The FTC cleared the way for Samsung’s $8 billion acquisition of Harman International (see the Nov. 15 issue of this publication), and Windstream’s $1.1 billion deal to buy EarthLink (see 1611070032), said early termination notices ending the transactions’ Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting periods. Samsung/Harman is expected to close mid-2017, Windstream/EarthLink in first half of 2017.

President-elect Donald Trump named investor Carl Icahn special adviser on regulatory reform. “He is not only a brilliant negotiator, but also someone who is innately able to predict the future especially having to do with finances and economies,” Trump said in a statement Wednesday. “His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable.” Trump prioritized regulatory overhaul throughout his campaign, a focus that many believe could affect the FCC and other agencies’ operations. “Under President [Barack] Obama, America’s business owners have been crippled by over $1 trillion in new regulations and over 750 billion hours dealing with paperwork,” said Icahn, who was a majority stakeholder in XO Communications.

The contract award amount for real estate developer Trammell Crow's bid for the 15-year lease on the FCC's new headquarters is $330.3 million, said the General Services Administration's website. The new HQ is in Sentinel Square III at 45 L St. NE. The contract was awarded Sunday, the award notice said. The FCC's current landlord, Parcel 49C, is appealing the award, but the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week rejected a temporary restraining order seeking to prevent the award (see 1612200069). The commission's current lease expires in October. The GSA didn't comment.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is warning the tech community about the threat President-elect Donald Trump poses to the internet, in a full-page advertisement in the January issue of Wired magazine released Tuesday. "He has praised attempts to undermine digital security, supported mass surveillance, and threatened net neutrality," reads the ad on page 63 about Trump. "He promised to identify and deport millions of your friends and neighbors, track people based on their religious beliefs, and suppress freedom of the press." EFF said it wants the tech community to employ end-to-end encryption and HTTPS for all communications and transactions, delete logs so they can't be provided, publicly disclose government requests to monitor users and censor speech, and advocate for users rights in Congress, the courts and elsewhere. EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman in a news release said the internet shouldn't be "conscripted into a tool of oppression. But if we are going to protect the Internet, we need a lot of help." The transition team didn't comment.

The FCC is to announce in Wednesday in the Federal Register that the Office of Management and Budget approved the transparency rule enhancements in the 2015 net neutrality order. OMB approved the requirements for a period of three years for fixed broadband, two years for mobile broadband internet access service, the notice say. OMB estimates the total cost for industry complying with the new requirements is $640,000 per year, the notice says. The FCC said Friday OMB had OK'd the enhanced disclosure requirements to start Jan. 17 (see 1612160059).

Plaintiffs accusing a variety of broadband providers of "bait and switch" advertising plan to continue pursuing their suit after a U.S. district judge in Tampa dismissed the federal complaint and remanded it to the Florida 6th Judicial Circuit in Pasco County. Jerry Collette, one of two plaintiffs who sued as TruthinAdvertisingEnforcers.com, told us in an email Monday he will pursue the allegations there. In her order (in Pacer) last week on multiple motions to dismiss (see 1610060010), U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington said TruthinAdvertisingEnforcers.com lacks Article III standing to bring its claims since it hasn't argued actual injury, doesn't have statutory standing to bring its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act claim and can't bring a civil claim on the other federal statutes it cites. Being sued are Dish Network, Frontier Communications, Charter Communications, Hughes Network and EarthLink and sales agents Infinity Sales Group and GoDish.com.

The FCC sought comment on Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s #Solutions2020 Call to Action Plan, which grew out of a series of visits Clyburn made across the U.S. Clyburn emphasized broadband affordability and other policy calls in the plan during a conference at the Georgetown Law School in October (see 1610190044). Comments are due Jan. 11. “The work of ensuring affordable access to communications to all Americans may or may not ever be fully realized, but we should never fail to try,” the plan said. “Twenty years ago, an average family of four paid for two fixed telephone lines and dial-up Internet access. Now that same family MAY have a fixed phone in the home accompanied by a broadband internet connection, along with two or more mobile voice and data lines.”

Globalstar continues to lobby the FCC on its revised terrestrial low-power service broadband plans on circulation on the eighth floor (see here). In an ex parte posted filing Monday in docket 13-213, Globalstar recapped calls with International Bureau officials and with Chairman Tom Wheeler aide Edward Smith about the proposal and about the rules the company suggested for the revised proposal. In a separate filing Friday in the docket, it responded to criticisms raised last week by Hearing Industries Association (HIA) (see 1612150041), one of the few remaining critics of its TLPS plans after numerous others said they have no objection to the company's revised plans. In its HIA response, Globalstar said the out-of-band emission (OOBE) limits it proposed would protect hearing aids that use Bluetooth. It said Bluetooth protocols used by hearing aids are robust enough to operate in extreme congestion, and any OOBE from Globalstar operations would fall below industrial, scientific and medical band noise/interference floor. It said the 3.5 MHz between Bluetooth hearing aid operations and Globalstar operations would be as "a protective effective guard band" between the two. In a statement Monday, HIA said Globalstar’s response "misconstrues many key facts in this discussion, including the results from its 2015 demonstration, which at this time does even not appear relevant to the current issue before the FCC."

Possible rules dealing with interference between broadcast satellite service (BSS) earth stations and direct broadcast satellite transmissions are on circulation on the eighth floor. The FCC Friday began circulating BSS Rules in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band. An FCC official said the proposed rules -- the result of the agency's soliciting comments last year on potential ground-path interference rules for 17/24 GHz reverse band BSS operations (see 1510260018) -- would grandfather in older earth stations but require coordination between future deployments of feeder links and BSS earth stations.

Clarification: NTIA’s State and Local Implementation Grant Program funds FirstNet planning, consulting and outreach, but not the state networks themselves, said NTIA (see 1612150057).