The DOJ wants access to sensitive information in certain FCC proceedings to assist the department's antitrust review of Verizon's proposed buy of XO Communications, the commission said in a public notice Wednesday. The DOJ Antitrust Division seeks access to the confidential and highly confidential information in the FCC's review of the planned deal and in its business data service proceedings, said the PN, which asked for comments by May 28 on the request.

A U.S. District Judge in San Francisco is delaying a Thursday hearing in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation was going to urge the federal court to make public a large, decades-old drug enforcement database that contains Americans' telephone metadata (see 1605170006). EFF said in a Wednesday update that the judge issued an order Tuesday asking for "supplemental briefing from the parties" and another hearing date may be set once that briefing is complete. EFF had planned to argue that the government "stop misusing public records law to hide information" about the Hemisphere Project, which was created by the Drug Enforcement Administration, local drug enforcement officials and AT&T.

Comedian John Oliver featured the lack of funding for 911 on an episode of HBO's Last Week Tonight that aired Sunday. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel cited the episode at the APCO Summit in a keynote Monday about how to upgrade 911 (see 1605160052). “We have a lot of faith in 911, but the system can break down more than you think,” Oliver said in the clip, which can can be viewed free on YouTube. “Depending on where you live, [911 centers] may also be underfunded, understaffed and full of outdated technology, which is fine if you’re describing a RadioShack, but it’s a little scary when you’re describing a place that handles life-and-death situations.” Also, Oliver called unacceptable an FCC mandate that wireless carriers must be able to provide a usable location for 80 percent of people calling 911 by 2021. “That’s not good enough,” he said. “The sentence, ‘In six years, I might not be able to find one out of five of you,’ is only acceptable if you’re speaking to the members of One Direction.”

The FCC admonished New Century Telecom and Zoom-i-Net Communications for failing to comply with commission subpoenas to produce information and documents for slamming and cramming investigations. In two orders (here and here) Tuesday, the Enforcement Bureau also gave the companies 30 days to explain why the FCC should not (1) determine they aren't qualified to hold regulatory authorizations, (2) initiate proceedings to revoke their authorizations, or (3) issue orders declaring their authorizations have terminated. The companies couldn't be reached for comment.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it will press the U.S. District Court in San Francisco at a Thursday hearing to make public a "massive" drug enforcement database that contains several decades' worth of of telephone metadata. The Drug Enforcement Administration and local drug enforcement officials partnered with AT&T to develop "the Hemisphere Project," with funding from the DEA and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The New York Times revealed the database in a 2013 story, reporting that embedded AT&T employees in drug-fighting units across the U.S. supplied agents and local detectives with Americans' phone data dating back to 1987. EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act request for more information about the program, but said it was given "only a small amount of heavily redacted records in response." At the hearing, EFF Senior Staff Attorney Adam Schwartz plans to argue that the government "must stop misusing public records law to hide information about Hemisphere."

Purchase intent for smart home devices among U.S. broadband households doubled from 21 percent in early 2014 to nearly 50 percent at the end of 2015, a Parks Associates news release said Friday. Safety and security continue to be the main drivers of consumer smart home interest, and once smart home products are in the home, "consumers quickly develop habits with these devices,” Parks Associates President Stuart Sikes said. Usage varies by product, but 40-50 percent of most safety and security device owners control or monitor their systems daily, Sikes said. Age and income are key demographics in the early adopter market, Sikes said. "Mass-market advertising with a clear call-to-action, prompt installation, and service delivery will help speed up the market adoption rate of smart devices." Some 23 percent of U.S. smartphone owners own a smart home device, and more than three-fourths of those consumers use a mobile device at least once a month to control their smart home devices, Parks said.

The Satellite Industry Association urged technological and competitive neutrality in the FCC's planned Connect America Fund reverse auction of broadband-oriented support. SIA "reiterates its support for a CAF framework that does not favor any one technology over others," the group said in a Thursday filing in docket 10-90. "SIA strongly supports the FCC’s longstanding policy of technology neutrality," it said, with a draft CAF Phase II auction order on the tentative agenda for the commission's May 25 meeting (see 1605050036). "Innovations in the satellite industry, including high-throughput satellites, present important potential solutions for the problems that the CAF seeks to address," said SIA, which also backed continued FCC "commitment to the longstanding policy of competitive neutrality." Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat recently made similar arguments (see 1605120029 and 1604150040).

Atlantic Tele-Network cited progress in winning regulatory approvals of its planned buy of subsidiaries of National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC). "ATN and CFC have already received many of the regulatory consents necessary for consummation of the Transaction and are nearing receipt of the others," said an ATN filing posted Wednesday in FCC docket 15-264 that updated commission staff. ATN -- a mobile wireless provider in 10 Western states and the U.S. Virgin Islands and a CLEC in three Northeastern states -- is proposing to buy CFC's DTR Holdings and its telecom and cable TV units operating in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The transaction received "early termination" U.S. antitrust approval Feb. 2 and was cleared by government entities in the British Virgin Islands and St. Maarten, ATN said. The U.S. Virgin Islands Public Services Commission scheduled June 14-16 hearings on the deal and a hearing examiner is to issue a decision July 25, triggering final review by the PSC, ATN said.

ESPN ended its skinny bundle legal fight against Verizon. In joint statements Tuesday (see here and here), the companies said they settled ESPN's 2015 lawsuit about Verizon's offering programming packages that excluded some ESPN channels, allegedly in violation of contractual agreements (see 1504270071), but terms of the settlement won't be disclosed. Terry Denson, Verizon vice president-content strategy and acquisition, said the company "look[s] forward to further collaborating with them to deliver customers content across all of our platforms."

The FCC said it received prohibited written presentations in the Lifeline USF proceeding in which the commission adopted an order overhauling the low-income subsidy program at its March 31 meeting (see 1603310056). The presentations in docket 11-42 were from the American Enterprise Institute, National Association of Counties and six individuals, said a public notice, saying presentations to decision-makers are generally not allowed from the day after release of the meeting's Sunshine agenda until the text of the item is issued (see 1604270028), which in this case was from March 25 until April 27. The presentations "will be associated with, but not made part of the record," said the PN in Tuesday's Daily Digest.