Another designated entity that has been affiliated with Dish Network is raising red flags about Ligado Networks' plans for the 1675-1680 MHz band in its LTE network and how it might affect its own licensed AWS-3 spectrum. In an FCC filing Friday in docket 12-340, Northstar Wireless said both AWS-3 unpaired uplinks and Ligado's LTE plans carry potential risks for interference with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's geostationary operational environmental satellites and the Interior Department's polar-orbiting operational environmental satellites, with those satellites needing protection. Under Ligado's proposal, transmissions from base stations would come atop the signal thresholds already set up, under guidance from the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, for protecting meteorological earth stations operating in the 1675-1710 MHz band, Northstar said. That additional interference from Ligado would ultimately mean fewer AWS-3 mobile units that could operate in or around Ligado/federal coordination zones, Northstar said. Ligado's proposal could create problems in the fair and equitable use of AWS-3 auction proceeds that were to go to pay for costs incurred by federal entities that came from sharing the spectrum with AWS-3 commercial licensees -- costs including moving radiosondes and equipping federal earth stations with RF monitoring capabilities, it said. Ligado didn't comment. SNR Wireless in March voiced similar concerns (see 1603230029).

The Universal Service Administrative Co. scored some "quick wins" last year on its efforts to address "priority" initiatives to improve its oversight of the FCC's USF programs, USAC CEO Chris Henderson said in the group's 2015 Annual Report posted Thursday in FCC docket 96-45. "We’ve simplified audit reports to help those receiving them better understand our goals and we’ve built a new approach to managing audits going into 2016," Henderson said in a letter included in the report. "We’ve used direct stakeholder feedback to shape and inform the development of applicant tools and forms. We revamped our approach to Lifeline Program recertification, making the process more consumer-friendly. As a result, our recertification percentage was almost double what it was last year. We’ve also built the foundation of a data capability that will change the way we operate and inform critical stakeholders, such as the FCC, program participants, and the American public." He said USAC is looking to help the FCC in its efforts to connect 34 million people who don't yet have high-speed broadband access.

While companies such as Microsoft, Twitter and Verizon release transparency reports that provide information to the public about how they handle government requests for data, each company takes a different approach, which makes it difficult to compare the information presented. After two years of work, New America's Open Technology Institute and Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society released the first of three components of a toolkit Thursday that identifies best practices, provides transparency report templates and establishes reporting guidelines. "Transparency reporting is vital to understanding how companies respond to government requests for our online data, and how often governments are making those requests," OTI Policy Analyst Liz Woolery said in a news release. "The Transparency Toolkit Survey & Best Practice Memos is the first comprehensive study of the state of transparency reporting in the United States." Berkman Senior Researcher Ryan Budish said in the release that the toolkit would help other companies that are thinking of creating transparency reports and offer companies that already provide such reports "an opportunity to compare, improve and innovate."

NAB filed a letter at the FCC Thursday slamming a Google report (see 1603250019) on the FCC’s proposed vacant channel proposal and its likely effect on low-power TV and translators. NAB noted that Google filed the report only four days before the TV incentive auction formally started. “Google’s analysis is uninformed, careless and misleading,” NAB said. “Its conclusion is thus a work of pure fiction.” The FCC’s vacant channel proposal “when coupled with the already damaging effect the auction will have on TV translator and LPTV services, will harm viewers across the country,” NAB said in the letter. “As many as one-quarter of all UHF LPTV and translator stations in the U.S. may be unable to find new UHF channels following the auction.” NAB accused Google of looking for spectrum for free and questioned the timing of the report. “The Commission should be focused squarely on conducting a successful auction and preparing for a post-auction transition that will be unprecedented in its scope and logistical complexity; not on speculative and preferential giveaways to half-trillion dollar companies that have elected not to participate in the auction,” the broadcasters said. Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America, fired back at NAB. “Even in the worst case scenario markets, Google’s results confirm that any adverse impact of preserving a vacant channel for unlicensed devices that benefit all Americans is extremely unlikely and minimal,” he said. “NAB’s claim that up to a quarter of secondary broadcasters could be displaced is ridiculous on its face, since today the vast majority of TV channels are not in use even in the largest metro markets.” Post-auction it is likely at least 30 channels will remain, “with many full power stations going off the airwaves,” he said. “A few speculators holding construction permits may not find a spot, but they were never going to serve their communities in any event.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC's examination of zero rating is still “underway,” without disclosing new information during a news conference following Thursday’s open meeting. “We have been looking at zero rating and data caps in all kinds of a big context,” Wheeler said. “It’s not a new topic to us, that’s for damned sure.” The FCC reportedly is close to making some policy calls on which zero-rating practices are permissible under last year’s net neutrality rules (see 1603300032). Wheeler reiterated that the FCC has no oversight of alleged Netflix throttling (see 1603250050). “This is outside of open Internet,” he said. “We do not regulate edge providers.” Wheeler also touched on the TV incentive auction, which is now formally underway. “Big stuff, good stuff, a lot of things happening,” Wheeler said.

TV, Internet service providers and wireless carriers rank worst on consumer satisfaction, with 21.4 percent of consumers surveyed in 2015 having had a bad experience with their ISP over the past six months, as did 20.4 percent of TV service customers and 12.5 percent of wireless customers, Temkin Group said in a news release Wednesday. For ISPs and TV, those percentages are up from 2014 and 2013, while the 2015 numbers for wireless carriers were down slightly from 2014, Temkin said, saying TV service providers -- plus rental car agencies, which also had particularly high percentages of customers who had poor 2015 experiences -- could lose as much as 6.5 percent of their revenue due to bad customer experiences, based on its Revenues at Risk Index that looks at volume of bad experiences and the resulting revenue impact. Temkin singled out companies, including Comcast and Time Warner, where at least one quarter of customers had a bad experience. The Temkin Group numbers came from surveys of 10,000 consumers about their interactions with 315 companies in 20 industries. In a statement Wednesday, TWC said it was "disappointed in these rankings and ... optimistic that the many changes we introduced in the last couple of years and since will improve those perceptions over time. In addition to more reliable service, better TV experience and faster Internet speeds, we now offer our popular, industry-leading one hour arrival windows; new app-based self-service and service-on-demand options such as chat with a live agent 24/7 and enabling customers to schedule their call back from us or make an in-store appointment; and TechTracker feature which sends the technician's name, identification number and photo when the technician is en route to the home. If a customer loses service, we’ll even be at their home within 24 hours to resolve the issue." Comcast didn't comment.

Free Press countered comments made by FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai in a speech last month at the Heritage Foundation on the effect the FCC’s net neutrality rules have had on broadband investment (see 1602260053), in a letter to the FCC. “There is an acute need to put these public facts in the record in response to statements from Commissioner Pai, who has inaccurately suggested on several occasions that ‘growth in broadband investment has flatlined,’” Free Press said in the letter. “With 2015 results now available, we can say ISP capital expenditures were higher in 2015 than 2014 despite the completion of several major upgrades in 2014.” Pai repeated the comments in March 2 Senate testimony (see 1603020051), Free Press said. “We can take away different meanings from a set of data, but it is dangerous when a sworn representative of the people is willing to invent his own data in order to conform to his worldview,” the group said. “Free Press’s view is that in today’s weak-duopoly market -- where cable continues to enjoy insurmountable natural monopoly advantages -- the biggest issue facing the Commission is how to reduce consumer harms resulting from ISPs exercising market power.” The group also updated an earlier report, adding in recently reported financial data. Capital expenditures by publicly traded broadband ISPs increased by nearly $3 billion in 2015, 4 percent above 2014 levels, the report said. Investments by Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile were up 12 percent, 42 percent and 9 percent respectively, it said. The letter and attached report were posted Wednesday in docket 14-28. “The claims made by Free Press are about as credible as Netflix’s assertions that it wasn’t throttling its own customers," responded Matthew Berry, Pai chief of staff. "For example, most of the supposed increase in capital investment comes from a year-to-year accounting change made by Sprint to its treatment of leased devices. This discredited report does nothing to change the fact that capital investment fell in the first year of the Title II era.”

David Medine, who has led the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board since 2013 and is its first full-time chairman, will resign from the agency July 1, he said in a statement Tuesday. He said he will work for an unidentified development organization, "advising on data privacy and consumer protection for lower-income financial consumers in developing countries." The five-member board, established in 2004 by Congress based on a 9/11 Commission recommendation, is an independent agency within the executive branch that advises the president and other White House officials about privacy and civil liberties ramifications of proposed laws and policies. “Even after my departure, the Board Members and our dedicated staff remain committed to carrying forward the Board’s critical work, including its ongoing examination of counterterrorism activities under Executive Order 12333,” said Medine. That order basically establishes the overall framework for U.S. intelligence activities, including when and how agencies can spy on people within the U.S., and provides policies on what data can be collected, kept and shared. Medine led the agency during "an especially momentous period, coinciding with a concerted examination of our national security tools and policies to ensure they are consistent with my Administration's commitment to civil liberties and individual privacy," said President Barack Obama in a statement. Obama said the agency's "thoughtful analysis and considered input" under Medine's leadership "has consistently informed my decision-making and that of my team." PCLOB didn't comment on who will succeed Medine.

A large amount of money and the future of spectrum policy “hang on the outcome of a brave and untested idea dreamed up by economists and enabled by engineers,” said NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan of the start of the incentive auction, in a blog post Tuesday. Kaplan credited FCC staff for the auction's construction, along with former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Broadcasters will continue to work with the Commission” to minimize damage to low-power TV and translator services, Kaplan said. “What happens next is anyone’s guess, but the FCC staff can certainly be proud that they worked incredibly hard under tight timelines to bring us to the doorstep of this exciting auction," he said.

An independent compliance officer (ICO) gave AT&T high marks for its efforts to satisfy FCC conditions on its 2015 takeover of DirecTV (see 1507280043). Donald Stern, a managing director of Affiliated Monitors who was named ICO under an agency monitoring process, said AT&T met its reporting obligations for the transaction, including submitting a report Jan. 27 on its compliance with conditions. "The staff and leadership of AT&T has been cooperative and supportive of the ICO," he said in his report to the commission, which was posted Monday in docket 14-90. Stern noted compliance and evaluation complexities for AT&T and himself, and said he hadn't been able to independently verify substantive information provided by the company. But he said he had been able to review AT&T's descriptions of its compliance systems and processes, and had begun testing to validate company data. Stern said AT&T met its reporting duties for complying with four conditions he reviewed: (1) to deploy fiber to the premises (FTTP) to 12.5 million new mass-market customer locations (only 1.5 million of which can be in new, "greenfield" housing developments) within four years; (2) to offer 1 Gbps service to schools and libraries eligible for E-rate discounts in, or contiguous with, areas where AT&T has FTTP service; (3) not to favor affiliated programming over unaffiliated programming, including through an exemption of affiliated services from usage-based allowances; and (4) to devise a program to boost broadband adoption by low-income households in the company's wireline footprint. He said initial verification testing "tends to confirm the reliability of reported FTTP information, but more testing is needed." AT&T data were generally redacted. Stern didn't report on an Internet interconnection disclosure condition, which is the subject of a separate review process.