Lowe’s took a step forward as a one-stop supplier in the smart home space Monday, saying it will offer professional monitoring services for its do-it-yourself Iris smart home system. Lowe’s partnership with United Central Control (UCC) gives the home improvement retailer a product/service offering that can rival those of AT&T Digital Life and Comcast Xfinity Home. And ADT Pulse parent Tyco said last fall (see 1510220040) it was working with Google's Nest Labs to develop “useful integrations” between Nest products and Tyco’s “expanding smart home product portfolio.” UCC’s central monitoring service will give select Lowe’s Iris customers a conduit to emergency responders through their smart home systems for the first time, Lowe’s said. The $20-a-month fee includes Iris Premium service and cellular backup service.

The FCC appears poised to take a deeper dive into zero rating next year, CCMI consultant Andrew Regitsky said Wednesday in a blog post. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently raised questions about zero-rated services in letters to AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile (see 1512170030). “It seems clear that the Commission will use its Internet ‘future conduct’ rule to determine if these free data plans provide an advantage to their sponsoring companies,” Regitsky wrote. “On the one hand it would seem that these plans provide a huge advantage to large ISPs by making services such as access to Netflix seemingly free to consumers, while absorbing content acquiring costs to win market share. Smaller ISPs could never eat those costs and stay viable. On the other hand, for consumers who utilize the free data, these plans allow them to sample different Internet offerings potentially driving more Internet use.”

The FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Architecture will meet Jan. 29, said a notice to be published Thursday in the Federal Register. The meeting is scheduled for 1-4 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room. The notice said the task force "will hear a presentation and consider a vote on a consolidated report and final set of recommendations, as incorporated from the reports and recommendations of the Task Force’s three working groups; specifically, the reports and recommendations of Working Group 1–Cybersecurity: Optimal Approach for PSAPs and Working Group 2–Optimal 911 Service Architecture, which the Task Force approved for consideration on a procedural vote at the December 10, 2015 public meeting, and the report and recommendations of Working Group 3–Optimal Resource Allocation, which the Task Force approved for consideration on a procedural vote at the September 29, 2015 public meeting."

Initial comments are due Jan. 19 and replies Feb. 1 on the FCC's Further NPRM on inmate calling services (ICS), said a Wireline Bureau public notice Tuesday in docket 12-375. The commission is seeking comment "on promoting additional competition in the ICS marketplace, new technologies being used to deliver inmate communications, the collection of additional data, contract filing requirements, third-party transaction fees, and international calling." The PN also noted the effective dates for rules in an ICS order that also was approved in October (see 1510220059): prohibitions against entering into new contracts, or negotiating amendments to existing contracts, prior to the order's effective date, took effect Dec. 18; rate caps and fee restrictions will become effective March 17, other than those for jails, which will become effective on June 20; rules and requirements regarding Paperwork Reduction Act burdens will take effect upon Federal Register publication of an Office of Management and Budget approval notice; and all other requirements of the order take effect Jan. 19. Global Tel*Link Tuesday asked the FCC to stay the effectiveness of the rate caps in the order, pending further judicial review (see 1512220055). "They are just getting their ticket punched so they can seek a judicial stay," Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Georgetown Institute for Public Representation, told us Wednesday.

Comments are due Thursday on proposed FCC revisions to two worksheets used by telcos and others to report telecom revenue, said a notice in the Federal Register Wednesday. The Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on proposed changes to its annual FCC Form 499-A telecom reporting worksheet (and accompanying instructions) for reporting 2015 revenues in 2016, and on proposed changes to its quarterly FCC Form 499-Q (and accompanying instructions) for projecting revenue collections in 2016 on a quarterly basis. A Nov. 24 bureau public notice announced the Dec. 24 comment deadline and summarized the proposed changes (see 1511250001). Another notice in the Federal Register Wednesday said comments are due Feb. 22 on rate-of-return carrier monitoring reports (FCC Forms 492 and 492-A) under the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Rovi renewed its patent license agreement with AT&T for seven years, giving AT&T worldwide access to Rovi’s entertainment discovery patent portfolio. The deal also extends the existing product agreements between the companies, Rovi said. Rovi’s patent portfolio includes interactive program guides and search and recommendation features for linear, recorded, on-demand content and multiscreen applications.

Total USF subsidy "requirements" were $8.7 billion for 2015, said the FCC’s Universal Service Monitoring Report listed in Wednesday's Daily Digest and docket 10-90. High-cost support led the way at $4.5 billion in demand and related costs, followed by school and libraries E-Rate discounts at $2.4 billion, Lifeline and Tribal Link-Up low-income support at $1.5 billion and rural health support at $271 million. The report generally used information available as of September (including some projections for the remainder of the year). Actual USF disbursements in 2014 were about $7.9 billion, which continued a downward trend from 2012's $8.7 billion and 2013's $8.3 billion. The states receiving the biggest net USF benefit (payments made to providers minus estimated contributions to the program) in 2014 were Alaska ($293 million), Oklahoma ($234 million) and Mississippi ($174 million), while the biggest net payers were California ($273 million), New York ($258 million) and Florida ($244 million). High-cost support claims by ILECs and competitive eligible telecom carriers were projected to be $3.9 billion in 2015, up from 2014’s $3.75 billion but still under 2013’s $4.2 billion. CenturyLink led carriers in high-cost claims for 2014 with $348 million, followed by AT&T’s $347 million, TDS's $182 million, Windstream's $164 million, Frontier Communications' $162 million, and Verizon's $134 million. Low-income support claims dropped in 2014 to $1.6 billion from 2013’s $1.8 billion and 2012’s $2.2 billion, as the number of Lifeline subscribers was down to 12.9 million from 2012’s peak of 16.4 million. America Movil (TracFone’s parent) received the most estimated low-income support with $437 million, followed by SoftBank's (Virgin Mobile USA and Sprint parent) $272 million, AT&T's $164 million and Budget Prepay's $103 million. The industry USF contribution rate was 16.7 percent of interstate/international telecom revenue in Q4 2015 (it’s expected to rise to 18.2 percent next quarter), up from 8.7 percent in Q1 2004. Over the years, USF demand has risen and the industry long-distance revenue base has dropped. “Total telecom revenue” (which also includes intrastate revenue and USF surcharges) dropped to $229 billion in 2014 from $243 billion in 2013 (the peak was $299 billion in 2007). “Local service and payphone revenue” was $91 billion, “mobile service revenue” was $87 billion, and “toll service revenue” was $42 billion -- all continuing recent declines. However, “non-telecom revenue” in 2014 was $268 billion, up from $252 billion in 2013. Total reported revenue was $497 billion, up from $495 billion in 2013. The FCC reclassified broadband access as a telecom service in 2015.

The FCC said four companies violated rules against “slamming” by engaging in unauthorized switching of consumers’ telecom service providers. The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau issued five orders Friday (here, here, here, here, here) granting complaints against Birch Communications (subject of two orders), New Century Telecom, Opex Communications and TeleUno. The bureau said the companies “must remove all charges incurred for service provided to Complainants for the first thirty days" after the carrier changes. Any charges to subscribers imposed by the companies after this 30-day period shall be paid by the subscribers to their authorized carriers at the rates they were paying before the service change, the bureau said. It said the commission could take further action, if warranted. None of the companies we could locate had immediate comment.

White House staffers seemed attentive during a Dec.10 meeting about concerns of more than a dozen nonprofit groups and technology companies about law enforcement access to encrypted devices, but Electronic Frontier Foundation Activism Director Rainey Reitman said the staffers didn't seem to share those views. "They maintained that President [Barack] Obama’s position has not changed in the last few months," she wrote in a Thursday blog post. "While they seemed well aware of our concerns about the technical infeasibility of inserting backdoors, they didn’t necessarily share them. That worried us a great deal." Rainey told us in an email that EFF wasn't represented in the meeting, which was attended by representatives from Access Now and New America's Open Technology Institute. The meeting happened after a We the People petition on strong encryption drew more than 100,000 signatures (see 1512090074). Concerns remain about increasing calls from law enforcement officials, including FBI Director James Comey (see 1512100032), for back-door access to end-to-end encrypted devices in terrorism and criminal investigations. The groups, which have said granting such access would undermine everyone's security and privacy, made several specific requests, Reitman wrote in the post, saying the White House is likely to issue a response by the end of the year. A National Security Council spokesman confirmed in an email that the meeting occurred but declined to comment on who attended or what was said beyond the White House's response to the petition.

Qualcomm said it decided not to split its chipmaking and patent licensing businesses into two separate companies. “Our review was comprehensive,” CEO Steve Mollenkopf said during a call with analysts Tuesday, after a board meeting. “We looked at everything.” Mollenkopf said a special committee of the board on which he served had looked at full and partial separation of the business lines, tracking stocks, a subsidiary initial public offering and “various changes to our capital structure.” Jana Partners, which invested more than $2 billion in Qualcomm in April, had pressed for a breakup to boost the share price, analysts said. “The strategic benefits and synergies” of staying one company “are not replicable through alternative structures,” Mollenkopf said in a statement. “We therefore believe the current structure is the best way to execute on our strategy to build on our position in the ecosystem and deliver enhanced performance and returns.” Qualcomm stock closed up 2.5 percent Tuesday to $48.02.