Verizon and Google unveiled Monday the details of their agreement on a proposal for net neutrality legislation, which would exempt wireless from rules except those on disclosure. The principles would create what critics say is an “insurmountable” bar for consumers to lodge complaints, requiring demonstration of actual harm. In another surprise to some observers, the proposed law would eliminate the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection role regarding broadband. The proposal builds on an earlier statement by the two companies on net neutrality rules.

The FCC is seeking public input on how to continue improving the data and analysis used to monitor and accelerate progress toward universal broadband, as the commission plans its next report on broadband deployment. A notice of inquiry released Friday set due dates of Sept. 7 for comments, Oct. 5 for replies.

CTIA asked the FCC to drop a proposal that spectrum licensees make a detailed renewal showing, a new requirement that the group said would be “unnecessary, vague, and burdensome” and subject to legal challenge. The objections came in response to a May 20 notice of proposed rulemaking examining how the license renewal process can be more consistent. CTIA, the Rural Cellular Association and major carriers also filed a petition for reconsideration raising legal issues about an accompanying order.

TerreStar is considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company said in its Q2 10-Q filing with the SEC. The firm has struggled to find financial stability in recent years despite a launched satellite and large investments from major companies such as Harbinger Capital Partners and EchoStar. Continued operations, including the release of a new phone with AT&T scheduled for September, may depend on support from those companies, said satellite industry executives. How the filing may affect possible incentive auctions for the 2 GHz band is unclear, because the FCC just opened its proceeding on how best to encourage mobile broadband investment in the MSS bands (CD July 16 p1), said executives.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made a round of calls to key participants in the net neutrality discussions that fell apart Thursday (CD Aug 6 p1), in the wake of a still-to-be unveiled deal between Verizon and Google, FCC and industry officials said Friday. While the commission is unlikely to host the same kind of talks that have grabbed headlines for in recent weeks, some agreement remains possible under which the FCC could avoid reclassifying broadband as a Title II service.

Commerce Committee leaders on Capitol Hill seem at loggerheads over the right approach to building a public safety network. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., on Thursday night introduced a bill to give the D-block to public safety, as expected (CD Aug 6 p9). The measure clashes with legislation being drafted by House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who wants to codify the National Broadband Plan’s recommendation to commercially auction the 700 MHz spectrum. Public safety has vocally criticized the FCC and Waxman’s approach.

The FCC should formally deny states’ regulatory authority over entry, rates and other conditions of VoIP services, said a group of 12 Internet, telecom and VoIP companies, Thursday. Google, AT&T, Verizon, Skype, Microsoft and eight other companies and associations asked the FCC to “exercise caution” as it considered a petition filed by the Kansas and Nebraska commissions to require interconnected VoIP providers to pay state universal service fees.

SAN FRANCISCO -- AT&T is grappling with how to handle intellectual property rights to technologies that emerge from Innovation Centers it’s setting up, a patent lawyer for the carrier said Friday. “There’s a lot of legal complexity” in sorting out who will own the rights to broadband device, applications and network-equipment innovations that outside developers bring to AT&T and vendors at the centers, Susan McGahan said at the American Bar Association annual meeting. She said the company plans to work closely at the centers, which are “in the infancy stage,” with suppliers such as Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson.

Inmarsat will buy three Ka-band satellites from Boeing as part of a $1.2 billion investment to develop a global network in the band, the companies said Friday. The new satellites are a major change from Inmarsat’s legacy as an L-band provider and is seen as an effort to take back mobile satellite market share lost in recent years to fixed satellite services operators in the Ku-band, such as Intelsat and SES, said industry executives. The FCC and other countries’ regulators are expected to take on new proceedings to define rules for mobile satellite services in the band, which is largely used by fixed satellite services, said an executive.

BEVERLY HILLS -- PBS CEO Paula Kerger said the ruling by the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals that struck down FCC’s indecency policy has removed a burden of uncertainty for affiliates. “The ruling obviously was helpful to us because we've operated under the uncertainty of putting content out there and not being a hundred percent clear on whether our stations would then be vulnerable to potential fines,” she said at the summer TV critics press tour. Public broadcast stations and lawyers have said the ruling points out the chilling effect on programmers of censuring a show for having a single curse (PBR July 16 p2).