- in cases having nothing to do with terrorism." The company added that "once the floodgates open, they cannot be closed, and the device security that Apple has worked so tirelessly to achieve will be unwound without so much as a congressional vote." U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, who ordered Apple to help the FBI get into the locked device, has set a March 22 hearing.

This year’s Chairman’s Awards for Advancement in Accessibility will focus on innovations that address the telecom needs of people with cognitive disabilities, FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Acting Chief Alison Kutler said in a blog post Wednesday. The commission is looking for “solutions that focus on the telecommunication needs of people with differing functional requirements, using design principles that are mindful of users’ attention focus, problem-solving and comprehension issues to achieve accessibility in ways that are simple and clear, consistent, multi-modal and error-tolerant,” she said. “Advances in accessibility make technology more useable for all people,” Kutler said. ”We are certain that advances in telecommunication accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities will help every user of these technologies.” Nominations for the Chairman’s AAA awards are due March 31. More on the nominating process is at www.fcc.gov/chairmansaaa. The FCC held a summit in October on communications difficulties faced by people with cognitive disabilities (see 1510280037).