Panelists at an FCBA lunch Wednesday debated states’ role in determining Lifeline eligibility as the FCC seeks to revamp the program. They agreed that a database should be created to improve efficiency of the program, differing on how the process should be conducted.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Using application programming interfaces to achieve the goals laid out in the FCC’s AllVid notice of inquiry won’t work, said Robin Wilson, vice president at Nagravision. Such an API structure would still lock in service providers to the CableCARD and the proprietary security systems of Motorola and Cisco, he said Wednesday. “Without a license or an onerous sublicense from one of those companies, that API is useless,” he said during a panel discussion at the TV of Tomorrow conference. “The APIs for security are cryptographically locked into one of two systems.” APIs are also problematic because so many of them will be needed to make sure all devices work with every service provider, he said.

DALLAS -- The volume of U.S. mobile traffic will explode by a factor of 8-10 by 2015, creating an environment “characterized by chaos,” AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson said in a TIA convention keynote. He said the developments will depend on “getting regulatory and tax policy right,” especially providing additional spectrum for wireless. “We are on the cusp of something very different” in telecom, Stephenson said. He cited especially the broad deployment of LTE combined with use of the cloud. “Think about the delivery of high definition video to a wide range of devices” and the impact that will have on network demand, he said.

OMAHA -- The FCC should take an active role in creating and enforcing broadband guidelines in its Universal Service Fund reform, T-Mobile Corporate Counsel Teri Ohta said at an FCC workshop Wednesday. “We do feel that the federal government ultimately has the responsibility to make sure those funds are distributed properly.” T-Mobile is worried that giving states authority over broadband regulations will lead to a confusing patchwork of regulations that will make it difficult to deploy broadband, Ohta said.

Public safety officials should be very concerned about potential interference to their communications systems if LightSquared is authorized to launch its broadband service in the L-band, Jim Kirkland, general counsel of positioning vendor Trimble Navigation Limited, told a National Public Safety Telecom Council meeting Tuesday. Kirkland questioned whether the GPS interference tests under way at the behest of the FCC will provide any certainty interference isn’t a major concern.

SAN FRANCISCO - The long-promised advent of an interactive TV businesses may finally be upon the industry, executives said during a panel discussion. Advertisers are demanding more accountability and analysis of how their televised ad campaigns perform, and interactive TV executives at multichannel video programming distributors have finally proved the technology to offer that works, said Larry Samuels, general manager of advanced TV for Dish Network. “It’s no longer ‘wouldn’t it be cool if’ or ‘I wonder if this would work,'” he said at the TV of Tomorrow Conference. “We have stories to tell now with credibility."

Four Democratic senators pushed public safety legislation by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., at a news conference with Rockefeller Tuesday morning. A bipartisan draft of the comprehensive spectrum legislation written by Rockefeller and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, circulated Friday and the committee may vote on it at a scheduled May 25 markup (CD May 17 p1). At an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation lunch later in the day, National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin said he wished legislators were not tying voluntary incentive auctions to the public safety network effort.

MetroPCS and Leap Wireless are interested in assets that AT&T might have to divest as a condition on its $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA if the deal gets approved, the prepaid carriers’ executives said during a J.P. Morgan conference with investors on Tuesday. Meanwhile, while panelists at a Broadband Breakfast Club event agreed that divestiture is highly likely, they debated over a possible approach to review the deal.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced a bill that would modernize the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Leahy, who helped write the 25-year-old law that restricts federal access to private electronic communications, announced the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments of 2011 (S-1011) via Twitter early Tuesday afternoon. Privacy groups called the bill a “good first step” but some questioned whether it can sufficiently address location-based data concerns.

Staff in the office of FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker was lobbied on more than a dozen occasions by Comcast, the NCTA, cable company rivals, nonprofit groups and others as she considered a job offer at Comcast, agency records show. Since April 18, when Baker privately recused herself from voting on anything at the FCC (CD May 16 p7), the lawyers who advise her also were visited by executives of AT&T, the CTIA, News Corp., Verizon and other companies and public interest groups. Baker’s not the first FCC member to directly leave for a large company regulated by the agency, though it’s been decades since that’s believed to have last occurred, said several who have long watched the commission.