Cable subscribers who own iPads will use cable-operator iPad apps more when there’s more programming available on them, Time Warner Cable Executive Vice President Kevin Leddy told C-SPAN’s The Communicators for a show set to have been telecast Saturday. Some 500,000 people have downloaded TWC’s iPad app since it was first introduced and a “high percentage” of iPad owners in TWC’s service area have the app, he said. The linear programming lineup is limited to 80 channels and still lacks local TV stations and much sports programming, he said. “As we add more sports and local broadcasters, we expect usage to go up quite a bit."

Forthcoming products don’t undercut the need for AllVid rules so that all subscription-video providers will use open standards to connect TV sets to consumer electronics, backers of such regulation said. The AllVid Tech Company Alliance, representing major device manufacturers and retailers, last week renewed its lobbying for the FCC to propose rules. The commission’s proceeding has been effectively paused. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake hope to see multichannel video programming providers and CE companies reach more deals for various devices to receive Internet and cable content without CableCARDs, such as those unveiled at the Cable Show earlier this month (CD June 23 p6).

Wireless carriers in countries around the world are deploying LTE in “new” spectrum, not having to refarm spectrum already dedicated to another use, 4G Americas President Chris Pearson said in an interview last week. This is a critical time for U.S. policymakers to step up to the plate and make more spectrum available for wireless broadband, he said. Pearson said the outlook remains unclear for the 1755-1780 MHz band, a key target of wireless carriers.

The FCC’s 2001 rules on reciprocal compensation apply to ISP-bound traffic exchanged by CLECs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held. In a dispute with Pac West over ISP-bound traffic exchanged by the two carriers, AT&T argued that ISP remand order applies to CLEC exchanges as well as CLEC-ILEC exchanges. That order sets rates at $0.007 per minute, the so-called “triple zero” option currently being argued over in the commission’s intercarrier compensation proceeding. AT&T, a CLEC in California, lost its case before state regulators and at a lower federal court.

AT&T and Qualcomm said there are no grounds for the FCC to do a consolidated review of the first company’s plan to buy T-Mobile, the telco’s buy of Qualcomm spectrum licenses and eight additional proceedings in which AT&T proposes to buy 700 MHz spectrum. The two jointly responded to a petition by Sprint Nextel, MetroPCS, Cincinnati Bell Wireless, Ntelos, the Rural Cellular Association and Rural Telecommunications Group. Those entities called AT&T a “serial” acquirer of spectrum (CD June 14 p7).

Calling the consumer electronics industry a “bright spot in a very cloudy economy,” CEA CEO Gary Shapiro welcomed attendees Thursday to “CE Week” during a keynote in which he promoted passage of S-911. The bill was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this month. Wireless broadband is one of the primary drivers of the CE industry, Shapiro said. Many of the new products and services coming to market require wireless broadband, he said, making the “spectrum crunch one of the most critical technology policy issues we face today.” Much of the most attractive spectrum now is being used “as it has been for the last 40 or 50 years” by broadcasters, Shapiro said. Despite their “important service to the public,” the demand for wireless broadband services has exhausted all of the available spectrum, creating a “crisis” that can only be served by allocating additional frequencies for broadband, he said.

Analog broadcast TV in the U.S. will be a thing of the past in late 2015 if the FCC succeeds in setting a low-power station digital deadline akin to the full-power DTV switch two years ago, commission officials said. They said a draft order would require all remaining low-power stations that haven’t already made the digital switch to do so by September 2015. That’s three years later than the commission last proposed (CD Sept 21 p2).

The FCC implemented rules that it says will help keep con artists from using phony caller ID numbers to get at their victims. Congress can also help things further by expanding anti-fraud laws to foreign scammers and to Internet-only, non-interconnected VoIP, the commission said in a report to Congress. The report, dated Wednesday, was released to the public Thursday.

More testing is likely needed before LightSquared moves forward on revised plans to offer terrestrial wireless service in just the lower part of the L-band, government officials and GPS users said Thursday during a joint hearing with the House Aviation and Maritime Transportation subcommittees on GPS reliability. Lawmakers and executives also voiced concern over the FCC’s handling of LightSquared’s proposed plans, asking for more involvement from the Federal Aviation Administration and Defense and Transportation departments when considering spectrum use that affects GPS. Meanwhile at a House Appropriations Committee markup, members agreed to an amendment requiring the FCC to address GPS interference concerns.

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) called on the FCC to look for more spectrum for rail carriers so they can move forward with positive train control (PTC) systems mandated by Congress. Comments were due this week on a May 5 Wireless Bureau public notice on “spectrum issues” tied to the implementation of PTC, as required by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. PTC systems are designed to protect trains from collisions with other trains, overspeed derailments and other threats to rail safety. PTC systems use real-time data from trains to issue “movement authorities” and set speed limits to each of the trains operating within a particular zone.