The FCC set a comment cycle Wednesday on a complicated deal in which AT&T and T-Mobile propose to swap PCS and AWS-1 licenses in parts of 10 states (http://bit.ly/WNlwLl). Petitions to deny are due Aug. 20, oppositions Sept. 2 and replies Sept. 9. The FCC said the swaps involve spectrum in 76 counties covering “all or parts” of 25 cellular market areas (http://bit.ly/1oLWCWR). The trade satisfies in part a commitment by AT&T to divest spectrum as part of its acquisition of Leap Wireless, AT&T said. “The Applicants assert that the instant transaction would allow them to operate more efficiently due to holding larger blocks of contiguous spectrum and/or aligning spectrum blocks with those already held in adjacent market,” the FCC said. The commission asked interested parties to raise issues in their initial filings, not in replies.

Live broadband coverage to connected devices of the summer’s biggest events, including the World Cup and Wimbledon, drove BBC Sport in June to its “busiest digital month on record,” it said Thursday (http://bbc.in/1pfKVE5). BBC Sport logged 77.5 million “unique browsers” in June, beating the previous record of 73.6 million set during the London 2012 Olympics, it said. Included in the data are live viewership on smartphones, tablets, laptops and connected TVs, BBC Sport said. Other recent digital firsts, according to BBC Sport: (1) Its highest-ever weekly mobile reach, 8.1 million unique U.K. mobile browsers, during the first full week of the World Cup, June 16-22; (2) Its highest-ever daily global reach, 3.4 million unique browsers across all devices, during postgame coverage of Germany’s 7-1 drubbing of Brazil on July 9.

Public safety answering points (PSAPs) and Washington state officials were not notified by CenturyLink or its contractor, Intrado, about the April 10 outage of 911 calls, said the Washington State E9-1-l Coordinator’s Office in a comment (http://bit.ly/1sYbuoN) posted in FCC docket 14-72 on Tuesday. About 770 911 calls were delivered to the PSAPs, while about 4,500 911 calls failed during the outage, the filing said. “Due to the sudden increase in the volume of trouble calls, the nation-wide CenturyLink 9-1-1 Repair Center quickly became overloaded. Consequently, most of the calls to the Repair Center went unanswered, or were put on hold for extended periods -- some of those hold-times measured in hours.” Neither CenturyLink nor Intrado provided any instructions to PSAPs on how to mitigate the impact. “The PSAPs were left on their own to try to figure out how to provide some level of service to the public,” the filing said. The comments were similar to those filed by the King County’s E-911 Program Office in (http://bit.ly/1nPAgBZ) in June. The FCC Public Safety Bureau began an investigation into the outage May 19 (CD May 20 p18). The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission has also opened a state investigation. “Intrado is also fully committed to the Commission’s goal of reliable and resilient emergency communications networks,” the company said in a filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/TDEhys). “The root cause of the technical failure has been corrected; enhanced alarming with routine manual checks have been implemented; training and procedures have been enhanced to achieve more effective monitoring and problem detection.” A feature of the Intrado architecture’s legacy redundancy and compatibility, involving the PSAP trunk manager (PTM) functionality, was the root cause of the outage, said that company. “When developing any new technology, every single possible contingency cannot be identified or tested in advance of deployment. And, to try to do so before deploying new technology would frustrate the Commission’s goals and the purpose of 911 innovation.” Intrado said “issues will occur and not all contingencies can be known or addressed in advance.” CenturyLink and Intrado were not immediately available for further comment.

A measure that would let Chicago increase monthly 911 charges on wireline, wireless and prepaid cellphones was awaiting a signature from Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn after being approved by both chambers of the Democratic General Assembly May 30. A spokesman for Quinn, a Democrat, was not immediately available for comment. HB-2453 (http://bit.ly/1jV2Ht9) would let Chicago impose monthly fees of up to $3.90 for landline and wireless service and up to 9 percent of the transaction cost for prepaid cellphones, according to a summary by Illinois APCO (http://bit.ly/1pTMkSX). These increases will be in effect until July 1, 2015, when they are scheduled to revert to the current rates. Chicago wireline and wireless fees are now capped at $2.50 and the prepaid fee at 7 percent, APCO said. The conservative Heartland Institute opposed the measure. The proposal by Mayor Rahm Emanuel would mean a 56 percent increase in the city’s cellphone tax, making it the highest of its kind in the U.S., Heartland Government Relations Director John Nothdurft said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1re8DHp). Emanuel’s office was not immediately available for comment. The measure keeps the wireless 911 surcharge outside of Chicago at $0.73, but reduces the amount that goes to carriers and increases the amount given to 911 systems, the APCO summary said. Additional funding would go to counties with less than 100,000 people, which are especially financially strapped, APCO said. The measure would establish a statewide 911 administrator within the state police to develop and implement a statewide 911 network outside Chicago. The state’s 9-1-1 Services Advisory Board is charged with developing a plan by April 1, 2015, for the creation of a statewide network, the consolidation of 911 systems and services, and a plan for implementing next-generation 911, APCO said.

Vermont Monday became the first state to let customers of the four major carriers text 911 when the state and T-Mobile began implementing the service, said Vermont Enhanced 9-1-1 Board Executive Director David Tucker in an interview Wednesday. Verizon began offering the service in Vermont in 2012, and AT&T and Sprint followed last year, he said. The four major carriers met a voluntary May 15 deadline (CD Dec 10/12 p1) to make their networks capable of transmitting texts nationwide. Vermont is the only state where all public service answering points (PSAPs) are able to handle the texts, he said. About 98 percent of the state’s wireless subscribers, excepting those of smaller carriers not subject to the deadline, can now text 911, he said. Nationally, the May 15 deadline doesn’t mean text-to-911 will be available to all consumers, said National Emergency Number Association CEO Brian Fontes in a news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1o6jGQE). Text-to-911 “availability will ultimately depend on funding and the deployment of hardware, software, and training programs” at the nearly 6,000 911 centers across the country, Fontes said. “Progress will vary from one community to the next.” Traditional voice calls to 911 are the fastest and most efficient way to call for help, Tucker said. The text technology is “especially important to the deaf or hard of hearing, or people in a dangerous situation like domestic violence or an intruder in the house when a person may be afraid of making a voice call,” he said.

The FCC plans a workshop June 19, 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m. EDT at its headquarters, to explore “the complex issues surrounding mobile device theft,” said an agency notice Tuesday. “Some observers believe the thefts of personal electronic devices are reaching epidemic proportions,” the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1jSwkuZ). “Police in major metropolitan areas across the United States report year-on-year increases ranging from six to as much as 23 percent, building on an already high base where an estimated 3.1 million devices were stolen in 2013, nearly double the 2012 amount.”

NHK, the world’s biggest 8K advocate with plans to begin Super Hi-Vision broadcasts in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is noncommittal whether it will propose 8K for ATSC 3.0, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for the Japanese broadcaster told us by email. On whether NHK plans to propose 8K to ATSC’s “S34-1” ad hoc group, which is drafting specifications on ATSC 3.0’s video component, “we can’t say whether NHK is proposing or not at this stage, I'm afraid,” said the spokeswoman.

Fifth, and final, FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny began her new role Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1lpVPIT). After months of stalling since President Barack Obama said he would nominate her (CD June 24 p12), the Senate finally voted to confirm McSweeny April 9 by a 95-1 vote (CD April 10 p29). FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said of McSweeny: “Her considerable experience in the law and public policy will be an asset to the agency as it continues to pursue its missions of protecting consumers and promoting competition.” McSweeny comes to the FTC from the Department of Justice, where she was chief counsel for competition policy and intergovernmental relations.

A three hour-long E911 outage in Washington state April 10 will be investigated by the state Utilities and Transportation Commission, the UTC said. “We recognize this outage could have had serious implications for people and emergency responders across the state,” said David Danner, UTC chairman, in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1tfu755). “Our investigation will look into the cause of the outage, (CenturyLink’s) emergency preparedness and response, restoration efforts, and communication with the public.” Enhanced 911 services began experiencing interruptions in Washington around 1 a.m. Thursday, April 10. CenturyLink said that E911 service was been fully restored statewide later that morning, the ETC said. CenturyLink said in a statement that about 4,500 911 calls failed during the outage between 12:36 a.m and 6:26 a.m. “The outage was due to a technical error in a third-party vendor’s call router, which prevented the system from properly processing calls,” the carrier said. “CenturyLink and its vendor partner have taken steps to implement an enhanced monitoring process and have addressed the router issue.” The outage occurred across 127 public safety answering points. “CenturyLink’s top priority is customer safety and reliable communications,” said Brian Stading, Northwest Region president. “We are working closely with our vendor partner to fully to understand this outage. At this time, we are confident that the 9-1-1 system is fully operational and stable."

The defeat of 911 funding bills in Kentucky, Wisconsin and Mississippi this year has left those in charge of operating emergency services worried about aging equipment, and wondering how to fund upgrades for next-generation 911 (NG-911), even as they struggle to pay for current-generation systems. The bills were among at least six nationwide that sought additional funding to make up for a decline in 911 fees collected from the dwindling number of landline customers.