The FCC concludes in its sixth broadband deployment report that 14-24 million Americans still can’t get high-speed access, and the immediate prospect for deployment to the unserved Americans is “bleak.” As expected (CD July 19 p1), commission Republicans Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker issued vigorous dissents from the report and its finding that the FCC can’t conclude that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a “reasonable and timely” manner.

Washington, New York, Boston, San Antonio and other local governments that received FCC waivers to build wireless networks using 700 MHz spectrum provided the commission with updates on their efforts. In May, the agency approved 21 waiver requests on file at the commission. Meanwhile, industry commenters offered advice to the FCC on rules for a 700 MHz network that would ensure nationwide interoperability, addressing critical issues including roaming and priority access.

The Office of Management and Budget’s IT Dashboard needs more frequent updates and standardized milestones before it can accurately measure the federal government’s IT investments, the GAO said in a report Tuesday. OMB began the IT Dashboard website in June 2009 to improve the accountability of federal IT spending, expected to total $79 billion in FY 2011, said GAO. It’s supposed to measure near-real-time performance of IT investments made by federal agencies, but falls short, the study found.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski continues to be alarmed by the gap in home broadband access between whites and minorities and said the agency is taking several steps to address that issue and enhance opportunities for people of color and small businesses seeking to enter media and telecom. With fast Internet service at home for 59 percent of African-Americans, 49 percent of Hispanics and probably around 10 percent for Native Americans, “you already know the numbers,” he told a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council conference Tuesday. “The digital divide is seriously troubling. More troubling now than in the past, because the costs of digital exclusion are rising.”

Republican senators seeking to limit FCC power over the Internet plan to introduce Wednesday legislation designed to stop the FCC from applying common carrier regulations to broadband, said telecom industry officials. Under the Freedom for Consumer Choice (FCC) Act, the commission couldn’t regulate unless it first showed harm to consumers from a lack of competition and it weighed the possible costs of action against the benefits. Passing the legislation is a long shot in the current political climate, telecom industry analysts said.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) will build and run a 4G network for Harbinger Capital Partners and its SkyTerra unit, under an eight-year, $7 billion agreement, the companies said Tuesday. The new business, called LightSquared, said it will offer wholesale terrestrial-only, satellite-only and combined satellite-terrestrial services starting in the second half of 2011. The agreement is a major step toward using largely undeveloped spectrum allocated for satellite companies at the terrestrial level, and it could mean an important new customer for tower owners, analysts said. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski lauded the agreement as an industry endorsement of the commission’s efforts on broadband spectrum.

The FCC should look at whether prices are competitive as it examines special access rates, said William Taylor of NERA Economic Consulting at a commission workshop Monday. Economists Taylor and Dennis Carlton of Compass Lexecon represented the incumbent local exchange carrier perspective, while Bridger Mitchell of Charles River Associates and Lee Selwyn of Economics and Technology, Inc., represented the NoChokePoints Coalition viewpoint.

The FCC sought comment on how wireless devices can be made more accessible for the blind. “We are concerned that people who are blind or have other vision disabilities have few accessible and affordable wireless phone options,” said a notice Monday by the Wireless and Consumer Affairs bureaus.

Senate spectrum legislation introduced Monday would authorize incentive auctions to pay federal and commercial users that voluntarily give up unused frequencies and would require a national spectrum plan. The Spectrum Measurement and Policy Reform Act, sponsored by Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., aims to update national spectrum planning, management and coordination activities. The legislation would give the the FCC and the NTIA $10 million over the next two fiscal years.

Regulatory proposals in the U.S. like broadband reclassification and the National Broadband Plan have drawn significant interest from other countries, said Philip Verveer, U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy, in an interview Monday. But the outcome of the reclassification proposal isn’t expected to cause the U.S. government to amend its international policy recommendation on communications issues, he said.