ATLANTA -- The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners Telecommunications Committee approved a resolution urging Congress to ensure NTIA and RUS have adequate funds to continue oversight of the BTOP and BIP grant and loan awards. Also at the group’s annual meeting, it passed a resolution supporting expeditious FCC action on abusive so-called traffic pumping.

Members of the Rural Cellular Association and the Rural Telecommunications Group have faced “anticompetitive behavior” as they tried to work out data roaming agreements with AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the groups said in an ex parte letter filed Friday at the FCC. The filing comes amid speculation that a data-roaming order is close to completion at the commission, with a vote possible at the Dec. 15 meeting.

The FCC no longer appears likely to take on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation proposals at its Dec. 15 meeting, FCC officials said last week. With USF likely off the agenda until the new year, it’s unclear what will be on the agenda at the last open meeting of 2010.

The FCC will postpone by a half year the deadline for broadcasters and cable operators to be able to pass along emergency alerts using new standards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said commission and industry officials. The deadline to implement Common Alerting Protocol at radio and TV stations and cable systems is 180 days after FEMA finalized CAP, which was Sept. 30, putting the deadline at the end of March. A draft FCC order likely to be finalized soon extends the time to Sept. 30, 2011, agency and industry officials said. The delay had been expected (CD Oct 5 p1).

The GOP Majority Transition Committee doesn’t plan to clarify the party’s House term-limit rule, which appears to prevent Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, from becoming committee chairman, said a spokesman for the transition team. That’s despite a letter to the transition team by three former Republican chairmen backing Barton for the job. Meanwhile, Democratic Reps. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania and Bobby Rush of Illinois said Friday they'll seek the job of ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee.

Netflix may become the new corporate champion of net neutrality now that Google has made its peace with Verizon, industry officials said. In recent months, Netflix has made its first filings with the FCC on issues like net neutrality and opened a Washington lobbying office and hired its first full-time employee in the city. The company’s market clout and ambitious business model make it a formidable presence, analysts and others said.

"We are not looking for additional regulation” on net neutrality, said the head of the EU telecom regulatory group. Revised telecom rules, many of which don’t take effect until June, must be given time to work before further legislation is introduced, John Doherty, chairman of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, said Thursday. But if there are significant, persistent problems, the EC won’t be afraid to act, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. They spoke at a joint European Commission-European Parliament summit in Brussels on net neutrality and an open Internet. The discussion will feed into an EC report.

DirecTV and Dish Network could import the signals of far-away TV stations only when subscribers couldn’t get in-market outlets with the same network affiliation using outdoor antennas, under a draft FCC order starting to get attention from lobbyists and commissioners, agency officials said. They said another draft order would let a DBS provider carry stations from adjacent markets that are deemed significantly viewed (SV) in an area if the company sells the subscriber a package of local broadcasts. The drafts are seen by officials inside and outside the FCC as a mixed bag for broadcasters and satellite companies, giving each some of what they had sought in follow-through on the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act. The orders generally comport with rulemaking notices issued this summer by the commission, which has until Nov. 24 to implement STELA.

The FCC is moving into “a very active phase of consumer protection,” in which truth in billing will be “expanded into truth about just about everything,” Chief Joel Gurin of the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said Wednesday, at what is expected to be the last meeting of the Consumer Advisory Committee under its current charter. The group is expected to be rechartered next year and work has started toward that, Gurin said.

GENEVA -- Administrations and operators in ITU-T are searching for new approaches to satisfy heavy numbering and addressing demands for machine-to-machine communications, which may strain national numbering resources. M2M applications have increased rapidly in recent years, said a draft report by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations that defines them as automated data communication between two or more entities.