SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Congress will keep holding hearings about privacy about every couple of weeks into December at least, but it won’t pass a scrap of legislation, said Maureen Cooney, the director of Sprint’s privacy office. “Privacy is one of the hot-button issues on the legislative agenda,” but “it’s very unlikely -- very unlikely -- we'll have new privacy legislation,” she said last week at the Sprint Open Solutions Conference for developers.

Members from each side of the political aisle at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing on Friday voiced privacy concerns with a bill (HR-3035) to relax requirements on calls to cellphones now contained in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). But many agreed the 1991 law may need an update. The TCPA is the basis for many consumer complaints submitted to the FCC about unsolicited calls. HR-3035 is supported by the wireless industry, businesses and universities, but opposed by several consumer advocates and state attorneys general (CD Nov 4 p7). Sponsor Reps. Lee Terry, R-Neb., and Ed Towns, D-N.Y., said they're open to revising the bill.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Sprint is considering selling WiMAX devices beyond its commitment to do so through 2012, as it forges toward the more broadly accepted LTE technology for 4G wireless broadband, CEO Dan Hesse said. Speaking at the Sprint Open Solutions Conference for developers late last week, he didn’t elaborate on the possibility of sticking longer than promised with handsets or other hardware that can use both 3G and WiMAX.

The Rural Cellular Association turned up the heat on the FCC and Congress in an effort to get them to mandate device interoperability across the 700 MHz band, releasing a study by Information Age Economics on the economic effects of doing nothing (http://xrl.us/bmhsag). RCA filed the report Thursday with the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which is expected to consider spectrum auctions as a way to raise revenue to lower the deficit.

DirecTV has tested a fixed-line Long Term Evolution (LTE) service, but it remains open to wireless and other technologies for supplying broadband to its customers, DirecTV CEO Michael White said Thursday in a conference call.

Judge Ellen Huvelle will allow Sprint Nextel and C Spire to pursue part of their claims against AT&T/T-Mobile, rejecting most claims but allowing two to proceed, in a complicated, 44-page decision handed down Wednesday night. AT&T, Sprint and C Spire all portrayed the decision as a win, as the Department of Justice’s case against the deal moves forward.

A new channel that offers PBS programming in Great Britain will feed back funding to its U.S. component. The intent of PBS UK, which launched this week, is to expand distribution for programming and offer content to a larger audience, said Jan McNamara, PBS spokeswoman. However, the net proceeds earned by PBS through PBS UK “will be invested back into PBS’ domestic operations and content,” she said. Some industry professionals and supporters of funding said adding new revenue sources is imperative, though public broadcasting also needs government funding.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is buying TV stations again, now that valuations have returned to “reality,” CEO David Smith said Wednesday. “We sat on the sidelines for I don’t know how many years, while a lot of other folks out there were paying whatever they were paying for businesses,” he said during the company’s Q3 earnings call. “Our view was, we'll sit back and wait and they'll come back to reality. We think they're kind of in that neighborhood now and that’s why we're taking advantage of them."

The House Communications Subcommittee plans to vote Nov. 16 on FCC process reform legislation, and won’t take up spectrum until after Thanksgiving at the earliest, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said at a press conference Wednesday. As expected (CD Nov 2 p8), Walden and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced two reform bills Wednesday in each the House and Senate. One FCC reform bill includes broad process changes first proposed in Walden’s draft bill from earlier this summer. A second bill would reduce the number and consolidate many of the reports the FCC is required to send to Congress.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Federal agencies’ IPv6 adoption is “really a mess,” a Defense Department technologist centrally involved in the effort said Wednesday. “It’s a sad story across the federal government,” said Ron Broersma, a member of the Federal IPv6 Task Force and the network security manager for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. “But there’s a major push to fix that in the next year.”