Verizon ended test sales of Lowe’s Iris home control system through 118 stores without expanding the trial, Verizon spokeswoman Debra Lewis said. Verizon stores along the East Coast and in Georgia and Alabama carried the Iris safety and security package and comfort and control bundle. Verizon planned to extend the Iris products to other stores if they sold well (CED March 5 p4). Verizon also demoed a home control system from 4Home at CES 2011 but never moved it to stores. “We rotate the products/accessories in our stores all the time, and our new destination stores and updated smart stores will have many home-based products for sale,” Lewis said. Lowe’s officials didn’t comment.

Former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Todd Dickinson, executive director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, is one of several patent stakeholders set to testify Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee (http://1.usa.gov/1bMsZOb). The hearing is set to focus on the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), which committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced in November (CD Nov 20 p20). Other witnesses from the communications industry are Dana Rao, Adobe associate general counsel, Harry Wolin, Advanced Micro Devices general counsel, and Philip Johnson, Johnson & Johnson’s chief intellectual property counsel, speaking on behalf of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform. The hearing is set for 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen.

Enrollment in the federal Lifeline program is expected to grow among Florida residents based on current economic conditions, said the Public Service Commission in an annual report to the Legislature and governor Friday (http://bit.ly/1cGMqs4). On June 30, more than 918,240 eligible Florida customers participated in the Lifeline program, it said. Many Florida residents qualify for Lifeline through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which grew by 4.8 percent in the 52 weeks to June 30, 2013, said the PSC. Twenty-four telecom companies, including four wireless carriers, participate in the federal Lifeline program in Florida, which offers a discount of at least $9.25 per month or a free Lifeline cellphone and monthly minutes from certain wireless providers, said the PSC.

The public would “get nothing good” out of a rumored Sprint/T-Mobile US merger, Free Press President Craig Aaron said Friday in a statement. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Sprint was considering making a bid for T-Mobile in Q1. A Sprint spokesman declined to comment. “The public doesn’t need fewer competitors and fewer choices -- not when the wireless market already has so little competition,” Aaron said. “As they did in blocking the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, the FCC and Justice Department must carefully and closely scrutinize this deal and its impacts on consumers and their wallets."

T-Mobile filed a report at the FCC making its case for spectrum aggregation limits in the TV incentive auction. Spectrum Aggregation Limits in Auctions with Spectrum below 1 GHz: the European Experience was written by Achim Wambach of the University of Cologne, and economists Stephan Knapek and Vitali Gretschko. The study “examines the use of aggregation limits in European auctions of sub 1 GHz spectrum,” T-Mobile said (http://bit.ly/1csfekv). Researchers found “that every European spectrum auction since 2010 has included limits on spectrum concentration and find no evidence that these limits on market power diminished expected revenue,” T-Mobile said.

Wireless microphone maker Sennheiser said CTIA is wrong to oppose the company’s request that TV incentive auction winners be required to partially reimburse wireless mic users for the cost of replacing equipment made unusable by reallocation of the 600 MHz band. “At the outset, CTIA has mischaracterized the request,” the company said in a filing at the FCC (http://bit.ly/1dbItJR). “Sennheiser does not seek reimbursement to wireless microphone manufacturers, as CTIA states, but rather to wireless microphone users -- not only professional broadcasters, filmmakers, theaters, and concert promoters, but also churches, schools, community organizations, political groups, and countless others -- people who lack meaningful input to the Commission’s spectrum policies, yet stand to suffer financial damage from the reallocation.” Contrary to CTIA’s characterization, owners of wireless mics are not secondary users of the spectrum, Sennheiser said.

NBCUniversal needs “reasonable access to peer deals” to “avoid forcing parties into costly and burdensome arbitration,” said the unit of Comcast about the benchmark condition in the 2011 FCC order letting the companies combine. It noted in an ex parte filing that the commission is reviewing a clarification order. The companies have said they can’t share content with online video distributors without access to OVDs’ deals with industry peers to NBCUniversal (CD Sept 3 p11). The filing posted Thursday to docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/1cs6tGZ) said participants at the lobbying meeting with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly included NBCUniversal Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Meredith Baker -- an FCC member when the deal was approved -- Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Senior Vice President-Regulatory and State Legislative Affairs Kathy Zachem. As “the success of Wi-Fi has placed great stress on existing unlicensed spectrum resources,” Comcast -- in a separate FCC meeting on the same day as the O'Rielly conversation -- asked top aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for the agency to focus on “enabling additional Wi-Fi access.” That can occur in the 5 GHz band through designating more spectrum for unlicensed use, Cohen and Zachem told Wheeler aides, recounted another ex parte filing that was posted Friday in docket 13-184 (http://bit.ly/19mFBuR). Many connections to high-speed broadband in classrooms likely will be through Wi-Fi devices, the filing said FCC Chief of Staff Ruth Milkman, Senior Counselor Phil Verveer and Special Counsel Diane Cornell were told.

The Austin City Council approved free Google Fiber links for 100 “community connections” sites Thursday evening, said the company in a blog post (http://bit.ly/18H0QUp). These sites include cultural institutions, two universities, workforce education centers, the Austin Independent School District, public libraries, and social and health services. For these sites to get Google Fiber, the surrounding area, or the fiberhood, needs to qualify for service first, said the company. “So when you sign up for Google Fiber next year, you're also helping these local community organizations get one step closer to getting Fiber, too,” said the company. It will probably “be over a year” before these sites starting getting connected, said Google Fiber. The company agreed to give 100 approved community institutions free service for 10 years as part of its contract with the city.

Representatives from about a dozen public interest groups, meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and media and wireless and other aides, expressed the need for a diverse agency. Wheeler should “include a wide diversity of backgrounds in FCC staff,” because “at both the FCC and in the media industry, diverse inputs lead to higher quality outcome,” a Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights official told the gathering, an ex parte filing on the gathering said. The meeting included Special Counsel-External Affairs Gigi Sohn, media aide Maria Kirby and wireless aide Renee Gregory. There’s “collective and strong support for the Lifeline program” and backing for the FCC’s enforcement actions this year against carriers from the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumers Union, Free Press, Leadership Conference, National Urban League, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Public Knowledge (headed by Sohn before Wheeler recently hired her), and other groups at the meeting, said the filing posted Friday in docket 09-182 (http://bit.ly/IKdnzY). “Both old and new networks” are important, said an official of the National Urban League, recounted the filing. “The civil rights community is looking for proactive policies to increase diversity in ownership in all technologies.” A “critical barrier to broadband adoption remains cost and education levels,” and Wheeler should expand Lifeline to include broadband to help “address the persistent adoption gap,” the filing recounted the league official saying. Wheeler was said to have shown a direct style in an introductory meeting last month with association officials and another with public interest representatives (CD Nov 22 p4).

A key Senate Democrat said the FCC should take on process changes internally before Congress intervenes and mandates changes. The House Commerce Committee cleared the FCC Process Reform Act in a unanimous committee vote Wednesday (CD Dec 12 p2). “Any measures to improve how the FCC carries out its statutory duties must help the agency protect consumers and competition,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a statement. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “has formed an internal working group to look at process reform issues, and I think Congress should get the guidance of the expert agency before undertaking significant reforms to the FCC’s operations,” he said. Rockefeller did not name the House bill in his statement.