Deutsche Telekom has a “clear path toward LTE” for T-Mobile USA, DT Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Höttges said. “There’s always a perception that if these guys are selling an asset it must be a problem child,” he said, referring to the failed deal for AT&T to pay DT $39 billion to buy T-Mobile. It’s not a problem for Deutsche Telekom, he told a J.P. Morgan investor conference Wednesday. “There’s no need for us to enter into any kind of deal at this point in time.” The German company was reportedly in talks to combine MetroPCS and T-Mobile. As part of the company’s restructuring plan, T-Mobile plans to cut 900 more jobs.

National Weather Service tests of warning messages integrating some traditional emergency alert system (EAS) features with wireless carriers are going well, a government contractor working on the project said Wednesday. The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System tests by the NWS, the most frequent federal user of EAS (CD March 14 p8), show the system “seems to be working,” said IPAWS architect Gary Ham. “The tests seem to be going pretty well” and some alert originators have had public alerting authority given to them, he continued. A technical problem that caused a delay related to some alerts has been identified and a solution is being implemented, Ham said on a webinar organized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

There’s no reason to believe that “either copyright or patent lawsuits of the kind we are seeing in the so-called smartphone wars” are stifling technological innovation, said David Kappos, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. At a Wednesday hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Kappos was asked by IP Subcommittee Ranking Member Mel Watt, D-N.C., whether the “rash of patent cases brought by tech companies against [other] tech companies might stifle technological innovation.” He cited a news report that a federal appeals court had allowed Apple to move ahead with a patent infringement suit against Samsung relating to some of its tablets.

NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling was grilled by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., over allegations that broadband grants pay for expensive, unnecessary telecom equipment for small libraries and schools in West Virginia. Walden told a subcommittee hearing Wednesday that he has two primary concerns with the Rural Utilities Service programs: “They appear to fund the same aims as the Universal Service Fund … and I am concerned about [their] performance.” Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and full Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., hailed NTIA’s decision to partially suspend seven public safety grants following the creation of FirstNet.

Cable operators are moving to use the public Internet cloud and their own private Internet Protocol clouds to pump out new video and business services, products and apps to subscribers much faster than before while keeping capital and operating costs down, executives said. Over the past several months, several major North American cable providers have started cloud-based initiatives to deliver network-based DVRs, interactive programming guides (IPGs), IP video streaming, VOD, interactive TV apps and phone service to companies.

Claims and counter-claims about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement flew Wednesday at a lively European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee workshop on the controversial treaty. Much of the criticism of ACTA is based on very selective readings of its text, said Anders Jessen, head of unit for public procurement and intellectual property (IP) at the European Commissioner for Trade Directorate. He constantly urged foes to cite chapter and verse on where the agreement allegedly violates fundamental rights.

Comcast mounted its lengthiest defense of exempting from broadband data caps Internet Protocol streams of VOD sent to videogame consoles over its managed network and not the public Internet. The cable operator said its exception for IP streams sent to Xbox 360s isn’t a violation of net neutrality rules or what it agreed to with the FCC and Justice Department to buy control of NBCUniversal. Netflix has said such exemptions are a violation of net neutrality rules, and Level 3 and others have expressed concern over Comcast’s policy (CD May 15 p3). Some nonprofits that back net neutrality rules have also expressed concern.

FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan wants to know if Verizon Wireless would abandon its plans to sell its lower 700 MHz licenses if the commission doesn’t approve the acquisition of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo, Cox and Leap. The carrier has less than a week to answer that and several other questions about the proposed sale of its 700 MHz A- and B-block licenses, said a letter sent Tuesday to Verizon Wireless Vice President John Scott (http://xrl.us/bm74mz). Kaplan also asked what the acquirer has done to build out its lower 700 MHz spectrum, and how the sale relates to the proposed acquisition of the AWS licenses.

LightSquared said it doesn’t expect its bankruptcy filing to affect the FCC’s decision on whether it will revoke its ancillary terrestrial component authority. The filing and ATC proposal “are not technically linked in any way,” a LightSquared spokesman said. House Commerce Committee Republicans meanwhile said the company’s decision to file for bankruptcy underscores the need for more answers on the commission’s handling of the license and waivers granted to support LightSquared’s plans to build a network. The company filed for bankruptcy Monday (CD May 15 p12).

Different entertainment industry quarters found different ways for the FCC Media Bureau to interpret the terms “multichannel video programming distributor” and “channel” as they relate to new entrants in the video distribution business. In comments responding to a Media Bureau public notice that asked how to interpret such terms (http://xrl.us/bm723b) cable operators largely opposed an expanded interpretation of the terms that would cover companies who use the Internet to deliver video to subscribers.