MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Changes to the E-rate program expected to be adopted at Thursday’s FCC meeting (CD Sept 21 p9) will boost economic opportunity in the U.S. and help schools access faster broadband speeds at potentially lower prices, Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “Faster networks that are more affordable -- that’s what these changes will mean for schools, libraries and communities,” he told a Common Sense Media education technology showcase at the Computer History Museum Tuesday. The order is the “most significant step yet toward implementing the [National] Broadband Plan’s recommendations … to improve education,” he said.

The House must quickly introduce net neutrality legislation if it’s to have a shot of passing this year, industry observers said Monday. The House Commerce Committee is putting the finishing touches on a bill that would give the FCC authority for two years to enforce its four open-Internet principles but not the additional two principles on nondiscrimination and transparency proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Hill and industry officials said. “We are working hard on legislation to protect the open Internet and are actively working to develop a bipartisan consensus,” said a committee spokeswoman.

A draft FCC order that would expand a Sirius XM channel set-aside originally meant for minorities is expected to gain approval largely as-is, commission officials said. But “nothing is set in stone,” said one. The commission is expecting several meetings with interested parties in the next weeks that may produce changes, the officials said. The draft on circulation would allow Sirius XM to choose companies that don’t now have programming relationships with it to fill 4 percent of the satellite company’s channels (CD Sept 7 p2).

Finishing the DTV transition is a step closer with release of an FCC rulemaking notice on setting deadlines for low-power broadcasters, about half of which already are going all-digital, to end all analog operations. Commissioners on Friday approved an item that proposed 2012 as the transition deadline for all low-power TV (LPTV) stations not operating in the 700 MHz band, as expected (CD Sept 14 p5). The regulator proposed LPTV outlets on channels 52-69, vacated in last year’s full-power analog transition, go all-digital by Dec. 31, 2011, in other slots, and submit an application picking another channel by June 30 of that year.

Regulators in Kansas and Nebraska amended a request to make retroactive their powers to assess nomadic voice over Internet providers for state universal service funds. This all but clears the way for a declaratory FCC ruling that states can make their own USF assessments, and an order could be coming within weeks, agency officials said.

"Regulatory holidays” for build-out of new fiber networks won’t be tolerated, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said Monday, unveiling the European Commission’s proposed three-pronged approach to universal and high-speed broadband. The statements on broadband investment, regulation of access to new networks and establishing a five-year spectrum policy program make up a package of reforms the EC hopes will jump-start Europe’s digital economy. The proposals won general praise from the telecom sector, but a few niggling concerns remain, various sources said. The measures must be approved by the European Parliament and Council.

Siemens and Samsung are among the top five “global leaders” in carbon disclosure and performance in the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) 2010 Global 500 index released Monday. The report said U.S. companies lag their global peers in the “numbers and types of action they are taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Managing carbon is becoming a “strategic business priority and competitive driver” for the largest global companies, even though there’s a lack of international agreement on climate change, it said.

The FCC seeks comment on ways to move customers who are deaf from toll-free to local numbers when they use Internet-based telecommunications relay services. The commission said it wants to find a way to let businesses that need toll-free numbers for iTRS keep them but at the same time prevent relay services from automatically assigning 800 numbers for their clients. The commission has also suggested a one-year transition period to make the switch to local service and suggested that TRS fund no longer support toll-free numbers.

The FCC should approve TV white spaces rules that offer certainty and guarantee “assured access to adequate spectrum … on a long term basis” for the band to be commercially viable, the Communications Finance Association (CFA) said in an FCC filing. Numerous industry groups and companies trooped to the agency to make their final arguments on the order, before it was placed on the sunshine agenda Thursday night for the Sept. 23 meeting, cutting off further lobbying. Various parties made a total of more than 150 ex parte filings in 04-186, the main white spaces docket, last week alone.

Days before the FCC handed down its order denying a request by Globalstar for a 16-month extension so it could come into compliance with the commission’s Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) rules, Rural Utilities Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein sent the FCC a letter warning of negative implications for Open Range Communications and the entire Rural Utilities Service Broadband Loan program. Adelstein asked the commission to give Open Range full use of the ATC spectrum throughout the term of the RUS loan. RUS previously lent Open Range $266 million to build its network.