USTelecom asked the FCC Wednesday to declare that ILECs are no longer presumptively dominant in providing switched access services. The switched access rules were designed for a monopoly era, and are no longer needed in a world where consumers have myriad ways to communicate, the association said. If granted, the petition would relieve ILECs of certain tariffing requirements, and USTelecom President Walter McCormick said it would move ILECs “somewhat closer to regulatory equivalence with their closest competitors.” CLECs and others worried that eliminating the rules could limit consumer choice.

Multichannel video programming distributors and CEA urged the FCC not to require “video programming apparatus” to include text-to-speech technology to make emergency alert information provided in on-screen “crawls” and messages more accessible to the blind and visually impaired. In comments submitted to the agency this week, there was little support for a text-to-speech mandate. “Even if text-to-speech technologies were reliable, it is unnecessary to require an apparatus to make textual information through audible use of the text-to-speech software,” AT&T said (http://xrl.us/bn68by). But parties generally supported using the secondary audio programming (SAP) channel to provide accessible alert information.

The FTC’s update to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule was aimed at “broadening and clarifying the obligations imposed by COPPA,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said during a press conference Wednesday, where the new rule was unveiled. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who hosted the press conference, said the new rule “captures the new online reality."

The FCC determined that AT&T’s buy of wireless communications service licenses from Comcast, Horizon Wi-Com, NextWave and San Diego Gas & Electric won’t result in competitive harm and will mean finally seeing the spectrum in play for wireless broadband. Commissioners wrapped up voting on the order Tuesday, shortly before it was released that night. The ruling wraps together four separate transactions and had been expected (CD Dec 19 p12).

Hopes that the changes coming to the Environmental Protection Agency set-top box energy efficiency specifications account for next-generation consumer electronics products were expressed in recent interviews with CE and multichannel video programming distributor executives. MVPDs and device makers are in the initial stages of coordinated efforts to cut home device power use to mostly deploy starting next year, among set-tops with DVRs, those with hard drives that stop spinning after four hours of inactivity. Such light-sleep boxes are one way 11 top cable operators, DBS providers and telco-TV companies and four of their suppliers, all of which earlier this month signed a voluntary agreement (VA), plan to cut the amount of electricity used by dormant set-tops (CD Dec 7 p5). Efficiency advocates say the agreement (http://xrl.us/bn46yj) lacks firm commitments to buy future-generation set-tops that can almost completely shut down and yet power up quickly.

All providers and purchasers of special access service must respond to the FCC’s data request on the state of the special access marketplace, according to the long-awaited order which was released Tuesday. The order exempts companies with fewer than 15,000 customers, and fewer than 1,500 business broadband customers, from providing data regarding best-efforts business broadband Internet service. “Nascent technologies,” such as wireless ISPs, are included in the request. Chairman Julius Genachowski called the order “a carefully crafted nationwide collection of facilities, pricing, and demand information” that will give the FCC “an exceptionally robust data set to analyze the market for special access services.” A deadline for submitting the special access data won’t be set until the Office of Management and Budget gives Paperwork Act Reduction approval, an FCC official said.

Analysts view an order reallocating Dish Network’s mobile satellite service spectrum for terrestrial use and an accompanying H block notice of proposed rulemaking as mostly positive, now that the details of what the FCC did last week are public (CD Dec 18 p10). The order, as expected (CD Dec 13 p8), allows Dish to transfer or assign its spectrum rights without restrictions, which the agency said “should dramatically increase the value of this spectrum.” The FCC approved the order on an electronic vote before last Wednesday’s FCC meeting, so the details did not get a full public airing last week.

LightSquared’s proposal that it be allowed to permanently relinquish the 1545-1555 MHz band, while instead deploying terrestrial downlink operations at 1670-1680 MHz, is being greeted with some skepticism by GPS operators. LightSquared sought bankruptcy protection in May as company executives tried to find a new path forward after the FCC suspended a waiver in February that would have allowed LightSquared to use the satellite spectrum it controls for a wholesale LTE network. Comments were due Monday, and some filed early in docket 12-340 generally supported the revised plan (CD Dec 17 p17).

Nielsen and Arbitron executives told stock analysts they don’t expect the federal government to block for competitive reasons Nielsen’s proposed acquisition of Arbitron. Nielsen, the main provider of TV ratings data, agreed to buy Arbitron, which provides radio ratings, for about $1.25 billion in cash. “It really is as simple as Arbitron is in the radio business and we're in the TV world,” Nielsen CEO David Calhoun said during a teleconference Tuesday. “The overlaps -- you can barely find any.” He said the companies have studied the antitrust implications and “we feel good about it.” If the government blocks the transaction, Nielsen will owe Arbitron a 10 percent breakup fee.

The FTC issued orders seeking information about data-collection practices of nine data brokers. The orders, which were approved unanimously by commissioners, ask recipients to detail “the nature and sources of the consumer information the data brokers collect; how they use, maintain, and disseminate the information; and the extent to which the data brokers allow consumers to access and correct their information or to opt out of having their personal information sold,” the FTC said (http://xrl.us/bn63uc). The nine companies are Acxiom, Corelogic, Datalogix, eBureau, ID Analytics, Intelius, Peekyou, Rapleaf and Recorded Future.