AT&T’s backing of “fair” rules in the upcoming incentive auction “points to the likelihood that the FCC will adopt some new limits on carriers, but a fight remains over the specifics,” said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Christopher King Wednesday in an email to investors. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said Tuesday that he was in favor of some limits on bidding in the incentive auction, but only if they applied to all parties (CD Dec 11 p6). Joan Marsh, AT&T vice president-regulatory affairs, said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday that the carrier would prefer an unrestricted auction but that any rules should apply equally to all parties (CD Dec 11 p3). “We suspect the FCC might prohibit any carrier from buying more than one-quarter or one-third of the converted broadcast spectrum, perhaps with wrinkles,” King wrote. “A 10x2 pair would fit within either limit if the FCC is able to sell off 84 MHz of licensed spectrum, but would only fit within the one-third limit if it sells off just 60 [megahertz]. … We would expect Sprint, T-Mobile, and others to continue arguing for a broader limit on spectrum below 1 GHz that restricts AT&T and Verizon more than others because the Bells already have about 80 percent of that spectrum."

Comments on a petition for rulemaking from the Alabama Educational Television Commission to change the channel of WBIQ Birmingham are due Jan. 10. Replies are due Jan. 27, the FCC Media Bureau said in a Federal Register notice Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/18V8BvJ). AETC seeks a waiver of the FCC’s freeze on filing petitions by TV stations seeking a channel substitution (CD Nov 7 p16). AETC, licensed to Channel 39, wants to return to its previously allotted Channel 10.

The FCC proposed $44 million in fines against three Lifeline providers, an agency news release said Wednesday. That brings the total amount of proposed Lifeline fines to $90 million over the past three months. Notices of apparent liability were issued against three companies “that appear to have requested and/or received Lifeline support payments for individual customers who appeared on the companies’ Lifeline subscriber lists more than once,” the release said. Telrite Corp. was fined $22 million, Global Connection more than $11 million (http://bit.ly/J7g2DJ) and Cintex Wireless more than $9 million (http://bit.ly/J7g2DJ). “The carriers knew or should have known, based on their own internal data, that they were not entitled to support for these duplicates under Lifeline program rules,” the agency release said. Telright, a Georgia eligible telecom carrier that does business in nine states, was found by the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) to have improperly sought Lifeline support reimbursement from more than 4,000 “individual intra-company duplicate lines,” said the NAL (http://bit.ly/1fkR8Mu). USAC found that Global, a Georgia ETC servicing 10 states, was seeking reimbursement for more than 2,000 duplicate lines. USAC found Cintex, a Maryland ETC in four states, was seeking reimbursement for more than 1,800 duplicate lines.

Global Eagle Entertainment and Southwest Airlines began a messaging service designed to work in all stages of flight. It allows passengers with Apple devices operating on iOS 5 or later “to iMessage gate-to-gate for the introductory price of $2 per day,” said Global Eagle in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1f7DnQk). On-board, customers can access the service while their device is in airplane mode, it said. For customers that prefer to do more than text, Wi-Fi is still available for $8 all day per device, “and texting is included in that price automatically,” said Global Eagle, owner of inflight broadband connectivity and entertainment company Row 44. “Android-friendly messaging apps will be added early in 2014,” the release said.

Samsung licensed the Reference Design Kit (RDK) from RDK Management to accelerate the set-top box and gateway device development cycle, said the companies in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1d8nIPb). RDK is a pre-integrated software to provide a common framework for powering IP or hybrid set-top box and gateway devices, and is licensed for consumer electronics manufacturers, system-on-a-chip vendors, other software developers, system integrators and TV service providers, they said. The RDK was developed to accelerate the deployment of next-generation video services and to prevent software fragmentation by providing speed-to-market collaboration and standardization, said the companies. RDK Management was formed in a joint venture between Comcast Cable and Time Warner Cable to administer the RDK, they said.

Several public interest groups asked the FCC to clarify that Section 222 of the Communications Act forbids selling “anonymized” but “non-aggregate” call records, as those constitute customer proprietary network information (CPNI). “Phone carriers regularly share -- or reserve the right to share -- customers’ records in an ‘anonymized’ form with third parties,” wrote Public Knowledge, the Center for Digital Democracy, Common Cause and others (http://bit.ly/1gZTGQw). All four major wireless carriers say they may share the information with third parties, the petition said, citing New York Times reports that AT&T has been selling call records to the CIA. “Even when carriers have ‘anonymized’ or ‘de-identified’ call records by removing personal identifiers from them they still constitute individually identifiable CPNI,” the petition said. That’s because under Section 222, all CPNI that’s not aggregate is individually identifiable, “as such records can be linked to a single person,” it said. It said what carriers refer to as “anonymized” records might still be vulnerable to “re-identification.” Carriers will say they're not violating the law, but they are, said Public Knowledge staff attorney Laura Moy in a blog post explaining the petition (http://bit.ly/1gZYIN6). “Even if anonymizing records before sharing them were enough under Section 222, masking a few digits of some phone numbers is just not enough to truly render records anonymous.” An AT&T spokesman told us that “in all cases, whenever any governmental entity in any country seeks customer information from us, we ensure that the request and our response are completely lawful and proper in that country.” AT&T has rejected government requests for customer information many times, the spokesman said. “Wherever we serve our customers, we maintain those customers’ data and information in compliance with the laws that apply in the country where that service is provided. It has been our experience that, no matter the country, laws related to government requests for customer information apply equally to all privately owned telecom providers. Like all telecom providers, we routinely charge governments for producing the information provided.” The spokesman declined to comment more specifically: “We do not comment on questions concerning the national security of any country.” A T-Mobile spokesman said the carrier “appreciates the concerns expressed by Public Knowledge in its petition.” T-Mobile “follows all laws” governing CPNI, “and provides annual reports to the FCC regarding regulatory compliance in this area,” the spokesman said. “We do not sell personally identifiable CPNI data to third parties except in three cases: 1) we obtain the user’s consent; 2) we provide it in aggregate form; or 3) we anonymize the data.” Sprint, Verizon and CTIA had no comment.

Comcast is adding partners to SEEiT, its platform to connect social conversations and promotion around content to the actual viewership of TV shows, movies and sports, it said in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1bw0ujx). The new partners expected to join include ABC Entertainment Group, A+E Networks Group, AMC Networks, Cablevision’s Optimum TV, Charter Communications, Crown Media, Discovery Communications, Fox Networks Group and Time Warner Cable. ABC, Fox, FX Networks, A&E, Discovery, Fox Sports 1, Hallmark Channel, National Geographic Channel and WE tv are among networks expected to join NBC, NBC Sports Network, CNBC, MSNBC, USA, SyFy, Bravo, Oxygen, E!, Esquire Network and Golf Channel in promoting content via SEEiT. SEEiT will enable subscribers of Time Warner Cable, Charter and Cablevision’s Optimum to tune into live TV or start an on-demand show on their set-top box, watch shows online or on their mobile devices through participating partners and set their DVRs, said Comcast. SEEiT is developed and operated by Comcast and launched by Twitter, said Comcast. It started as a “preview” on Nov. 22 on SyFy shows Haven and Naked Vegas, and it has now expanded to additional NBCUniversal programs, said Comcast.

"Robust competition” in the communications sector has changed how the FCC should act as a regulatory agency, but it “does not obviate the need for consumer-welfare-focused, economically-informed antitrust oversight where residual monopoly power remains,” wrote officials from the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and others Wednesday to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. They encouraged the FCC to continue to be involved in issues like consumer protection, public safety, spectrum management and universal service, but said market-based approaches to those issues would “lead to better policy outcomes.” The FCC shouldn’t make the Internet a “regulated industry” and should dispense with its net neutrality order in favor of an approach that would “permit new forms of contracting, and to police any abuses after the fact,” the stakeholders said. The commission should also “redouble” its use of market-based approaches to manage spectrum, particularly in the context of the upcoming incentive auction, their letter said (http://bit.ly/1fkSdUn).

A free public Wi-Fi network will be available to Harlem residents in May, said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Tuesday (http://on.nyc.gov/1iX2uen). The Harlem Wi-Fi network will extend 95 city blocks and will be rolled out in three phases to increase digital access for about 80,000 Harlem residents, including 13,000 in public housing, he said. The first phase from 110th to 120th streets between Madison Avenue and Frederick Douglas Boulevard is under way, he said. The New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications and the Technology Development Corp. are overseeing the implementation of the network, and they are working closely with technology provider Sky-Packets, said Bloomberg. The network will be available 24/7 in outdoor locations with unlimited access, he said.

Google’s YouTube will gross $5.6 billion in global ad revenue in 2013, netting $1.96 billion, estimated digital marketing researcher eMarketer Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1f6YSB4). YouTube will have a 1.7 percent share of all global ad revenue, which includes non-video related ads, and a 21 percent share of the U.S. video ad market, worth $4.15 billion overall, it said. YouTube’s net revenue will be up 66 percent from 2012, it said. YouTube’s global ad revenue share will be larger than that of Twitter, AOL, Amazon, Pandora and LinkedIn, it said.