Calling the consumer electronics industry a “bright spot in a very cloudy economy,” CEA CEO Gary Shapiro welcomed attendees Thursday to “CE Week” during a keynote in which he promoted passage of S-911. The bill was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this month. Wireless broadband is one of the primary drivers of the CE industry, Shapiro said. Many of the new products and services coming to market require wireless broadband, he said, making the “spectrum crunch one of the most critical technology policy issues we face today.” Much of the most attractive spectrum now is being used “as it has been for the last 40 or 50 years” by broadcasters, Shapiro said. Despite their “important service to the public,” the demand for wireless broadband services has exhausted all of the available spectrum, creating a “crisis” that can only be served by allocating additional frequencies for broadband, he said.

Analog broadcast TV in the U.S. will be a thing of the past in late 2015 if the FCC succeeds in setting a low-power station digital deadline akin to the full-power DTV switch two years ago, commission officials said. They said a draft order would require all remaining low-power stations that haven’t already made the digital switch to do so by September 2015. That’s three years later than the commission last proposed (CD Sept 21 p2).

The FCC implemented rules that it says will help keep con artists from using phony caller ID numbers to get at their victims. Congress can also help things further by expanding anti-fraud laws to foreign scammers and to Internet-only, non-interconnected VoIP, the commission said in a report to Congress. The report, dated Wednesday, was released to the public Thursday.

More testing is likely needed before LightSquared moves forward on revised plans to offer terrestrial wireless service in just the lower part of the L-band, government officials and GPS users said Thursday during a joint hearing with the House Aviation and Maritime Transportation subcommittees on GPS reliability. Lawmakers and executives also voiced concern over the FCC’s handling of LightSquared’s proposed plans, asking for more involvement from the Federal Aviation Administration and Defense and Transportation departments when considering spectrum use that affects GPS. Meanwhile at a House Appropriations Committee markup, members agreed to an amendment requiring the FCC to address GPS interference concerns.

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) called on the FCC to look for more spectrum for rail carriers so they can move forward with positive train control (PTC) systems mandated by Congress. Comments were due this week on a May 5 Wireless Bureau public notice on “spectrum issues” tied to the implementation of PTC, as required by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. PTC systems are designed to protect trains from collisions with other trains, overspeed derailments and other threats to rail safety. PTC systems use real-time data from trains to issue “movement authorities” and set speed limits to each of the trains operating within a particular zone.

The U.S. has made “significant progress” on getting fast Internet service to rural areas, but “the broadband deployment and adoption gaps” remain “significant,” the FCC said in an update on rural broadband released Wednesday. Nearly 19 million rural Americans lack access to fixed broadband of at least 3 Mbps downstream and 768 kbps up, the commission said in its update to the 2009 rural broadband report. That population accounts for nearly three-quarters of the nation’s broadband “gap,” the report said. “Close to three out of ten rural Americans -- 28.2 percent -- lack access to fixed broadband at 3 Mbps/768 kbps or faster, a percentage that is more than nine times as large as the 3.0 percent that lack access in non-rural areas."

Democrats and Republicans voiced deep philosophical disagreements at a hearing Wednesday on FCC reform proposals designed to rein in the agency’s rules and conditions on deals. The House Communications Subcommittee did find agreement on some areas, including removing the prohibition on commissioners meeting privately. Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., circulated a discussion draft Friday that’s spurred significant debate (CD June 22 p1).

GENEVA -- Differences have emerged in ITU-R over how to respond to a proposal for a new International Special Committee on Radio Interference (CISPR) database that would be used to set emissions limits on electronic devices, according to letters between the two organizations. Past CISPR work on power line telecommunications (PLT), which a representative recently said resulted in no solution after 10 years of work, does not inspire confidence, said John Shaw, chairman of the reporting group on PLT issues in the ITU-R study group on the broadcasting service.

The FCC has effectively paused its AllVid proceeding, holding off finishing a rulemaking notice proposing to make all multichannel video programming distributors connect to consumer electronics sold at retail, said agency and industry officials watching the work. In what represents another new approach to the proceeding, industry officials said the Media Bureau and office of Chairman Julius Genachowski seem content for now to let CE companies and pay-TV providers work out more deals to integrate programming and Internet connectivity with various devices. That new approach was on display last week at the Cable Show, in public comments from bureau Chief Bill Lake and Genachowski aide Sherrese Smith (CD June 16 p2), said CE and cable officials who heard those remarks.

The FCC should give native tribes priority in allocating and licensing spectrum, create a special “Native Nations Broadband Fund” and take on a “tribal-centric” view of economic development, Native American groups said in comments in docket 11-41. The National Congress of American Indians, Native Telecom Coalition for Broadband, National Tribal Telecommunications Association, American Library Association and Alexicon Telecommunications Consulting endorsed some form of a broadband fund for tribes. “The FCC must take extraordinary measures to provide parity of communications service with non-Native communities,” the Tribal Telecom Association said in a joint filing with the Gila River Telecommunications Association. “Since the passage of the 1996 Telecom Act, only three Native governments have attained full regulatory self-provisioning [eligible telecommunications carrier] status.”