STANFORD, Calif. -- The benchmarks for whether the National Broadband Plan is making enough progress the first year will be FCC action on universal service and intercarrier compensation, and the creation by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy of a task force of officials from throughout the government on matters such as health, energy and education as they relate to broadband, said Blair Levin, who headed work on the FCC’s plan. Last summer, the FCC’s broadband staff debated offering just three proposals, he said late Tuesday at Stanford Law School. Then it was inundated with about 2,300 recommendations in filings, Levin said. Research for the plan found state laws to be “huge impediments,” unintentionally, to applying broadband to health and education, he said.

Companies large and small, public interest groups and trade associations offered a divided FCC very different takes on whether proposed net neutrality rules would stifle or spur competition, in replies in the net neutrality proceeding. The biggest change from the first comment round, in January, is that many filers focused on the Comcast decision and the complicated question of whether the FCC has authority to proceed with new net neutrality rules or first would have to change the way broadband is classified to gain clear authority.

A Universal Service Fund revamp and additional public funding are needed to bring broadband to small businesses and encourage adoption, top government and broadband industry officials said Tuesday. At a hearing of the Senate Small Business Committee, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said high prices, sparse availability and low digital literacy are the largest barriers keeping broadband from small businesses. And NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling called continued funding in fiscal 2011 critical to ensuring a successful broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The FCC’s new Spectrum Task Force has a focused goal, to implement and update the National Broadband Plan, Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman said in an interview Tuesday. The task force may also spin off new ideas in keeping with the plan, for example on additional spectrum bands that could be targeted for reallocation for wireless broadband, she said. The commission unveiled the task force Monday (CD April 27 p10). The new task force differs from the Spectrum Policy Task Force, set up under former Chairman Michael Powell in 2002 to “assist the Commission in identifying and evaluating changes in spectrum policy that will increase the public benefits derived from the use of the radio spectrum.” Its report is at http://xrl.us/bhji9u.

Cablevision’s Supreme Court challenge to federal must-carry rules, if successful, could lead Congress to react and create a new set of rules to preserve some elements of that system, lawyers said Tuesday at a Progress & Freedom Foundation panel on the topic. If successful, the challenge could have implications for the FCC’s plans to reallocate part of the TV band for wireless broadband, they said.

The FCC’s proposed rule changes for the wireless communications band probably would fail legal challenge, and the commission should reject the proposal, Sirius XM told the commission in comments. The rules wouldn’t survive under the Administrative Procedure Act, and adopting them would violate Section 316 of the Communications Act because they improperly change Sirius XM’s licenses without individual hearing procedures, the company said. WCS spectrum should be reauctioned to avoid denying “the U.S. taxpayer the fair proceeds reflecting the true value of the spectrum,” since the changes would dramatically increase the spectrum’s worth, it said.

Analysts are uncertain if any major U.S. telecom operators would plan consolidation with Canadian players if a restriction on foreign ownership there is lifted (CD April 26 p3). Small wireless deals are possible, they said. Some major U.S. telcos were mum on their plans.

The FCC’s long-awaited changes to an ownership form for radio and TV stations (CD April 9 p9) and their investors to fill out offer a mixed bag for industry and public-interest advocates, our survey of both sides found. The version of Form 323 unveiled by the Media Bureau earlier this month ought to make filing information about those who own more than 5 percent of each station or broadcast company easier because Excel spreadsheets can be uploaded to the commission’s Consolidated Database System where the documents will be filed, industry lawyers said. And the document ought to be searchable by keywords, making for an easier job when public interest groups and others want to do research on who owns what, some of those advocates said.

The National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and TechAmerica called on the FCC not to rush to reclassify broadband as a Title II service in the wake of the Comcast decision. Each said it planned to file reply comments on the net neutrality proceeding to the FCC shortly before the deadline late Monday. Several groups put out statements to get their positions heard ahead of a likely deluge of filings. The FCC said it received more than 100,000 comments in its first comment round (CD Jan 19 p1).

A recent lobbying push by free conference call providers is set on getting “the truth out” to Washington policymakers about how consumers benefit from a business practice that long-distance carriers decry as “traffic pumping,” Free Conferencing Corp. CEO Dave Erickson said in an interview. But House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., who’s working on a bill banning such arrangements, told us his views have changed “not at all.” Congress and the FCC are both mulling curbs on the practice, which involves revenue-sharing agreements under which rural local exchange carriers pay conferencing companies to send traffic to their exchanges.