Public interest attorney and former Media Access Project head Andrew Schwartzman will join Georgetown’s Institute for Public Representation (IPR) to lead the new Public Interest Communications Law Project, said the Benton Foundation and Georgetown Law in a news release Tuesday. The project is a joint creation of the foundation and school, and Schwartzman will be Benton senior counselor, funded through grants from the Alphawood Foundation, Ford Foundation and the Media Democracy Fund, the release said. Schwartzman’s appointment will “expand IPR’s capacity to provide public representation in such critical areas as the transition of traditional wireline telephone service to broadband (known ’the IP transition'), Universal Service Fund reform, particularly of Lifeline and E-Rate, Diversity of Media Ownership and Spectrum Policy,” he said. Schwartzman will be able to continue as senior adviser to other Washington-based public interest groups, along with his private law practice, the release said. “I have long sought to help create a new generation of public interest advocates able to promote the public’s First Amendment rights to have access to a diverse and vigorous debate on important issues,” said Schwartzman. “This position is an ideal way to continue and extend that mission."

Comments are due March 31 on potential process reform at the FCC, a public notice said Friday (http://fcc.us/1ghrRUP). The comments are to be in response to a report prepared by commission staff that attempts to see “the agency operate in the most effective, efficient, transparent way possible,” the notice said. The report proposes more than 150 process reforms, including streamlining the internal review process, processing items more quickly and eliminating outdated rules, the notice said. The docket is GN 14-25.

Nearly two thirds of U.S. broadband households now have an Internet-connected TV, up from just over half last year, according to research released Thursday by The Diffusion Group, a technology and media behavior research company (http://bit.ly/1kHWiXz). The study -- based on a January survey of 1,500 adults subscribing to broadband service -- said households with a connected TV owned on average 1.6 TVs and 42 percent of connected TV owners have two or more connected TVs. “While not a simple a zero-sum game, we are nearing or at that breaking point where the growing use of broadband-based sources simply chips away at time once spent using traditional sources. This is hardly a radical argument, and made all the more inevitable given these new findings,” said Michael Greeson, TDG president and director-research.

Whether websites and other nonphysical spaces fall under the accommodations of the California Disabled Persons Act is the question that Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness [GLAD] v. CNN will resolve. It’s to be heard by the California Supreme Court, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an opinion (http://1.usa.gov/MPfS5P) Monday, according to a Davis Wright law firm news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1g2G31L). “The referral is the closing issue in a Ninth Circuit opinion that reverses a district court ruling by holding California’s anti-SLAPP [strategic lawsuit against public participation] statute applies to GLAD’s suit seeking to compel captions for CNN.com’s news videos,” said the release.

Global production of connected devices will rise 6 percent this year to 6.2 billion units, as new smartphones and tablets “enter the electronics ecosystem,” IHS Technology said Thursday. That would be the market’s largest increase since 2010, when production jumped 10 percent, a year after the global economic recession ended, IHS said. The research firm sees production growth rates slowing in the next few years, though total units produced will continue to rise in absolute numbers, it said. It estimates nearly 19.5 billion new devices “will flood the planet” between 2015 and 2017.

The FCC is seeking nominations for the 3rd Annual Chairman’s Awards for Advancement in Accessibility, the commission said in a press release Wednesday. Part of the FCC’s Accessibility and Innovation Initiative, the awards “honor outstanding private and public sector ventures that advance accessibility for people with disabilities,” the FCC said. Nominees can include “mainstream or assistive technologies introduced into the marketplace,” development of new standards or implementation of “best practices” that encourage accessibility, the FCC said. Awards will be handed out by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in June. Nominations must have been introduced to the public between August 1, 2012, and December 31, 2013, and should be emailed to ChairmansAAA@fcc.gov between. Feb. 17 and March 31. Categories include Advanced Communication Services, Social Media and Closed Captions (http://fcc.us/1gv8Hc9).

A resolution urging the FCC to expand the kinds of services whose customers are required to pay into the USF (CD Feb 11 p15) was among six approved unanimously by the NARUC board at the end of the organization’s winter meeting Wednesday. The resolution, proposed by Vermont Public Service Board Commissioner John Burke, urges the FCC to expand the USF contribution base “so that all communications services, including services such as broadband that are required to be offered in order to receive federal support, contribute to USF.” The resolution took no position on whether the size of the fund should be increased. Another resolution, by Michigan Public Service Commissioner Sally Talberg, supports efforts by the FCC to allow a variety of service providers to apply for rural broadband experiments. The resolution also asked the FCC to ensure that funds for the experiments be aimed at ensuring broadband service for rural areas, and that broadband networks deployed in rural areas remain sustainable. A third resolution, by Nebraska Public Service commissioners Tim Schram and Anne Boyle, said the FCC should clarify that rules on 911 location accuracy apply to calls made from both indoors and outdoors. A resolution by Washington Utilities and Transportation Commissioner Philip Jones expressed support and encouragement to the National Association of Public Affairs Networks to establish C-SPAN-like public affairs TV networks in all 50 states. A resolution by District of Columbia Public Service Commissioner Betty Ann Kane urges the FCC to require applicants for the upcoming IP tests to prominently provide information to customers on how to submit complaints to state regulatory agencies or the FCC. Kane’s resolution also asks the FCC to require applicants requesting a waiver of a mandatory condition from the FCC to notify state regulatory commissions and customers. It also asks the FCC to provide adequate opportunity for public comment before granting a waiver.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said a pilot channel-sharing program in Los Angeles (CD Feb 11 p18) could show broadcasters that the technique can let them participate in the incentive auction and remain in the broadcast business, he wrote in a blog post on the agency’s website Tuesday (http://fcc.us/NCPP2M). “Channel sharing can allow broadcasters to bolster their balance sheets, reduce capital expenses, and continue their traditional business.” Wheeler said he recently toured public TV station KLCS, sharing channels with Spanish-language KJLA. On the tour, Wheeler said he saw KLCS multicasting one HD stream and seven standard-definition streams of programming, and the station will test broadcasting two HD streams over the same channel as part of the pilot program. “If the pilot works as engineers expect it will, this could be a game changer for the concept of channel sharing,” Wheeler said. Though discussion of the incentive auction has focused on broadcasters who “may find it attractive to simply sell their spectrum and exit the business,” sharing is a viable option as well, he said. “This pilot is not intended to prove that all broadcasters can get by with half the spectrum they're currently using,” said Association of Public Television Stations CEO Patrick Butler in a news release responding to Wheeler (http://bit.ly/MLwawC). Instead, the pilot program is designed to show “that all kinds of good things can happen -- for broadcasters and for the public -- with advances in compression technology and innovative business arrangements that permit the sharing of significant costs between stations,” Butler said. Most public TV stations won’t participate in the auction, but might still take advantage of channel-sharing technology, Butler said. For the “relatively few stations” with “economic circumstances” warranting an exploration of channel sharing, “this pilot will demonstrate the possibilities and limitations of such a strategy,” Butler said. The advances demonstrated in the pilot “will depend on brand new cutting-edge technology whose widespread adoption will require a substantial new capital investment in the public television system,” said Butler. The FCC granted approvals for the sharing pilot within a week of its submission, Wheeler wrote. “The speed of our decision demonstrates the importance of this pilot and the Commission’s commitment to work with broadcasters to ensure a successful incentive auction."

The Justice Department ended a three-year hiring freeze, which led to 4,000 positions being unfilled, said the agency in a news release Monday night (http://1.usa.gov/1gqtw8O). It said “critical vacancies” will be filled “after years of uncertainty,” because Congress recently passed and President Barack Obama signed into law a budget deal restoring the department’s funding to pre-sequestration levels plus extra money “for key priorities."

The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force Feb. 21 workshop will be on feasibility checking during the repacking process. Topics will include the role of feasibility checking and the need for speed and certainty, and the different types of mathematical solvers and approaches to using them in an auction, the FCC said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1ogTgdd). The workshop will be 10 a.m. to noon in the Commission Meeting Room, it said. Another workshop also will be Feb. 21, 1-3:30 p.m., the FCC said in a separate public notice (http://bit.ly/MJ80Tk). It will focus on methodology for predicting potential interference between broadcast TV and licensed wireless services, it said. It also is open to the public and will be in the Commission Meeting Room.