NTIA will seek comment on the current and potential availability of communications services in the Arctic region, in a notice scheduled for Friday’s Federal Register (http://bit.ly/1xFRTeo). Comments are due 30 days after the publication. The NTIA efforts follow a January implementation plan from the White House seeking an assessment of “current and potential availability of telecommunications services in the Arctic region, including local and long-distance terrestrial, commercial mobile cellular, public safety services, emergency services, navigational safety and satellite voice, and broadband channel availability by the end of 2014.” NTIA also seeks comment on investment in the region and management of Arctic spectrum.

The FCC has been using “sandbox thinking,” used in the technology sector to test out ideas in practice, but the agency needs to do more, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told the Democracy Symposium Tuesday, according to prepared remarks posted by the agency (http://bit.ly/1mMLv0X). Citing broadcast channel-sharing in Los Angeles and AT&T’s IP trials, she said that “this sandbox thinking is yielding dividends -- at the FCC and in the communications sector. But we need to expand it.” Rosenworcel said that “if we need our regulatory state to be more agile and more innovative, why not take a page from technology itself?"

Wearables, as the “advanced consumer face” of the Internet of Things, will rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.56 percent and “cross” $11.6 billion in global sales in 2020, MarketsandMarkets said Friday in a report (http://bit.ly/1u3gc3e). The U.S. is more than 72 percent of the market, making it the “single largest revenue base” for global wearables, it said. The U.S. also “is expected to maintain its dominance” through 2020, but Asia-Pacific, “with China leading the way, is likely to grow at the highest CAGR during the next six years,” it said.

New Media Rights, a nonprofit at the California Western School of Law, told the White House that broadband should be reclassified as a Communications Act Title II telecom service, in comments on the Obama administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council’s request for information on U.S. innovation strategy. It attached the comments it made to the FCC on the issue. Reclassification “is necessary because internet access is a distinctly different service from other ‘information services,'” the group said. “Broadband internet access has been wrongly grouped together with services that like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others and have thus been able to maintain enormous market power while being subject to very little oversight.” Several university groups focused on the importance of a strong patent system. “Unfortunately, in recent years, legitimate patent holders across the spectrum, including universities and their licensees, have been victimized by abusive practices that impair the ability of the U.S. patent system to foster innovation and economic competitiveness,” they told the White House (http://bit.ly/1t2Uk3I). “Any proposals targeting abusive practices must be structured so that they curb abuses without undermining the ability of legitimate patent holders to enforce their patents and, by extension, diminishing the value of patents.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation took aim at “low-quality patents” and focused on open access. “EFF urges the Administration to support needed legislative reform to improve patent quality and reduce abusive litigation,” it said (http://bit.ly/1vmfoov).

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) structure, policies and procedures are consistent with standards in the Inspector General Act of 1978, but there are areas for improvement, said the GAO Wednesday. It recommended that the DHS OIG establish additional automated and supervisory controls to protect the identities of DHS employees who file complaints, having found that existing procedures involve manual recording and are thus subject to “human error.” GAO recommended the OIG develop a policy for obtaining legal advice from counsel, having found that OIG doesn’t have such a policy in place. Twenty-eight reports dealt with IT management, while two dealt with infrastructure protection, GAO said (http://1.usa.gov/1ruR8RV). OIG told GAO it’s revising its online complaint forms to protect employee confidentiality.

Sony Electronics in Park Ridge, New Jersey, and its Tokyo parent are jointly patenting technology for a TV, set-top box or DVR that suppresses broadcast or recorded TV commercials and claims to do so much more effectively than current systems. Sony’s system, described in U.S. application 2014/0064705 filed in November 2013, names Brant Candelore of San Diego as the inventor. “Most every business entity advertises to promote products or services, and often pays significant sums of money on such activities to broadcasters and service providers,” said the patent. But consumers “are generally less entertained by advertising,” it said. “To most, an advertisement is an unwanted pause in a program with generally increased volume, and therefore, a significant inconvenience.” Current ad suppression systems, which mute the sound, change the channel or turn the TV off during a commercial are “laborious and prone to error given that a user must guess as to when the commercial break will end,” said Sony. “Despite the ability to fast-forward through commercials, users must still deal with undershoot and overshoot problems.” Thus, despite the advantages of time-shifting over viewing in real-time, “commercial suppression in recorded content is still a manual and laborious task that is prone to error, thereby exacerbating the annoyance and inconvenience brought by commercials in the first place,” it said. Instead, the patented system relies on downloading and storing a library of templates of known commercials, the Sony document said. Downloading is automatic and ongoing, by Internet connection, and the templates contain both audio and video information on the ad’s content and duration, it said. The program being watched is continually compared with the stored templates, and when a match is found, the sound is automatically muted or playback fast-forwarded and the screen blanked until the template signals the end of the ad and switches the set back to normal viewing mode. Attempts to reach inventor Candelore were unsuccessful. Sony representatives didn’t immediately comment.

The Telecommunications Industry Association praised the Senate Commerce Committee for its unanimous clearance of the E-Label Act (S-2583) Wednesday (CD Sept 18 p8). “The bill will enhance the ability of ICT [information and communications technology] manufacturers to innovate and compete while increasing access to device information for consumers,” TIA President Grant Seiffert said in a statement Thursday (http://bit.ly/ZsgDbH). “The current FCC requirement for manufacturers to either etch or print mandatory regulatory markings on the exterior of devices unnecessarily increases costs, limits design options and ineffectively conveys important information to consumers.” The House passed companion legislation earlier this year.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) reauthorized the government’s telephony metadata collection program, said a joint statement Friday from the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The authorization had been set to expire Friday. Congress has attempted to move forward with bills to curb or eliminate the surveillance program -- authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act -- but a House-passed bill (HR-3361) is stalled in the Senate (CD May 23 p9). “Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the Section 215 telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program,” the two agencies said. The program’s authorization now expires Dec. 5.

The FCC could address concerns about “fast lanes” by prohibiting non-user directed paid prioritization through Communications Act Section 706, Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president-external and legislative affairs, and Bob Quinn, senior vice president-federal regulatory, told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s Chief of Staff Ruth Milkman and General Counsel Jonathan Sallet Thursday, said an ex parte notice filed in docket 14-28 Friday. Arrangements between ISPs and edge providers for other services would be subject to a multifactor test under a “commercial reasonableness” standard, AT&T said. ISPs “would be able to engage in individualized negotiations with edge providers for a host of services, while prohibiting the precise practice that has raised ‘fast lane’ concerns,” it said. The telco said it believes the framework would stand up in court.

The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) is to meet Sept. 24, the commission said in a notice in Monday’s Federal Register. CSRIC’s working groups are to present updates on emergency warning systems, 911 location accuracy, distributed denial-of-service attacks and cybersecurity best practices (http://bit.ly/1urGZ9c). The meeting is to begin at 1 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room.