The NTIA awarded the last of grants under the Broadband Technologies Program, closing out awards for the program created by broad economic stimulus legislation that cleared Congress shortly after President Barack Obama took office last year. NTIA beat Thursday’s deadline to complete awards for the $4 billion program. The Rural Utilities Service will announce final awards by the same deadline for its part of the broadband stimulus program, spokesman Bart Kendrick said Tuesday. The agency was still finalizing the review of a few applications, he said.

House Democrats are now eyeing lame-duck passage of their net neutrality bill, two House staffers said Tuesday. House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., may introduce the measure Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, they said Tuesday afternoon. Republicans were still reviewing the net neutrality draft bill Tuesday afternoon, House and industry officials said. Observers don’t expect Congress to pass the bill, but it could send a message to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that he shouldn’t reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act (CD Sept 28 p1).

Federal agencies must upgrade their public servers and services such as e-mail to use IPv6 by the end of FY 2012, while maintaining their ability to run IPv4 for the foreseeable future, said U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra. His Tuesday Office of Management and Budget memo for federal CIOs contained steps and deadlines for adoption. Agencies will have an easy time switching if they roll it out over time, said speakers at a Tuesday IPv6 forum in Washington.

Lack of FCC enforcement of broadcast sponsorship identification rules has led to a resurgence in the use of questionable content by TV stations, Free Press wrote Chairman Julius Genachowski. The group, which petitioned the agency in 2007 to crack down on the use of sponsored programming passed off as news, pointed to recent reports in the Los Angeles Times that stations are again airing such programming, saying it’s evidence of a growing trend. “Fake news is alive and well,” said Craig Aaron, managing director of Free Press. “We would like to see them [the FCC] finish what they started back in 2007 and recognize this is still a problem."

The radio industry hasn’t reached agreement yet on whether the NAB should put its weight behind a possible deal with music labels that would cut streaming fees in exchange for the U.S.’s first terrestrial broadcast performance royalty, many industry executives and lawyers said. They said agreement among broadcasters on outlines of an accord with MusicFirst, first publicized by the NAB Aug. 6, doesn’t appear imminent. Some music and radio executives had hoped to reach a deal that included mandating FM chips on all cellphones by the time Congress returned from summer recess. With this Congress in its waning days, there may not be time to pass any legislation this year even if a deal is reached, some broadcasters said.

The FCC should use regulation to help revive the level of competition that existed when niche ISPs flourished in the 1990s, Small Business Administration economist Radwan Saade said at the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors conference Tuesday. Saade, who works in the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, is finishing a Congressionally mandated study of small business’ broadband needs. It’s due in mid-October.

The FCC wouldn’t be able to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, under draft net neutrality legislation circulating in the House. The proposed law, which if enacted would sunset at the end of 2012, would allow the FCC only to adjudicate violations case by case, and would treat wireless and wireline networks differently. Discussions were ongoing Monday afternoon, with the details “still in a great amount of flux,” said a House staffer.

Some civil liberties groups see problems with Obama administration plans to submit a bill next year to make the Internet subject to wiretap orders, as reported by The New York Times. The bill would affect peer-to-peer communications like Facebook and VoIP services including Skype. Federal officials said the bill is needed because “their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is going dark as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone,” according to the Times.

The Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) got a $154 million grant from NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program to build a first-responder network using 700 MHz spectrum. The group was one of 21 that received waivers from the FCC in May to build early networks, ahead of a proposed national network, using the spectrum.

Career FCC staff recommended the agency let cable operators use HD set-top boxes lacking CableCARDs and with basic, non-interactive functionality so subscribers with older TVs can get HD service without leasing a more costly box, agency and industry officials said. That’s in a draft version of an order meant to make improvements to CableCARDs before the regulator issues rules for all pay-TV providers to let subscribers connect any video device to their systems. They would use a cheap gateway device that would let customers more easily switch providers.