The new Public Safety Alliance, representing leading public safety associations, unveiled a national advertising and grassroots campaign Monday urging Congress to reject an FCC move to auction the 700 MHz D-block rather than allocate it to public safety entities for a national broadband network. Ads are running in print and online this week in major Capitol Hill-focused publications. The group also put together a new website.

LOS ANGELES -- Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said the FCC and Department of Justice should do detailed reviews of the Comcast-NBC merger “considering the impact this merger stands to have on competition and consumers,” as well as the possible negative impact on diversity. Speaking Monday at a House Judiciary Committee field hearing on the merger, Waters stressed the importance of transparency and an open process in the FCC’s review of the merger.

Requests to make and sell portable devices capable of getting mobile DTV broadcasts but without analog tuners were backed in all filings on a petition by Dell and LG, and another by Hauppauge Computer Works, in FCC docket 10-111. Commercial and public broadcasters, several CE trade groups and companies like Intel supported the requests for exemption from FCC Part 15 rules that all TV devices include analog and legacy ATSC DTV tuners. That bodes well for quick commission action on the requests, several supporters told us Monday.

Satellite industry revenue growth slowed to about 11 percent in 2009, slightly lower than the average between 2004 and 2009, the Satellite Industry Association said in its annual state of the satellite industry report Monday. The association treated the slowdown as a major success across all satellite sectors given the large-scale economic contraction that has dragged down other industries around the world. The study was done by the Futron Corp. using independent research and surveys of SIA members and 40 other international and domestic satellite companies.

Broadcasters’ proposals that pay-TV providers give subscribers more notice of carriage disputes won’t fix the broken retransmission-consent system, cable and telco-TV providers told the FCC. Replies from them were posted Friday in docket 10-71 on a petition by 14 providers and public interest groups (CD May 20 p4). Mediacom, Suddenlink, Verizon and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) said such notification would have little effect. Disney and Time Warner Cable, the lead petitioner, debated whether economic analyses show that increases in what TV stations are paid for access to their programming and threatened disputes account for rising cable subscription fees.

The FCC plans to decide the fate of unbundling obligations for Qwest in the Phoenix area by June 15 to ensure that a June 22 deadline isn’t missed, agency officials said. The decision will be based on a market power analysis outlined in the FTC-Department of Justice Horizontal Merger Guidelines, they said. The officials predicted that forbearance is likely to be denied.

Alpine PCS asked federal appeals judges to reverse the denial by the FCC of a waiver of its license-cancellation rule and overturn the commission’s later finding that the company was in default of its payment obligations from a 1996 auction. Alpine questioned why it was treated differently from NextWave, a huge player in the auction that was allowed to sell its licenses at a profit. Alpine said unless the FCC order is reversed, the company might owe the government $39 million. The FCC countered that it had followed its rules and asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the challenge. Oral argument hasn’t been scheduled.

Communications should be treated as critical infrastructure and security access should be allowed during disasters and emergencies, citing lessons learned from disasters like the Haiti earthquake, speakers said during a Federal Communications Bar Association panel. Ken Moran, senior deputy chief of the FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, identified the National Response Framework as the legal framework for all levels of domestic incident response.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn defended the broadband reclassification approach of Chairman Julius Genachowski, contending fears that it would create regulatory uncertainty are vastly overblown. Forbearance has worked in wireless, with companies including AT&T and Verizon supporting that approach, and it can work for broadband transport, Clyburn said. The agency can act on Genachowski’s plan to apply some sections of Title II to broadband transport while forbearing on the other parts, even as Congress looks to rewrite the Telecom Act, she told a Media Institute luncheon audience Thursday. She took some pot-shots at spending on lobbying, the relationship between FCC and industry and some carriers’ complaints about regulatory uncertainty.

Public Knowledge proposed Thursday that the federal government “zero base” the federal “spectrum budget,” requiring every agency to reapply for the spectrum it needs, “including specific details with regard to spectrum utilization.” The group proposed government rules allowing agencies to offer on the secondary market spectrum they don’t use. Both proposals were debated at a Public Knowledge forum in Washington.