Little consensus emerged in discussions on net neutrality Wednesday at a Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative event, during multiple panel discussions at the National Press Club in Washington. Several speakers strongly objected to reclassification of broadband as a Title II service.

Harbinger Capital Partners, the largest investor of LightSquared, filed a complaint Friday against the U.S. government for allegedly breaching its contractual commitment to permit Harbinger to build out, deploy and operate a mobile broadband network using LightSquared’s spectrum. The U.S. “has taken Harbinger’s property without just compensation,” Harbinger said in its complaint filed in with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The FCC proposed to revoke LightSquared’s conditional waiver to provide a terrestrial network in 2012. Although the FCC conditionally approved LightSquared’s technical waiver application for terrestrial-only handsets in 2011, it “halted deployment of Harbinger’s nationwide mobile broadband network by requiring LightSquared for the first time to address and resolve the GPS industry’s belatedly raised receiver overload concern,” it said. The FCC fully understood that the GPS receiver overload problem was “an inexorable consequence of the very thing the United States had made a contractual condition in its negotiations with Harbinger -- a national, mobile broadband network operating using LightSquared’s spectrum,” Harbinger said. As a result of the government’s actions, LightSquared wasn’t able to renew financing, lost contracting partners and eventually was rendered unable to continue operating, it said. Harbinger requests its full and reasonable damages and just compensation “in an amount to be proven at trial,” it said.

The 2014 annual user fee of $138 for each customs broker permit and national permit held by an individual, partnership, association, or corporation is due by Feb. 21, said CBP in a notice. According to 19 CFR 111.96(c), this user fee is payable for each calendar year at the port through which the broker was issued a permit or at a port referred to in 19 CFR 111.19(c) in the case of a national permit. Note that 19 CFR 111.96(c) also states that if a broker fails to pay the annual user fee by the published due date, the appropriate port director will notify the broker in writing of the failure to pay and will revoke the permit to operate. That notice will constitute revocation of the permit.

CBP should revoke or modify some long-standing interpretative rulings that the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (NBCFAA) believes have created an overly strict confidentiality standard, the group said in a letter to CBP. NCBFAA asked that CBP adopt a standard that requires brokers to maintain the confidentiality of an importer's "proprietary business information," generally defined as information that could harm the importer's competitive position if disclosed.

CBP announced that the 2013 annual user fee of $138 for each customs broker permit and national permit held by an individual, partnership, association, or corporation is due by Feb. 15.

The legislation introduced Dec. 7 by House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) to modernize CBP and other customs-related agencies would set a minimum standard for the amount of information customs brokers would be required to collect about an importer.

A new proposal by LightSquared seeking federal spectrum and offering to give up the upper 10 MHz of the L-band is a tall order, some satellite experts said. The company filed the proposal with the FCC International Bureau Friday, including a petition for a rulemaking to develop operating parameters for terrestrial use of the 1526-1536 MHz portion of the L-band (CD Oct 1 p20). The proposal is an effort to proceed with building a 4G terrestrial broadband network, which reached an impasse when interference issues were raised by the GPS community.

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and other GOP members expressed their displeasure with the way the FCC revoked its approval for LightSquared’s 4G wireless broadband network, during a subcommittee hearing on Friday. Stearns, the outgoing chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, capped his eight-month investigation Friday with a terse examination of the FCC’s role in the fiasco. “All of us are frustrated with the loss of this huge innovation leap and the loss of this company,” said Stearns, in what is likely to be his last hearing as subcommittee chairman.

Concern over the rollout of a 4G LTE network in rural areas and mobile broadband investment were included in reply comments urging the FCC not to revoke LightSquared’s ancillary terrestrial component authority. Other replies in docket 11-109 claimed that revoking the ATC authority and withdrawing a conditional waiver allowing the company to offer terrestrial-only service would be in the public interest. Some of the companies responding also addressed NTIA’s conclusion that LightSquared’s proposed operations would impact aviation GPS receivers (CD Feb 15 p1). Replies were due Friday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that the 2012 annual user fee of $138 for each customs broker permit and national permit held by an individual, partnership, association, or corporation is due by January 20, 2012.