The SEC should stop opposing updates to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, said think tanks and public interest groups in a Friday letter to the commission (http://bit.ly/1ewXrKZ). “Yes, the SEC -- the agency charged with regulating the securities industry -- has brought the ECPA update to a screeching halt,” said the American Civil Liberties Union in a Friday blog post about the letter, which also included the Americans for Tax Reform, the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Heritage Foundation (http://bit.ly/1kRmZpL). The ACLU said the SEC does not want the law updated to require a warrant to access email older than 180 days, which is the law’s current cut-off. “The SEC is trying to frame the issue as a loss of authority, it is really a power grab -- one that would apply not just to the SEC but all federal and state agencies, including the [Internal Revenue Service], [Drug Enforcement Administration], and even state health boards,” said the ACLU. The SEC did not comment.

The recent trend at the FCC to fund “pilot projects” makes it “essential” that every pilot project have an “established and confirmed end date,” Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said in a blog post Thursday (http://fcc.us/1i5VJVj). “I don’t doubt that an occasional pilot project may be of assistance, but I worry they can divert time and effort away from fixing or improving existing programs,” O'Rielly wrote. “We must keep in mind that these projects all come from scarce consumer-provided dollars.” O'Rielly included a chart showing that more than half a billion dollars has been allocated for pilot projects since 2006.

Correction: The legislator FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote on prison calling rate issues (CD April 18 p18) is Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.

Three men were indicted for allegedly defrauding the FCC’s Lifeline program of $32 million, the Department of Justice said Thursday. The men, Thomas Biddix and Leonard Solt of Florida, and Kevin Cox of Tennessee, were charged with wire fraud, false claims and money laundering. According to the DOJ, the three men submitted “falsely inflated claims” to the Universal Service Administrative Co. between September 2009 and March 2011. Their company, Associated Telecommunications Management Services LLC, fraudulently received more than $32 million, the indictment says. In a statement, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler applauded USAC, the Office of Inspector General, and the FCC’s Lifeline policy and enforcement teams for their “considerable contributions” leading to the fraud indictment. “We will not tolerate abuse of this program, and are gratified to see the results of our hard work to battle fraud,” Wheeler said. According to the indictment, which was unsealed Thursday, ATMS “perpetrated a scheme to defraud the FCC and USAC” primarily by misrepresenting their number of verified qualifying customers. A federal court in Tampa authorized a seizure warrant seeking defendants’ “ill-gotten gains,” a DOJ news release said, including the contents of multiple bank accounts, a yacht and several luxury automobiles.

Correction: The U.S. libraries for which an L-rate program would be designed are the 17,000 not connected to schools, said Urban Libraries Council representative Reed Hundt (CD April 9 p8).

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai railed against raising the local rate floor, in a speech to the Western Telecommunications Alliance Wednesday. The FCC should not raise many rural Americans’ phone bills by 46 percent, either through a one-time increase or by phasing in such an increase, he said. Pai called for freezing the local rate floor “indefinitely” while the agency examines the underlying policy. The rate floor, meant to reduce so-called “excessive subsidies” for basic phone service, was a “mistake” that the agency has a responsibility to correct, Pai said. “Rate shock could send customers off the network entirely,” he said, according to prepared remarks (http://fcc.us/1n4UGpf). “That means further uncertainty about the economics of investing in rural America.” The rate floor is “bizarre” in that it wrongly assumes “that what’s affordable in our country’s largest cities must be affordable in our small towns,” Pai said. Pai also said the quantile regression analysis benchmarks should be stricken. Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a blog post last week that a circulating order would do just that (see related story in this issue).

Neustar asked the FCC to formally seek public comment before selecting the Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA) for the contract period scheduled to begin July 2015. “Notice and comment is required,” Neustar said in a letter to the commission Tuesday (http://bit.ly/PNL1s8). “Where the Commission has designated an entity to serve as a neutral numbering administrator ... based on a [North American Numbering Council] recommendation, it has acted after providing notice and seeking public comment,” Neustar said. “Because the selection process at issue will lead to the designation of a neutral LNP administrator, notice and comment is required here as well.” The notice seeking comment on NANC’s proposed recommendation should “specifically request comment on the significant issues that have been framed,” said Neustar. It said that would include whether the extension of the deadline for submission of proposals in April 2013 -- after the original deadline had come and gone -- “was lawful and appropriate.” The agency should also rule on whether the failure to seek further proposals in January was in the public interest, and whether the evaluation carried out pursuant to the request for proposal documents “constituted an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison of competing bids,” said Neustar, the current LNPA contract holder. Another big question: “Whether the deficiencies in the process to date require that no award be made now and an additional round of bidding be held,” Neustar said. Given the “extraordinary ramifications” of the LNPA selection, the commission should address outstanding issues at the commission level, Neustar said. NANC met last week privately to consider whether to recommend the FCC renew Neustar’s contract or give it to rival bidders (CD March 26 p7).

It’s not about the dollars that consumers will spend on Ultra HD TVs, “it’s about the eyeballs” that will mark the needed “critical mass” before a broadcaster jumps in with an ad-supported TV network dedicated to 4K programming, Vince Roberts, Disney-ABC TV Networks chief technology officer, said Monday in a “super session” conference on consumers, 4K and next-generation home entertainment at the NAB Show. “To hit that critical mass if one were to launch a 4K network that could be relatively well-supported by the ad industry, it’s probably around 40 million homes that would make it practical for you to be able to sell ads,” Roberts said. “So there needs to be a tremendous amount of penetration in that space for any of us on the programming side to begin considering launching a full-time, 24-by-7 network doing specifically UHD. That doesn’t scale very well unless you hit that level of critical mass.” Roberts agrees with those who see “more of the niche” players leading the way with 4K TV programming, he said. “It’s going to be what Netflix is doing. It’s going to be VOD, that kind of unique user experience that can deliver that high-quality content.” He said he has heard that some multichannel video programming distributors “are talking about launching full-time UHD channels, and DirecTV has made some movements in that direction, so we'll wait and see.” If it turns out “that the right business opportunity is there, then content will be created or provisioned for those platforms,” Roberts said. But Disney-ABC TV has no “immediate plans right now to put a full-time network together” on 4K, he said. “That’s pretty far off in the future for us."

Corrections: What Computer and Communications Industry Association Vice President-Government Relations Cathy Sloan said she hopes happens this month on the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) is a committee markup (CD April 8 p13) … “SG32” is the ATSC specialist group that’s working to complete ATSC 3.0’s physical layer (CD April 8 p11).

FCC targeted outreach to broadcasters in advance of the TV incentive auction would go too far and risk making participation seem less than voluntary, the Television Licensee Coalition (TLC) said in a letter to the FCC. “The FCC has quite properly embarked on a process of generally educating TV stations about this opportunity by means of FCC webinars, workshops, conferences, etc., open to all interested parties, as well as the FCC LEARN program on the FCC website,” the TLC said. “But with its recent announcement of plans to conduct Targeted Outreach, the Commission risks tipping the delicate balance it is required to effectuate between a truly ‘voluntary’ auction and one in which the government, by overreaching, undermines that statutory dictate.” The auction is supposed to be voluntary, TLC said: “TLC respectfully suggests that the FCC resist taking any action that might be interpreted as instead introducing an element of compulsion into the process.” The group, represented by law firm Lerman Senter, speaks for “fifteen companies, licensed to operate approximately 300 full power television stations,” though the companies remain anonymous, the filing said (http://bit.ly/1jonSqo).