Tribune Broadcasting requested a license for a Ku-band transportable transmit-only earth station. The facilities will be uesd to provide news and event coverage “via digital video and audio carriers to WTIC-TV, Hartford, Conn., and WCCT-TV, Waterbury, Conn.,” it said in an application to the FCC International Bureau (http://bit.ly/1iTnpiv). WXMI Grand Rapids, Mich., also applied for a Ku-band transmit-only earth station (http://bit.ly/1e3njCM).

Sorenson began rolling out a change in its Telecommunications Relay Services that it says will prevent unregistered softphones from dialing 911, the company told the FCC Monday (http://bit.ly/1jJ2g8C). A softphone is computer software that allows VoIP calls. The ability to dial 911 will be activated as soon as the user registers the softphone, Sorenson said.

Globecast and Measat signed an agreement with France’s Mezzo Live HD to deliver Mezzo programming to the Asia-Pacific region on the Measat-3 satellite. Mezzo Live HD Asia “is a new around-the-clock TV channel for the Asia-Pacific region,” Globecast said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1kwOQtZ). Broadcast in French, the channel will be subtitled in 11 regional languages, it said. Globecast will receive the channel’s signal at its technical operations center in Paris, it said. Then the channel is sent via fiber to a Hong Kong teleport for uplink onto the Measat-3 platform, Globecast said.

Data stored in cloud services need stronger protection against government surveillance, the European Parliament said in a nonbinding resolution approved Tuesday. The adopted text wasn’t available at our deadline. The resolution stressed that EU rules apply to all cloud computing services operating in the EU, even if a client in a third country directs otherwise, Parliament said in a news release. Lawmakers acknowledged that the cloud opens opportunities for new jobs, lower costs and less red tape, but said the EU needs safeguards to counteract foreign laws that might lead to massive, illegal transfers of their data, it said. Members asked the European Commission to ensure that consumers get better information about cloud services, saying that users of services that fall under non-EU law should be given “clear and distinguishable warnings” that foreign intelligence agencies may survey their personal data. Parliament members (MEPs) also asked the EC to make sure that consumer devices don’t make use of cloud services by default and aren’t restricted to specific cloud providers. They also want a minimum level of consumer rights relating to privacy, data storage in non-EU countries and liability for data losses. While the market should be open to all law-abiding providers, the more server farms there are in Europe, the better for European companies and the more sovereignty the EU has over those servers, MEPs said. BSA/The Software Alliance said it has “mixed views” on the resolution. While lawmakers recognized the significant potential of cloud computing, they approved “worrying and contradictory proposals that could undermine Europe’s participation in the global cloud network,” it said. Saddling European services with market-specific rules relating to procurement, standards and content stored in the cloud must be considered in a global context or they'll limit the economies of scale cloud computing is designed to deliver, said Government Relations Director-Europe, Middle East and Africa Thomas Boué.

A hands-off approach to VoIP regulation would maintain a regulatory environment in North Dakota that encourages broadband investment and delivers VoIP and other communications services that bring “investment and economic growth” to the state, John Stephenson, American Legislative Exchange Council communications and technology task force director, told the North Dakota Information Technology Committee Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/19fsz2b). ALEC adopted a model policy in 2007 (http://bit.ly/18kESMd) that exempts interconnected VoIP service from state utility regulation, while preserving the rights and responsibilities for states and providers and recognizing the FCC’s jurisdiction, said Stephenson. “If each state applied its own utility laws to VoIP, which include requirements such as PUC authority to provide the services, carrier of last resort obligations and tariffs with pre-approval for service changes, the increased costs on providers and ultimately consumers would be substantial.” Twenty-nine states and the FCC have recognized the “continued investment in communications technology and services is at risk” if VoIP faces an “uncertain” regulatory future, said Stephenson. “Legislatures across the country have made clear that they believe the competitive marketplace, not legacy telephone regulations, are capable of ensuring service availability, quality, and reliability for consumers into the future."

In nearly half of all designated market areas in which DirecTV carries local signals, DirecTV “must negotiate with a party controlling multiple Big Four affiliates, often through arrangements that circumvent the commission’s ownership rules,” DirecTV said in an ex parte filing in docket 10-71, which included an analysis of DMAs (http://bit.ly/18wXczt). The analysis focused on DMAs where broadcasters are able to negotiate for two or more Big Four affiliated stations, it said. The filing recounted a meeting with FCC commissioners Ajit Pai, Michael O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn and staff from Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office. DirecTV representatives also stressed “the spiraling fees being demanded by broadcasters for retransmission consent,” it said.

January’s FCC item on IP transition trials will be “essentially a procedural order” that says the commission sees “value” in moving forward with trials, said Patrick Halley, acting director of the agency’s Office of Legislative Affairs, at a Technological Advisory Committee meeting Monday. Chairman Tom Wheeler has made clear that in his view, “these are not technical trials,” Halley said: The agency and companies involved understand the technical issues. They are also not “legal trials,” Halley said: These are “end-user impact trials” to ensure important values are maintained. The agency will seek comment on details of the trials, likely with an initial deadline, but also likely with “multiple proposals” for comments to be accepted on a rolling basis, Halley said. The record is “full” on issues like IP interconnection, last-mile issues and issues of copper retirement, with multiple dockets and pleadings in the record, he said. So what Wheeler is looking for is a “framework around which we will decide all these issues, but not within the context of a trial,” Halley said. “We are open to any sort of trial proposals that make sense to help us make this transition happen as smoothly as possible.”

The Utility Reform Network (TURN) filed a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission Friday asking the PUC to put a stop to AT&T’s “unreasonable” rates (http://bit.ly/1bsKeTJ). Since Jan. 1, 2011, AT&T’s basic service rates have been deregulated, and AT&T’s flat and measured service rates have increased 40 percent and 73 percent, said the TURN complaint. Since the PUC granted major increases to the price caps of ILEC basic service rates on Jan. 1, 2009, AT&T’s flat and measured service rates have increased 115 percent and 222 percent, it said. “Competitive forces are not imposing sufficient constraints to ensure that AT&T’s basic service rates meet the requirement of Public Utilities Code Section 451 that ‘all charges demanded or received’ by a public utility such as AT&T ’shall be just and reasonable,'” said the complaint. TURN’s complaint was signed by 35 California customers. The complaint calls for the PUC to order a reduction in AT&T’s rates to make them comparable to other carriers, at $20 for flat service and $14 for measured service. AT&T did not comment.

Projected global ad spending growth for 2014 was reduced to 4.6 percent from 5.1 percent due to economic gridlock in the U.S. and the eurozone crisis, said GroupM in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1clekpM). It said U.S. ad investment is expected to increase from 2013 some 2.9 percent to $161 billion in 2014. “Ad spending in 2014 will enjoy a slight bump thanks to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, with spending coming mostly from existing budgets,” said GroupM Chief Investment Officer Rino Scanzoni. “But overall we estimate only marginal U.S. growth on a comparable component basis."

EU lawmakers and governments should make it easier for telecom companies to operate across borders, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes Monday. She’s pushing for action on key proposals in the European Commission’s “connected continent” telecom overhaul package, one of which is the creation of a one-stop shop for authorizing e-communications services. The proposed regulation eases telecom service expansion in several ways, the EC said. It replaces 28 different registration requirements with one single point of authorization and notification in the EU, lowering entry barriers for new companies and costs for service provision. The rule also ensures that multi-territory telecom companies get more consistent treatment from regulators, and makes it easier for smaller players to cross borders by ensuring that operators below a certain size don’t have to pay regulatory administrative costs or pay into universal service funds, it said. The European Parliament is about to begin discussion on possible amendments to the draft package.