Broadcasters led by the NAB traded shots with CEA and CTIA in reply comments on an FCC Office of Engineering and Technology notice on updating the FCC’s DTV interference software for calculating interference between stations after the incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum. The sides disputed what should happen next in the earlier comment round as well (CD March 25 p9). The notice sought comment on new software designed to do interference analyses using the methodology described in Bulletin No. 69 (OET-69) (http://bit.ly/Z5Y3SE).

Google Fiber is coming to Austin, Texas, next year, officials said Tuesday. Officials from the tech company joined city and state leaders on stage at Brazos Hall in Austin to announce it'll be the second major city after the municipalities of Kansas City to receive the gigabit-capable network. In the Kansas City area, Google Fiber has begun installing service for customers in 10 “fiberhoods” and construction is under way in 40 percent of fiberhoods, a process that started last year, a spokesman said. AT&T also announced a desire to build an equally fast network in Austin if it gets the same deal from the municipality.

LAS VEGAS -- TV stations’ statutory signal protections are stronger than the top-two U.S. carriers’ advantages of size, said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. “So why do you guys need protecting now,” he asked NAB CEO Gordon Smith at the association’s show Tuesday. “For people who say AT&T and Verizon dominate wireless, I'd like to be” in a broadcaster’s position when it comes to signal exclusivity within an affiliate’s market, McAdam said in a one-on-one where Smith asked the questions. “I think we actually partner pretty well with NAB,” and Verizon’s desire to reduce the size of cable channel bundles “isn’t a cause célèbre for us” but rather an early warning of the need to move toward a la carte, McAdam said later in the Q-and-A.

Pandora’s goal is to be available in the U.S. and worldwide “everywhere you would get traditional radio,” Paschel said, but the car holds particular promise. He cited the various phases of Internet radio in vehicles, breaking out phase one as connection of a smartphone via Bluetooth or auxiliary jack where data can’t show whether the smartphone is being used in a car or not. In phase two, where the 85 vehicles fit in, Pandora is integrated with the infotainment systems of car makers such as Cadillac’s Cue. Users still pair through the phone in the Cue setup, but GM’s future connected car through the AT&T 4G network that’s set to launch with 2015 vehicles will take Internet radio to phase three of integration, where Pandora “won’t require your phone” but will operate seamlessly over a 4G chip in the vehicle, he said.

LAS VEGAS -- Broadcast equipment supplier Thomson Video is using the NAB Show this week to showcase its “first implementation” of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) codec that the Motion Picture Experts Group approved in late January, Jean Macher, Thomson’s marketing director for the Americas, told us Monday at his company’s booth. “We don’t have it running live yet, but it’s coming very soon, probably in June,” Macher said.

LAS VEGAS -- Not all TV stations are worth the same. At least not when it comes to what the FCC will offer to pay them to participate in a reverse auction to prepare to offer their frequencies to the highest bidder, said the commission official leading such planning. Stations that would free up more spectrum by participating may be paid more, said the official, Gary Epstein. The Incentive Auction Task Force chief was answering a question from the audience at an NAB panel by Executive Director Preston Padden of the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, which opposes such value scoring.

Small carriers who have complained to the FCC about the lack of interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band are poised to get more time to build out in the 700 MHz B block, under an order set to be handed down by the FCC Wireless Bureau, we've learned. However, the bureau does not provide more time for AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which also own B-block spectrum, to build out beyond the June 13 deadline. The notice is set to be released Wednesday.

House Intelligence Committee leaders plan to improve and clarify their cybersecurity information sharing bill, they said during a press call Monday. Their comments came ahead of the committee’s markup of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) (HR-624) scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/YdSCy7). They mentioned six of the amendments that the committee will consider, some of which are aimed at increasing privacy protections to curb the dissemination of personally identifiable information. The markup will be in room HVC-304 of the Capitol Visitor Center, which is considered a closed space and will not be open to the public or members of the press, a committee spokeswoman confirmed Monday.

Several progressive leaders slammed the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council on U.S. state politics, at the Free Press meeting in Denver Saturday. One of the activist organization’s senior staffers framed the defeat of a 2013 Georgia House telecom bill as a triumph over ALEC, the 40-year-old organization that partners state legislators with industry representatives and develops model legislation on issues, including telecom. But ALEC denies involvement regarding the bill in question. Georgia legislators introduced House Bill 282 earlier this year, which proposed restricting municipally owned telecom networks. The bill failed in March (CD March 11 p7).

"The best way forward is to ensure that all parties have an explicit, upfront indication of their operating rights and responsibilities,” said de Vries, co-director of the Silicon Flatirons Center Spectrum Policy Initiative. “Such well-defined rights and responsibilities would give incumbents confidence in the level of protection they will receive, and new users a better understanding of the radio environment they are entering. It would make enforcing rules and determining liability in the event of interference a transparent and straightforward process."