HyperCube and Level 3 continued to trade jabs over a decision proposed to the California Public Utility Commission by an administrative law judge (CD May 11 p10). In reply comments filed Tuesday on Judge Regina DeAngelis’s April 16 proposal regarding the companies’ dispute over tandem access charges, each challenged the other’s arguments.

The long-awaited satellite TV reauthorization easily passed the House in a voice vote Wednesday. The bill (S-3333), which would reauthorize direct broadcast satellite distant-signal licenses until through 2014, passed the Senate last week, and now only needs the president’s signature to become law. Democrats and Republicans praised the bill on the House floor before the vote, and there were no objections. After it passed, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., who was presiding over the House, was heard commenting to an aide, “That was smooth.” The license was originally set to expire at the end of last year, and several extensions had been required.

A weakness in FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed approach to broadband reclassification is that the commission would regulate only broadband transport in the last mile, leaving out other layers of the Internet, critics said this week. The FCC wouldn’t assert control over ISPs and or over actions at the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) level, where Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent took place, they said.

LOS ANGELES -- Consensus among the interests on net neutrality would be good, and both political parties would seem to agree, said Majority Chief Counsel Roger Sherman of the House Commerce Committee. Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., welcomes a legislative approach “that everyone can get behind and can become law,” but the FCC “can’t sit still waiting for Congress to act,” Sherman said at an NCTA lunch. “The door is open, and I'm sure [Minority Counsel] Neil [Fried] would agree we'd love to hear suggestions.”

Public Knowledge and the Consumer Federation of America called on the FCC to prohibit private meetings between representatives of groups and companies, on one hand, and commissioners and their aides on the other. The groups made the suggestion in comments on a notice of proposed rulemaking about changing the FCC’s ex parte rules. The commission approved the notice at its February meeting (CD Feb 19 p2).

Online news aggregators and search engines are hurting older news organizations, the Newspaper Association of America told the FCC in comments in its Future of Media proceeding. The sites copy or summarize newspaper content and often sell their own ads on the traffic that content generates, the association said. “This exploitation of the extensive investments that newspapers make in original local, in-depth, and investigative journalism is taxing the limited resources of newspaper publishers,” it said. And the profits the sites make aren’t plowed back into turning out journalism, the association said.

The FCC Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau said it’s seeking comment on ways to help cellular customers avoid “bill shock.” Under a notice of inquiry, the bureau is considering ways to alert subscribers to charges before they add up. Bureau Chief Joel Gurin told reporters Tuesday that consumers should get better information “when it comes to all kinds of communications services."

LOS ANGELES -- Comcast needs to take a page from the programmers’ playbook by better promoting itself and emphasizing content, and from companies including Apple in having easier-to-use devices, CEO Brian Roberts said. Apple’s iPad is the type of device Comcast wants cable services to work with, he said, indicating there will be more to come on that subject Tuesday at the NCTA show. “The iPad looks to us to be a fabulous bridge between the TV and the computer,” he said. Speaking in a Q-and-A with ex-News Corp. President Peter Chernin at the show Monday, Roberts said cable has to do a better job promoting itself.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn rallied supporters of Title II reclassification of broadband Internet services Tuesday at the Free Press Summit. It’s a “big lie” that the government wants to take over the Internet, Dorgan said. Clyburn urged the audience to dispel that and other myths she said lobbyists for big businesses in the industry are spreading. She also said the FCC needs to involve consumers outside Washington more in the Comcast-NBC Universal deal and other matters.

TORONTO -- Despite new efforts by federal TV regulators to jump-start Canada’s digital TV transition, a growing number of industry experts are questioning the likelihood that the government’s Aug. 31, 2011, deadline for making the switchover from analog in larger markets will be met.