The long-awaited Interphone study, looking at whether heavy cellphone use causes central nervous system tumors, produced no conclusive results, according to a report to be released Tuesday in Geneva. Wireless industry groups said the results largely confirm what other studies have shown.

LOS ANGELES -- Driven largely by competition from big telcos like AT&T and Verizon, large cable operators now offer DOCSIS 3.0 wideband service across most of North America. Speaking at the NCTA show last week, engineering executives from five major U.S. and Canadian cable companies cited progress in upgrading cable networks for DOCSIS 3.0 service, which enables data downstream speeds of 100 Mbps or more through virtual channel-bonding. Some plan to start leveraging DOCSIS 3.0 for faster data upstream speeds for the first time.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A radio station executive offered a bleak outlook Monday for his industry against Internet radio, and the founder of webcaster Pandora said the arrival of online programming in car dashes threatens Sirius XM. To illustrate a point about how far behind the curve terrestrial radio is in technology, Joe Barham, music director of KSAN(FM) San Francisco, asked how many in the audience at the SF MusicTech Summit had heard of HD Radio, which he called the industry’s big advance in recent years. Hardly any at the music technology conference had, and even fewer had listened to it.

In deciding to approve the Frontier/Verizon deal in West Virginia, the last state to weigh in on the transaction, its Public Service Commission focused on precedent, the official record, and its statutory obligations, the regulator said in the order issued last week (CD May 17 p5). Acknowledging that some intervenors “remain opposed to the proposal in any form,” the commission said its original review found some arguments for approval “vague and unsatisfactory.” Negotiations led Verizon and Frontier to offer conditions to which the commission added its own set of requirements. The commission granted approval knowing that uncertainties remain, it said.

LOS ANGELES -- Steering further away from long-time opposition to IPTV, the largest U.S. and Canadian cable operators are now openly embracing IP video technology as the prime way to deliver their growing video offerings to subscribers wherever they may be. Appearing together on a panel at the NCTA show last week, chief technology officers and senior engineering executives of five major North American cable operators confirmed they're all looking to migrate to IP video over the next couple of years. They cited the need to serve the growing array of IP-enabled consumer devices, provide Internet, mobile and non-traditional video fare to customers, and reduce infrastructure and delivery costs.

The video relay service (VRS) rates suggested to the FCC for the 2010-2011 fund year were opposed in comments from the hearing-impaired community and VRS providers. Last month the commission issued a public notice seeking comment on the payment formula and fund size estimate for the Interstate Telecommunications Relay Services Fund. The formula was submitted by the National Exchange Carrier Association for July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011. The three-tiered rates are based on “the 2009 average actual historical cost data submitted to NECA by VRS providers,” the commission said. In the notice, the rates are $5.77 for up to 50,000 minutes under Tier I; $6.03 for monthly minutes between 50,0001 and 500,000 for Tier II; and under Tier III, $3.89 for monthly minutes over 500,000.

The most hotly debated order at the FCC’s meeting Thursday is expected to be the annual wireless competition report, agency sources said Friday. The report is always controversial. The most contested part this year is that, unlike previous reports, it will not declare there’s effective competition in the U.S. wireless market, but it also won’t declare there isn’t.

ViaSat’s newly acquired WildBlue satellite-based Internet service will add 20,000-25,000 net new subscribers this year as the new owner fine-tunes it in advance of a 2011 satellite launch, company officials told analysts in a conference call. WildBlue, which had about 424,000 subscribers in mostly rural markets as of March 31, was purchased by ViaSat earlier this year for $568 million. ViaSat kept WildBlue’s Greenwood Village, Colo., headquarters as well as many of its 240 employees. It plans to phase in changes to the service gradually this year as it prepares for the ViaSat-1 satellite launch in late Q1 2011, company officials said. The Loral-built Ka-band satellite is expected to go into operation in Q2 2011, they said.

A grant to Dish Network of a rare full-court review of a ruling of a DVR patent infringement ruling it lost to TiVo hinges on whether a redesigned satellite receiver/DVR should be subject to new infringement proceedings, analysts said. In granting an en banc review, the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ordered that four additional briefs be filed by September. That set the stage for oral argument this fall, analysts said.

Negotiating 3D distribution rights for live TV events such as sports has become a complicated task as content owners, licensees, traditional distributors and new distributors seeking them all are at the table, industry executives said in interviews. “In terms of rights?” said Terry Denson, vice president of content strategy and acquisition for Verizon. “It’s cloudy. It’s real cloudy."