Iridium’s petition for reallocating Globalstar’s Big low-earth orbit spectrum will ensure sufficient spectrum to promote continued development and innovation in essential mobile satellite service (MSS), Iridium said in FCC RM-11685 (http://bit.ly/18z3Bwu). The petition is neither anticompetitive “nor would it hinder Globalstar in pursuing its MSS or TLPS business plans,” Iridium said of Globalstar’s proposed terrestrial low-power service. Iridium’s growth is expected to continue, “driven by the introduction of new products and services enabled by upgrades in Iridium’s constellation and its innovative vendor partnerships,” it said. As Iridium prepares for the launch of Iridium Next, its next-generation network, “it will be increasingly important to ensure that it has sufficient spectrum available to support this expansion as well as sustain its core business,” it said. “Iridium offers nothing new in its response and nothing supports its request to take almost 3 MHz of Globalstar’s L-band spectrum,” said Barbee Ponder, Globalstar general counsel.

Requests for an FTC investigation into Disney and Sanrio for their alleged noncompliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) were filed by the Center for Digital Democracy Wednesday, said a CDD news release (http://bit.ly/1kiHcpR). Neither company “provides adequate notice or obtains verifiable parental consent prior to collecting, using, or disclosing personal information about its child users,” as required by the FTC’s revision of COPPA one year ago (CD Dec 20 p10), said the release. “These two complaints reveal a pattern of disturbing practices that threaten children’s privacy and undermine the ability of parents to control how information is collected and used,” said Executive Director Jeff Chester. The complaints (http://bit.ly/1gGGHG3, http://bit.ly/19yAfN6) are directed at Marvelkids.com, a Disney subsidiary, and the Hello Kitty Carnival mobile app, a joint venture between Typhoon Games and Sanrio, said the release. “CDD’s investigations should spur the FTC to investigate both these companies, and also closely review how many in the online marketing industry appear derelict in complying with the updated COPPA Rule,” said CDD Legal Director Hudson Kingston. The two companies had no comment.

Roll out of devices designed to use the unlicensed spectrum in the unused TV bands known as the TV white spaces may ramp up beginning in 2015, said Microsoft Principal Group Program Manager Amer Hassan at a Microsoft panel on unlicensed spectrum Tuesday. Silicon vendors are already starting to design microchips to take advantage of the spectrum, Hassan said. The TV white spaces will become increasingly important as more devices become available that use Wi-Fi connectivity, said several panelists. The Internet of Things, in which everyday devices such as refrigerators and toothbrushes will share data and applications over the Internet, “will be dominated by unlicensed spectrum,” said Richard Thanki of the University of Southampton Institute of Complex Systems Simulation. Thanki said such technology will also have industrial applications, leading to manufacturing equipment and warehouses that take advantage of wireless connectivity. Since the devices don’t need to exchange huge amounts of data, the TV white spaces are particularly suited to their use, Thanki said. All the panelists said the number of devices that take advantage of the white spaces is on the rise. It’s possible that the incentive auction could reduce the amount of available unlicensed spectrum, said New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project Director Michael Calabrese. The incentive auction has created “uncertainty” about how much of the white spaces will be left in the wake of the repacking process, Calabrese said.

Correction: What the then-FCC chairman, who was Bill Kennard, recused himself over in 1998 was an order on repealing political editorial and personal attack rules (CD Dec 16 p6).

The Telehealth Modernization Act was introduced Tuesday by Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, to “provide principles that states can look to for guidance when developing new policies that govern telehealth,” said a joint news release from the members. The release did not say to which committee the bill, which has yet to be given a number, will be referred. Johnson and Matsui serve on the House Commerce Committee, which oversees healthcare and technology issues, the release said. “The Telehealth Modernization Act will create a nationwide telehealth definition to provide clarity regarding the scope of healthcare services that can be safely delivered via telehealth,” said Matsui. “Having worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, I know first-hand the benefits associated with technological innovation,” Johnson said. He cofounded Johnson-Schley Management Group, an information technology consulting company, and helped form J2 Business Solutions, where he provided IT support as a defense contractor to the U.S. military. “In rural districts such as my own, telehealth can increase access to quality care and lower costs,” he said. All 50 states have varying telehealth regulations, the release said. “Telehealth is a central component for creating a technology enabled healthcare system that will increase access to care and lower costs,” said Joel White, executive director of the Health IT Now Coalition, in the release. White supports the bill.

AT&T said Monday it closed its $4.83 billion deal with Crown Castle International (http://soc.att.com/1hi7zKb). The deal, announced in late October, gave Crown Castle control of more than 9,000 AT&T towers for an average of 28 years. Crown Castle will have the option to buy the towers for $4.2 billion at the end of that period. AT&T also sold the tower company about 600 AT&T towers as part of the deal. AT&T will lease back space on the towers for at least the next 10 years, but has the option to re-up its leases for the next 50 years (CD Oct 22 p5). AT&T said it will use the proceeds from the sale for “general corporate purposes, including opportunistic share repurchases and repayment of commercial paper."

The FCC Media Bureau granted a Comcast petition Tuesday to exempt the cable provider from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices for 39 communities in California, said a Media Bureau order (http://bit.ly/1bYgizW). Comcast’s petition cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects just under 600,000 California households, including the communities of Roseville, Salinas and Santa Rosa.

Common Cause backed the FCC pulling a draft media ownership order circulated by then-Chairman Julius Genachowski that was a “bad idea to allow billionaire moguls to control even more of our media,” said the nonprofit on its blog Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jfr7Df). It said current Chairman Tom Wheeler deserves credit for saying the draft will be reworked. The order, which would have allowed some types of broadcaster-newspaper cross ownership while attributing some TV station resource sharing deals in a way that might have curtailed them, was yanked from circulation earlier this month (CD Dec 16 p1). “It was an ugly dinosaur still stalking the Commission’s hallways long after it should have been extinct,” said Special Adviser to the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative Michael Copps, a former Democratic commissioner. “Maybe, just maybe, the new FCC will go on from here to become a true protector of the people’s interest on the people’s airwaves.”

Several lawmakers praised Monday’s ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that National Security Agency phone surveillance likely violates the Fourth Amendment (CD Dec 17 p3). Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., praised the ruling on Monday. But Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pointed to other legal support for surveillance and said the Supreme Court must resolve the question. “Clearly we have competing decisions from those of at least three different courts (the FISA Court, the D.C. District Court and the Southern District of California),” Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/19QvjQn). “I have found the analysis by the FISA Court, the Southern District of California and the position of the Department of Justice, based on the Supreme Court decision in [1979’s Smith v. Maryland], to be compelling.” Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., author of the original Patriot Act and the surveillance overhaul the USA Freedom Act, said the decision “highlights the need to pass” his legislation, according to his office (http://1.usa.gov/1bMrU8n). “I am encouraged by the district court’s ruling,” Sensenbrenner said. “It will add to the growing momentum behind the USA FREEDOM Act, which has garnered support from a large, diverse bloc of my colleagues and the business community. The Executive Branch should join Congress to institute meaningful reform.” Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Tom Udall, D-N.M., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., support the ruling and back updates to surveillance law. The ruling “hits the nail on the head,” Wyden said (http://1.usa.gov/1gD2yOA), in particular highlighting the ruling’s emphasis on the ineffectiveness of the surveillance. “This ruling dismisses the use of an outdated Supreme Court decision affecting rotary phones as a defense.” Paul said the ruling is “an important first step in having the constitutionality of government surveillance programs decided in the regular court system rather than a secret court where only one side is presented,” calling phone surveillance an abuse (http://1.usa.gov/18Oxu6G). “Today’s ruling is an important first step toward reining in this agency but we must go further,” Sanders said (http://1.usa.gov/IRlBX6). “I will be working as hard as I can to pass the strongest legislation possible to end the abuses by the NSA and other intelligence agencies.” Blumenthal backed congressional action, “creating greater transparency and a special advocate whose client is the Constitution to advocate on behalf of Americans’ liberty and privacy,” he said (http://1.usa.gov/1hYbYEO). Tom Udall said he hopes Monday’s “ruling will prove to be an important milestone on the path toward increased transparency and comprehensive reforms to our surveillance programs, including an end to bulk phone record collection and the creation of a new privacy advocate within the secretive FISA court” (http://1.usa.gov/18SLmQl). Privacy advocates and Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor responsible for the surveillance leaks earlier this year, also hailed the ruling.

A total of 189.2 million Americans watched 47.1 billion online content videos in November, said comScore Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1cz5XHe). Views of video ads totaled 26.8 billion, said the report. Google Sites were the top “online video content property” with 163.5 million unique viewers, driven primarily by YouTube, the report said. AOL ranked second with 73 million viewers, followed by Facebook (66.2 million), News Distribution Network (51 million) and Yahoo (45.8 million), said the report.