Several parties that urged the FCC to reject Comcast’s planned buy of Time Warner Cable support AT&T/DirecTV with conditions, noted a Guggenheim Partners analyst. Analysts expect both deals to be approved, but the AT&T/DirecTV comments may suggest a more manageable approval path for that deal than for Comcast/Time Warner Cable, said analyst Paul Gallant. Dish Network, Public Knowledge and Netflix took a more even-handed position on the AT&T transaction than they did the Comcast deal, he said Friday in a research note. “This is noteworthy and suggests to us that AT&T/DirecTV is likely to face less strident opposition than Comcast/TWC.” Those entities will probably be among the “leading voices” at the Department of Justice and FCC on both deals, he said. Their moderate tone on AT&T/DirecTV “is incrementally positive for that merger and introduces an additional note of caution on Comcast/TWC,” he said. Initial comments in the AT&T/DirecTV proceeding were due Tuesday (CD Sept 19 p3).

Correction: The name of the Department of Defense facility that partnered with Cascade County, Montana, on a land-use study map was Malmstrom Air Force Base (CD Sept 18 p19).

The FCC received more than 800,000 net neutrality comments in the six days before the Sept. 15 filing deadline, including 244,374 on Sept. 11, and another 169,847 on the last day to file, the agency said on its blog (http://fcc.us/1o6JKam). “Throughout the two rounds of public comment, and despite the age of the Commission’s IT systems, the FCC IT team worked around the clock and implemented workaround solutions to scale the large volume of comments in order to keep the system up and running, ensuring the public could submit feedback to the Commission leading up to Monday night’s comment deadline,” said FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray in the post.

A new standard that allows users of the IEEE 802 set of wireless standards from the IEEE Standards Association to effectively use the TV white spaces is available. IEEE 802.19.1 “is intended to help achieve fair and efficient spectrum sharing,” said the IEEE Standards Association Wednesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1yi0Qvv). The standard is intended to specify a coexistence discovery and information server, specify a coexistence manager, and “define common coexistence architecture and protocols,” it said.

The Competitive Carriers Association filed a motion for leave to intervene in support of the FCC in the NAB’s court challenge of the TV incentive auction rules, CCA said Wednesday. “CCA supports the FCC’s decision to use updated software and data to implement the repacking process of the incentive auction, and is hopeful the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will quickly resolve this matter in the Commission’s favor,” the group said in a news release. NAB had said the commission’s use of the TVStudy software would unfairly disadvantage stations.

The FCC should have its Diversity Committee study “troubling” employment practices in the technology sector, said the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and all four FCC members Wednesday. The tech industry’s “abysmal failure” to employ African-Americans, Hispanics and women hurts the FCC’s ability to follow congressional directives to “regulate EEO and promote employment and ownership diversity,” said the MMTC of equal employment opportunity. “Industry convergence and stark employment gaps” should merit a technology sector investigation by the Diversity Committee, and a follow-up by the FCC, another federal agency or Congress, the letter said. The FCC should focus on the tech sector because with the rise of over-the-top video, cord cutters and streaming apps, “the media jobs of the future will look more like technology jobs than traditional TV/radio production, advertising sales, and on-air occupations,” MMTC said. The tech sector has addressed this change in the past by asking for lowered restrictions on bringing in overseas workers though H-1B visas, a move MMTC said may be premature without a stronger effort to recruit domestic minorities and women. “An inquiry by the Diversity Committee would shed light on the extent to which technology companies recruit on campuses with high minority enrollments, actively mentor minorities for careers in the technology sector, and select diverse candidates who are U.S. citizens or residents,” MMTC said. Because of media convergence, diversity within the tech sector will increasingly fall within FCC EEO authority, MMTC said. “The digital divide cannot be closed when a sixth of the economy so profoundly and uniformly excludes African Americans, Latinos and women from equal employment opportunity."

Sixty percent of U.S. consumers expect to have experienced a house that speaks or reads to them by 2025, said a study on the impact of technology commissioned by Intel’s McAfee. Seventy-seven percent of consumers think the most common device in 11 years will be a smart watch, and 70 percent believe overall wearable devices will be common personal accessories. Seventy-two percent of consumers expect connected kitchen appliances will be a household item by 2015, six in 10 expect their refrigerators to automatically add food to a running grocery list when items are running low, and 84 percent believe their home security systems will be connected to their mobile devices, McAfee said. Almost 70 percent of respondents expressed concern over the state of cybersecurity in 2025, with identity theft, monetary theft and fraud the leading issues. By 2025, 38 percent of U.S. consumers expect to unlock their mobile device by eye scan followed by a thumbprint, McAfee said. On mobile pay, a third of consumers believe they'll be able to pay for items using their fingerprint, while 22 percent expected to use their mobile device. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they planned to still pay by credit or debit card. The online survey was done Aug. 1-12 by MSI Research among 1,507 U.S. citizens ages 21-65, split evenly by age and gender.

Comments are due Oct. 16, replies Nov. 17, on a Further NPRM on text-to-911 rules, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1o0UhUw). The August FNPRM teed up questions including whether the FCC should extend a text-to-911 mandate to non-interconnected over-the-top text providers and on rules for determining the location of those sending the texts and making the system work for subscribers roaming on another network (CD Aug 11 p1).

AT&T explained the job functions of its employees and asked for clarification and modifications for an FCC information request. The Media Bureau asked AT&T and DirecTV for information on AT&T’s proposed takeover of DirecTV (CD Sept 11 p21). The AT&T employees were listed on organizational charts prepared to identify custodians of documents responsive to each document request, AT&T said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-90 (http://bit.ly/1u2Dio1). The meeting participants also discussed the FCC’s definitions, instructions and procedures for the form of AT&T’s responses to the requests, it said. DirecTV also presented information on job functions of its employees, said a separate ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/XcPoAg). Both filings are on meetings with FCC staff tasked with reviewing the acquisition.

Neustar took heart in a letter Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach sent rival Telcordia asking for more information to clarify the scope of the second company’s relationships with telecom service providers, a Neustar spokeswoman told us Monday. The letter (http://bit.ly/1uOEQ5C), dated Sept. 10 and posted in docket 09-109 Monday, asked for a list of TSP and TSP affiliates to which Telcordia or parent Ericsson provides managed services. Neustar had challenged Telcordia’s neutrality because of the business relationships (CD Aug 25 p5). “Ericsson’s close financial and business entanglements with major mobile operators render it unable to be a neutral” Local Number Portability Administrator, “and hence legally unable to serve,” Neustar said in a statement. “That for the first time there is this level of focus ... is a positive development for the many medium and small carriers that would be stuck bearing the risks and costs of an unnecessary transition.” Telcordia was not immediately available for comment.