Iridium asked to modify its space station authorization for its Non-Geostationary Satellite Orbit Mobile Satellite Service constellation. Iridium would like the authorization to include the Iridium Next second-generation satellites, it said in its application to the FCC International Bureau (http://bit.ly/1ajs049). In a separate application, ViaSat requested FCC consent for the assignment of Intelsat’s authorization “to operate the Ka-band payload on the Galaxy-28 satellite in the 19.7-20.2 GHz and 29.5-30.0 GHz bands” at 89 degrees west, the bureau said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/19xv7LF).

The Federal Aviation Administration chose six unmanned aircraft system research and test site operators across the U.S., the agency said Monday (http://1.usa.gov/19xp7CB). The sites will be run by the University of Alaska, the state of Nevada, Griffiss International Airport in Rome, N.Y., the North Dakota Department of Commerce, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Virginia Tech.

Several associations for deaf and hard of hearing people supported a request by cvideo relay service providers for a one-year waiver of the daily measurement of speed of answer (SoA) requirement, they told the FCC in a letter Saturday (http://bit.ly/1cij9iY). The rule and associated penalties are scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The groups “appreciate the stronger SoA requirements but are concerned that significant rate reductions were imposed in the same order without taking in account the costs for the new SoA requirements,” they said. SoA measurements should be calculated daily, but meeting this requirement in the next year “may not be feasible” in some instances, and could cause providers to incur “significant costs through overstaffing” to meet the requirements, they said. The groups, including Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the National Association of the Deaf, recommended implementation of the new 30-second SoA requirement without penalty as a “testing phase” for one year.

Streaming TV service Aereo shouldn’t be allowed to file an amicus brief in its competitor FilmOn’s appeal of the nationwide preliminary injunction imposed by the D.C. district court, said broadcasters in a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday. Aereo had filed a motion for leave to file a brief in support of neither party, but Aereo’s proposed brief is just a duplicate of FilmOn’s arguments, broadcasters said. “Aereo is itself a defendant in copyright cases involving the same plaintiffs and issues” said the broadcasters. “Its proposed brief is simply an effort to circumvent Appellants’ page limits.” Aereo “has a direct interest in the legal principles to be determined by this Court in these appeals,” argued Aereo in its motion. The D.C. circuit has a rule against briefs repeating the same facts and arguments, the broadcasters said. It’s not surprising that Aereo’s interests “are indistinguishable from Appellants’ interests,” said the broadcasters. FilmOn will make all the same arguments in its appeal, the broadcasters said, “obviating any need for a duplicative recitation of these same arguments by the identically-situated Aereo."

Submitting refined study area boundary maps, necessary for implementation of the FCC’s Connect America Fund benchmarking rule, “would require a very substantial, industry-wide effort with (at best) speculative results,” and in any case cannot be completed by Jan. 13, Verizon told the FCC in a filing Monday (http://bit.ly/19AIKUt). Verizon was writing to support a Dec. 17 petition by several ILEC associations -- including USTelecom, of which Verizon is a member -- to stay the requirement, or grant an extension of time to reconcile study area boundaries (CD Dec 19 p12). The Wireline Bureau’s proposal that ILECs review an online map of aggregate study area boundary data and resolve and recertify overlaps and voids is “an extensive process” that can’t realistically be performed by the requested deadline, Verizon said. It’s not even clear that the data will be needed at all, the ILEC said, given that it’s intended for use as an input to the quantile regression analysis, which may itself be eliminated (CD Dec 18 p2). Even if the commission continues to use the quantile regression analysis, the Jan. 13 deadline doesn’t give ILECs and state commissions enough time to reconcile and revise their study area boundary data, Verizon said.

The White House has been “engaged” with the House Intelligence Committee as its members put together a proposal on surveillance and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a White House spokeswoman told us. The status of the rumored bill has been contested within the committee, which has not cleared any legislation or settled on a final bill (CD Dec 30 p4). Privacy advocates have criticized initial indications of what the bill may look like, fearing it will codify phone metadata surveillance practices and resemble the Senate Intelligence Committee’s FISA bill. “The Administration has and will remain engaged with Members and staff of the Committee regarding various proposals for reforming signals intelligence collection authorities, policies, and operations,” the White House spokeswoman said.

An FCC order approved last February requiring a redesign of cellphone signal boosters has booster-makers scrambling to bring products up to spec in time for CES, which opens Jan. 7 for a four-day run. Among the changes required by the order are threefold reductions in power limits and automatic shutoff features to avoid interference with cellular towers and wireless networks, John Crook, marketing communications manager of booster-maker Cellphone-Mate, told us. Cellphone-Mate is redesigning its SureCall line of cell signal boosters to comply with FCC specs set to go into effect March 1, Crook said, and four products are undergoing the testing process required by the FCC. The company supplies cell signal boosters for residential, automotive and commercial applications. Prices for 2014 SureCall products haven’t been set because the company hasn’t factored in re-engineering costs in the “thousands of dollars” along with $10,000-per-product testing fees, he said. Costs required to make boosters compliant could shrink the number of U.S. booster suppliers, Crook said. “It will be interesting to see how many companies remain in the U.S.,” he said, citing the “huge costs” involved in making existing product compliant. The ruling could deliver more booster sales for Cellphone-Mate because at a lower wattage, more boosters will be required to serve a large space, he said. Long term, the ruling is positive for booster makers that can weather the costs because as more customers cut out landlines in favor of cell services, marginal coverage areas will require signal boosters, Crook said. Those aren’t just in rural areas, he noted. Customers in large cities such as San Francisco struggle to receive a good cell signal due to large buildings and hilly terrain. Current SureCall residential booster kits -- including indoor and outdoor antennas, cables and the booster itself -- run in the $900-$1,000 range, he said. At that price, “you really have to want it,” he said.

A federal judge defended the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone metadata in a ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan in American Civil Liberties Union v. James Clapper. The ACLU plans to appeal the ruling and make its case in the 2nd Circuit in New York, it said (http://bit.ly/1jQfh2Q). “This blunt tool only works because it collects everything,” Pauley said, judging the program lawful while acknowledging the danger to privacy if the program were unchecked (http://bit.ly/Jxc9Ig). “The question of whether that program should be conducted is for the other two coordinate branches of Government to decide,” he said, citing the “extensive oversight” the program operates under. The court granted the government’s motion to dismiss the ACLU’s complaint, filed in June. He lamented the “level of absurdity” in ACLU’s lawsuit given the group only learned of the program through leaks earlier in the year. “A target’s awareness of Section 215 orders does not alter the Congressional calculus,” Pauley wrote. He defended the ability of intelligence officials to make connections on the basis of metadata collection: “The effectiveness of bulk telephony metadata collection cannot be seriously disputed.” What corporations do with consumer data is “far more intrusive,” he said. He said the program does not violate the Fourth Amendment, pointing to the 1979 Smith v. Maryland Supreme Court case, or the First Amendment, calling the need to determine that “unnecessary” due to another previous ruling. The court’s decision “misinterprets the relevant statutes, understates the privacy implications of the government’s surveillance and misapplies a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections,” said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director, in a statement. “As another federal judge and the president’s own review group concluded last week, the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of telephony data constitutes a serious invasion of Americans’ privacy.” The phone surveillance program, done under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, has been upheld by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court multiple times, but a federal court shot it down as likely unconstitutional in Klayman v. Obama earlier this month. Lawmakers and the White House have reexamined the program and announced intentions to change it.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo released style4.5 million in broadband grants Thursday. The Democrat issued a statement emphasizing the significance of high-speed Internet connections. Nine projects will receive money, including Clarity Connect, Slic Network Solutions, MTC Cable and New Visions Communications. “Together, these nine projects will deliver broadband services to 29,117 households, 2,052 businesses, and 236 community anchor institutions, and will provide 614 miles of new fiber,” Cuomo’s office said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1llG3eP). Much of the money will go to support last-mile service, it said.

Netflix probably won’t boost its support for 3D movies, the company said Friday, but wouldn’t immediately say whether it will abandon 3D content altogether. It launched 3D streaming in January and has a “few dozen” such titles now, said spokesman Joris Evers. But 3D streaming “isn’t something we will look to expand as it is used very little,” he said. The company “experimented” with Blu-ray 3D offerings earlier, but “only shipped very few units” to subscribers, said spokeswoman Karen Barragan. Netflix wouldn’t say if it plans to offer Blu-ray 3D titles again or reconsider its plans for streamed 3D movies, especially in light of the strong theatrical 3D showing of the movies Gravity and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Separately, Netflix had an outage Thursday night that lasted about 40 minutes and “impacted streaming on most devices” in parts of the U.S., Canada and Latin America, said Barrigan. The outage started at 6:45 p.m. PST, and affected about 30 percent of streaming “starts across devices” used by subscribers, said spokesman Jonathan Friedland.