SAN FRANCISCO -- An FCC official took pains to reassure local officials that a commission inquiry into wireless antenna siting will require hard proof of industry complaints about city and county burdens rather than accepting anecdotes and generalizations at face value. “We haven’t reached any conclusions,” said Associate Chief Deena Shetler of the Wireline Bureau, discussing the point at length at the NATOA conference. She spoke a few hours after a panel Thursday in which a NATOA official had called inaccurate a list of localities that a PCIA filing has complained to the FCC about, and a Montgomery County, Md., official got strong applause for rebuking the PCIA president and a Wireless Bureau official (CD Sept 23 p10).

The FCC Media Bureau said AT&T and Verizon must get access to two HD regional sports networks that carry New York teams and that used to be part of Cablevision, as expected (CD Aug 11 p6). In orders issued Thursday afternoon, the bureau granted part of the telcos’ complaint against RSN owner Madison Square Garden, part of Cablevision before it was separated last year.

Making wireless broadband “ubiquitous” in the U.S. will cost $7.8 billion to $21 billion “in initial investment alone,” underscoring the need for a “robust and ongoing” Mobility Fund as the FCC reforms the Universal Service Fund, CTIA said in a letter to the FCC. The report comes at a critical time, with the FCC expected to take up a USF revamp plan at its Oct. 27 meeting, though Chairman Julius Genachowski indicated Thursday that vote may not come off as expected. America’s Broadband Connectivity (ABC) plan, submitted by major carriers, would allocate only $300 million a year to the Mobility Fund for wireless build-out. CTIA is not expected to release a more detailed estimate of the optimum size of a Mobility Fund, an industry official said.

The FCC is examining rules that would allow wireless subscribers to reach 911 even when wireless networks can’t process the flood of calls after an emergency, such as last month’s earthquake in Virginia. The commission will ask questions as part of a rulemaking approved by the agency 4-0 at its September meeting. The notice examines “nonregulatory and regulatory” approaches for updating 911 communications so call centers can process emergency texts and other data.

All emergency alert system participants should prepare now for a new EAS format to send messages using the Internet, said FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. They said that’s true even though the FCC Friday delayed the compliance deadline for all public and private radio and TV stations, DBS and satellite radio providers and multichannel video programming distributors. Those EAS participants must now be ready by June 30 to get and send alerts in Common Alerting Protocol, which FEMA developed, the FCC Public Safety Bureau has said. Government officials said at an FCBA lunch Thursday that they're working with PBS, NPR and state emergency managers on matters including a Nov. 9 nationwide test of EAS using the current alerting standard.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Local regulators responded sharply to PCIA complaints of delays and unreasonable demands on requests for wireless-antenna siting (CD July 20 p3), and one took the opportunity to vent at an FCC official, too. The moderator of a NATOA conference panel Thursday, Jodie Miller, said many of the localities on a long list included by PCIA in a comment in a commission inquiry on speeding up broadband deployment don’t have unlimited moratoria on installations and don’t understand why they were named as unduly balky. Replies are due Sept. 30 in WC Docket 11-59. Miller, from the North Dakota County, Minn., Cable Communications Commission, is the chair of NATOA’s policy and legal committee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved three data breach bills Thursday during a rapid fire markup session that left Republican members feeling ignored. Members passed S-1151, the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, S-1408, the Data Breach Notification Act, and S-1535, the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act each by a 10-8 vote along party lines. Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, loudly protested the costs and “over-notification” requirements that the bills would impose on American businesses at a time when he said “we need to help businesses create jobs."

Efficiencies will be the core of the T-Mobile transaction debate in court, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said during a Goldman Sachs investor conference Thursday. AT&T is confident that a resolution will be reached on the Department of Justice’s complaint and it will complete the transaction, he said.

GENEVA -- Major European administrations pushed for approval of an ITU-R recommendation to spur sharing between International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT), the international standard for advanced wireless communications, and the fixed satellite service (FSS) at 3.4 to 3.6 GHz, according to a submission to an ITU-R satellite group meeting here. Satellite interests say more time is needed to accommodate their concerns. The satellite group meets through Sept. 28.

Judge Ellen Huvelle left little doubt Wednesday she plans to move quickly to consider and rule on the Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking to block AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile. Huvelle said she wanted to start a trial in mid-February, asking AT&T and DOJ lawyers to confer on a start date. A preliminary hearing on the legal challenge to the transaction took a little more than an hour and was well attended. Among those in the crowd was FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan and Renata Hesse, aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski on transactions.