Cable engineers and executives voted a wireless backhaul product the most likely to be adopted among new products displayed at a CableLabs showcase this week. BelAir Networks’ wireless picocell base station, which would let cable operators use their DOCSIS broadband networks to provide small-cell backhaul for licensed and unlicensed wireless use, beat out various IP video and interactive TV products. They were said to make up the dominant theme of the showcase. Executives stressed that the poll, conducted as each of a dozen startups and established cable vendors demonstrated their products, wasn’t a scientific survey, but the results show how interested cable operators are in exploiting the wireless backhaul opportunity. “We all feel the pain that BelAir is looking to help solve, and we as MSOs are looking to participate in that solution of being able to get coverage at spots and capacity at specific locations,” said Mark Coblitz, Comcast’s senior vice president of strategic planning. Comcast is an investor in BelAir.

The sides in a program access dispute likely will begin meeting with commissioners soon in rare joint sessions to brief them and their aides on the case that’s likely to go to the members soon for consideration, agency officials said. They said Mid-Atlantic Sports Network and Time Warner Cable representatives will meet as early as next week with the offices of Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn and may meet later with other FCC members. Such meetings are rare in restricted proceedings on complaints, whose filings aren’t made public by the FCC as is done with rulemakings and transaction reviews. The meetings require the consent of all parties to a proceeding.

AT&T, Verizon, NCTA and other industry players asked the FCC to eliminate unnecessary data reporting requirements in light of changes in the communications world since the Telecommunications Act was enacted 14 years ago. The filings were in response to request for comments by the Wireline, Wireless and Media bureaus. But Free Press and other public interest groups said much of the information is critical to understanding communications markets and the FCC should exercise extreme care in considering changes.

SEATTLE -- The extensive use of telemedicine at a major regional hospital “should be the rule,” but is “still largely the exception in the United States,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told Seattle Children’s Hospital doctors who participated in a demonstration and news conference late Friday. The obstacle is a slow regulatory approval process for new services and devices, he said. The FCC and its new partner in one particular effort, the Food and Drug Administration, are working to make it “streamlined and effective to encourage investment in new technologies,” Genachowski said.

GENEVA -- The U.S., Japan and Taiwan won in a World Trade Organization dispute over European duties as high as 14 percent on some information technology gear covered under the Information Technology Agreement for tariff-free treatment, officials said. About $44 billion in global exports of set-top boxes, LCD panels and multi-function printers is at stake in the agreement. Questions linger over the possible future tariffs on consumer goods that continue to evolve and incorporate communications and other functions.

Public interest groups and industry players got what may be their last chance to offer formal comments on Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed “third-way” broadband reclassification proposal. Reply comments were due at the agency Thursday. The FCC has logged almost 40,000 comments in the proceeding in the past 30 days, according to commission records, with many of the major players offering extensive comments that go on for dozens of pages.

An FCC proposal to require that all pay-TV providers let devices connect to their networks by 2012 without complicated or expensive equipment such as CableCARDs and get online video drew fears of content unbundling from cable programmers, telco-TV, direct broadcast satellite providers and cable operators. AT&T, Cablevision, NCTA, Verizon and a group of seven major media companies that own cable networks were among those voicing fears that the so-called AllVid regime could lead to disaggregation of video content.

The consumer electronics and wireless industries are concerned that a potential settlement of a disagreement over whether terrestrial stations ought to pay royalties when they air music could include requirements of chips to allow cellphones to get radio broadcasts, executives favoring and opposing a deal told us. The pact on the table (CD Aug 5 p6) would bypass the Performance Rights Act -- which broadcasters worry could pass over their opposition in the waning days of this Congress -- but it isn’t a done deal, broadcast industry officials said. There appears to be wide support among broadcasters for the pact, our survey found.

A $302 million cut in the NTIA’s Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program, signed into law by President Barack Obama this week (CD Aug 12 p8), raises questions for applicants -- many of which spent tens of thousands of dollars in their efforts -- and for public safety agencies across the country that hope to use grants to build out networks in 700 MHz spectrum. RUS’s broadband program was not cut. Many applicants were surprised by the cut, which came in a bill providing $26.1 billion to states for Medicaid and teachers’ jobs.

Wireless has already faced deep cuts in universal support and the goal of the FCC now should be to encourage more deployment of mobile broadband, CTIA said in replies on an inquiry and rulemaking on changes to the high-cost universal service program. As a result of the 2008 cap on support for competitive eligible telecom carriers, wireless carriers and other CETCs have already lost $800 million in funding, the group said. The notices follow up on recommendations in the National Broadband Plan that the Universal Service Fund be restructured to pay for broadband.