The FCC should “act expeditiously” to clarify the current state of the CableCARD and encoding rules in the wake of January’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s EchoStar decision, said TiVo in an ex parte filing at the commission Monday (http://bit.ly/1hedmmx). CableCARD requirements need to be restored or clarified “to provide consumers and retail manufacturers with certainty that navigation devices purchased at retail will continue to receive cable signals,” said TiVo. The commission should also pursue a new video standard to succeed CableCARDs, but the current system “must remain in place until a successor standard is in place,” TiVo said. The AllVid Tech Company Alliance also backed a new standard (http://bit.ly/IfJY0w). “A successor common interface is necessary to move forward from the cable-only CableCARD interface, which operators are moving away from, toward IP-based interfaces that save bandwidth and better mesh with home and online networks,” said a filing from the group which has included Best Buy, Google, Sony and TiVo. A move to a new standard would prevent consumers from being limited to renting multichannel video programming distributor devices “with little control or innovation in how they view MVPD video programming and services,” said the filing. It said the commission should issue an NPRM on a successor to CableCARD. The future of CableCARDs hangs in the balance post-EchoStar at the FCC and as lobbyists jockey over a bill to junk the ban on integrating security and navigation in set-top boxes (CD Nov 26 p4).

The FCC granted Sprint a waiver of some of its interference rules, saying doing so will help spur LTE deployment in 56 Florida counties. But Sprint needs to keep at least an 80-mile co-channel between its activities in 821-824/866-869 MHz and any nearby operations in the NPSPAC band operated by Miami-Dade County or Florida, the agency conditioned. Those two entities have yet to complete their 800 MHz band reconfiguration, but Sprint had argued it can “integrate the old NPSPAC band spectrum into its broadband network in much of Florida without posing any risk of interference,” the letter explained. Sprint must also warn Florida and Miami-Dade County at least 30 days before Sprint begins deployment, the FCC said. “As Sprint argues, it would be inequitable and unduly burdensome to prohibit its subscribers’ access to these valuable broadband wireless services until the final two public safety licensees complete their retuning from the old NPSPAC band, particularly where neither licensee objects to the planned deployment,” the FCC said in a Monday letter signed by Wireless Bureau Mobility Division Chief Roger Noel (http://fcc.us/1cMYN3q). “Such a constraint on broadband deployment and consumer choice is contrary to the public interest in light of measures (i.e. co-channel separation and advance notification) that will protect public safety entities from harmful interference.”

The FCC should create a new regulatory fee category for multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), said the American Cable Association in an ex parte filing Friday (http://bit.ly/1blRLWQ). That “would address the current inequity of cable and non-cable IPTV operators continuing to cross-subsidize these direct competitors in the video distribution market,” ACA said. The current regulatory fee system is unfair because small and mid-sized cable operators have to pay fees that their competitors in the direct-broadcast satellite industry don’t, ACA said. The commission should also offer fee relief for the smallest cable operators, ACA said. “Such reforms would not materially impact the revenue generated by the commission,” said the association. The cutoff for small operators should be set at 1,000 or fewer subscribers, ACA said. “Within the MVPD industry, these cable operators generate the lowest administrative burden for the Media Bureau among all cable operators."

NARUC’s resolution adopting a white paper on cooperative federalism did not address how the FCC should handle the jurisdictional implications of the IP transition on state-federal cooperation, said Free State Foundation Legal Fellow Sarah Leggin in a paper released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jGjQY8). The resolution, adopted by NARUC Nov. 20 (CD Nov 21 p20), calls for better cooperation between federal and state regulators to “ensure the reliability of telecommunications networks and the satisfaction of consumer needs,” said Leggin. The FCC needs to declare “its exclusive jurisdiction” over the economic regulation of IP-based networks, she said. The interstate and international nature of IP-based services make jurisdictional determinations “impractical, if not impossible,” said Leggin. “Subjecting service providers to dual regulatory regimes will likely impede the continued upgrading and build-out of such advanced networks,” she said. Despite the “fundamental changes” to the technological landscape, the NARUC Presidential Task Force on Federalism and Telecommunications, which wrote the paper and resolution, suggested the FCC, states and NARUC members continue to focus on the basic goals of the Telecom Act for consumer protection, interconnection and call completion, public safety, evidence based decisionmaking, broadband adoption, access and affordability and universal service, said Leggin.

The FCC should grant a permanent waiver of rules requiring the Oregon Public Utility Commission to provide a copy of a Lifeline subscriber’s certification form to eligible telecom carriers before that ETC can claim reimbursement from the federal USF, said the OPUC and the Oregon Telecommunications Association in a FCC petition Monday (http://bit.ly/1bSqPsA). The FCC Aug. 30 granted a limited waiver to California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah and Vermont to allow more time for those states to implement a process to share copies of consumer eligibility certifications for Lifeline support with ETCs (http://bit.ly/1aRhRz3). The rules to require state Lifeline administrators provide subscriber certification forms to the ETCs are “unnecessary and cost prohibitive in Oregon,” said the petition. “Requiring the OPUC to provide copies of the certification forms to the ETCs does nothing to enhance the validity of the subscriber’s eligibility for Lifeline, but adds to the burden and costs to both the OPUC and the ETCs.” In turn, this will result in an “unnecessary lag” in the delivery of Lifeline benefits to eligible consumers, it said. The OPUC’s policy to verify ETC eligibility and perform checks to eliminate duplicate Lifeline benefits presents a “special case” compared to states where the ETCs are solely responsible for the same functions, said the petition. A weekly report of all Lifeline consumers approved by the OPUC is electronically transmitted to the applicant’s respective ETC, said the OPUC. This electronic notification is comparable to the certification form and it provides “sufficient safeguards” for the ETC to begin providing Lifeline benefits and apply for reimbursement from the federal USF, said the petition.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Kris Monteith, acting chief of the agency’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB), will be among the FCC officials who will speak Dec. 6 at an agency-sponsored mobile health innovation expo. The event, sponsored by the CGB, will examine the use of mobile devices in improving healthcare, the FCC said Tuesday. The expo will “bring together innovators and federal agencies to showcase mobile health products and solutions and provide resources for mobile health pioneers and entrepreneurs,” the FCC said. Verizon Communications, the National Institutes of Health and Qualcomm Life are among the participants expected. The expo will run from 10 a.m. to noon in the Commission Meeting Room at FCC headquarters (http://fcc.us/IrfB6w).

The House Intelligence Committee’s minority members are “committed” to updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “in a separate bill to enhance transparency and privacy while retaining critical national security capabilities,” said some members of the committee in a report released Monday on the Intelligence Authorization Act (http://1.usa.gov/194KHIf). That bill, which minority members say does not update FISA, cleared the committee in a voice vote last week, and the committee is also at work on a FISA bill likely to touch on National Security Agency surveillance practices. The minority members writing that section of the report include ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a critic of certain NSA practices. Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., last week in an opening statement emphasized his desire to drop FISA legislation.

House Republicans expect to bring the Innovation Act (HR-3309) to the House floor Dec. 4, said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president-government and regulatory affairs, and another industry source, in separate emails to us. That would follow close behind a House Rules Committee meeting on the bill set for 3 p.m. Tuesday in H-313 of the Capitol. Proposed amendments to the bill are due to the Rules Committee by 4 p.m. Monday, the committee said. The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill last week 33-5 (CD Nov 22 p13). HR-3309 would curb so-called patent litigation abuse.

Interconnected VoIP subscriptions have increased by 17 percent annually over the past three years, said the FCC Wireline Bureau in a Local Telephone Competition report out Tuesday (http://fcc.us/1hgB8OK). Mobile subscriptions have increased by about 4 percent annually, and retail switched access lines have declined at about 9 percent annually. Of the 138 million wireline retail local phone service connections in December 2012, 57 percent were residential connections and 43 percent were business connections, the report said. Commissioner Ajit Pai said the numbers show “there can be no doubt, if ever there was, that the IP Transition is upon us.” The report demonstrates that “Americans continue to flee the copper networks of the 20th century,” with one in seven households on copper dropping its landline last year alone, wrote Pai. “These changes underscore how dynamic the communications marketplace is. And yet, the FCC’s rules saddle one segment of the market with onerous, outdated burdens like tariffing and require the continued investment in last-generation technology. Now is the time to modernize our rules."

The SES-8 satellite launch is delayed to Thursday. “SpaceX observed unexpected readings with the first stage liquid oxygen system and is taking corrective action,” SES said in a press release (http://bit.ly/Ijvfll). The satellite was scheduled for launch by SpaceX Monday on the Falcon 9 rocket, it said.