Forthcoming rules on fixing CableCARDs as an interim step toward adoption of gateway devices that let plug-and-play devices connect with any pay-TV provider and get online video on set-top boxes may reflect agreement among industry players on perhaps all but two significant issues, executives said. There appears to be agreement among consumer electronics and pay-TV companies on many of the ways cable operators can make it easier for subscribers to use CableCARDs to connect devices, like DVRs, that they buy from retailers to cable systems, executives of both industries said. They expect the agency will OK use of digital terminal adapters for cable operators with systems of any size to use cheap set-top boxes without CableCARDs. That would let subscribers get HD without two-way services like interactivity.

The nascent online video distribution market could be good for content owners because it adds competition among distributors seeking access to their programming, studio and network executives said last week at a Bank of America investment conference. “Every day the value of content goes up,” said Joe Ianello, CBS chief financial officer. “I don’t see any way it can be viewed negatively to have new entrants and more demand in the market for content and people paying up.” A recent deal with Epix for Netflix to expand its online streaming catalog is evidence of how much new distributors value programming rights, said Tom Rothman, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. “Any time another company puts a billion-dollar valuation on something that’s less good than something that you have, it’s a good thing."

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- The long-sought system of immunity from liability for Internet intermediaries such as ISPs is under attack, not only in Third World countries, but also in nations that opted to protect intermediaries before, experts told the Internet Governance Forum. Several coalitions and organizations, including the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), are trying to come up with guidelines or principles against over-regulation.

Google is a “serial offender” that is violating copyright law, other companies’ patents and the privacy of the public, Precursor CEO Scott Cleland, a longtime critic of the company, said Thursday in a hearing by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy. But much of the focus of the hearing was on the broader issue of whether recent developments like Apple’s launch of its own mobile advertising network, iAd, after it bought mobile ad network Quattro Wireless, are moving too fast for antitrust law to keep up.

Wireless carriers are taking steps to make their phones more usable by the blind, deaf-blind and persons with low vision without prescriptive regulatory mandates, CTIA said in comments filed at the FCC in response to a request for comments by the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. TIA, AT&T and Sprint Nextel also highlighted the progress of mobile operators in developing phones for customers with vision problems.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- AT&T stressed “mobility, mobility, mobility” and Sprint machine-to-machine (M2M) technology at a conference Thursday. A parade of executives of telcos from around the world explained to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and other would-be partners at the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley’s Carrier Connections conference what innovations they crave and how to work with the companies.

ViaSat is overhauling its WildBlue satellite-based broadband service, shifting focus to wholesale from retail as it prepares for the launch of a new satellite in 2011, Chief Operating Officer Richard Baldridge told us at the Kaufman Brothers investor conference in New York. Since it bought WildBlue last year for $568 million, ViaSat has maintained WildBlue’s 425,000 subscribers clustered largely around metro markets in the Northeast and Southeast U.S., Baldridge said.

A House bill that would overhaul the Universal Service Fund was supposed to have been marked up Thursday, but instead was slated for another round of hearings after Republicans raised concerns to some of the cost containment measures, Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., told us. Terry said House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, asked for another round of hearings because “there had been some major changes."

TIA is turning to active messaging with key Washington players to fend off the FCC’s broadband reclassification proposal. Board members had multiple meetings with members of the Congress and the FCC this week, they said in a media briefing Thursday. TIA, representing equipment vendors and suppliers, is hopeful that Congress can come up with a solution this year, President Grant Seiffert told us.

The TV white spaces will play a key role in communications once devices are made available, most likely next year, said speakers at a New America Foundation panel Wednesday. The discussion comes with several fine points in the FCC’s white spaces order, scheduled for a vote at the Sept. 23 commission meeting, still potentially in play. The order finalizes the proceeding, after the FCC approved the use of the white spaces for accessing the Internet in November 2008. The agency is expected to cut off further lobbying when it releases the sunshine agenda on next week’s meeting Thursday.