FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz stressed planned further efforts for consumer protection, in testimony to a Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services hearing on the commission’s fiscal 2011 budget. The FTC will take “a very close look” at Google’s Street View vehicles having collected “payload data” from German Wi-Fi networks, he said Thursday.

FCC Republicans objected strongly Thursday to an order approving the agency’s latest version of its annual wireless competition report, which unlike previous reports does not find that the U.S. wireless market is competitive. Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker “concurred” with the order, rather than approving it without reservations. The report reflects the state of the industry based on 2008 data.

The FCC launched a rulemaking Thursday to establish a low, uniform rate for cable and telecom pole attachments. The FCC also signed off on a “nuts and bolts” order implementing local number porting changes the commission approved a year ago. A third order streamlines the application process for those seeking E-rate support. All three orders by the Wireline Bureau were approved in 5-0 votes.

House Oversight Committee leaders seemed poised at a hearing Thursday to act to accelerate government agencies’ transition to Networx. That’s a General Services Administration program under which federal agencies can buy telecom, network and information services. Agencies must sign on to the program by June 2011, the expiration date for the GSA’s old telecom program, FTS2001. The transition is behind schedule for several reasons, said government and industry officials.

The FCC voted to revise rules in the wireless communications service band, making 25 MHz of spectrum available for mobile broadband use by WCS licensees more than a decade after the agency first took up the issue. The commission on Thursday also implemented new construction benchmarks for licensees in the band, meant to increase the speed of the service’s deployment. The FCC cited the order as the first step in the National Broadband Plan goal of freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum over 10 years for wireless broadband services. Previous rules for the spectrum limited its use to fixed services.

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Loosening legal restrictions on carriers and other service providers to take cybersecurity actions is a study goal under a unified federal research and development effort, a Department of Homeland Security official said. Research into improving economic incentives -- one of three broad priorities that the administration has set for funding cybersecurity research -- will include consideration of how the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and other laws can be changed to give providers, broadly defined, increased protection from liability and wider freedom of action before they must defer to law enforcement, said Douglas Maughan, the official in charge of cybersecurity research at the department. He spoke late Wednesday at an event to publicize the broader effort for a federal research agenda and invite ideas from technologists. It was held by the federal National Coordinating Office for Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) in connection with the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

The FCC needs multiple tools for reallocating underutilized spectrum, Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, told the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee during its public meeting Wednesday. The committee released its reports on federal spectrum inventory, transparency, adjacent band interference, dynamic spectrum access and incentives for spectrum sharing.

The two direct broadcast satellite providers slowed their spending on lobbying in Q1, compared with Q4, analysis of public records shows. Dish Network and DirecTV’s combined expenses fell 23 percent to $860,000.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he’s concerned the proposal for a national wireless broadband network outlined in the National Broadband Plan has not won the support of most public safety groups. Copps also said in an interview he has grown increasingly optimistic Congress will approve funding for the network, as proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Copps also predicted that compromise is possible among the five commissioners on comprehensive Universal Service Fund overhaul. Bringing in outsiders to oversee “every difficult issue” at the commission isn’t necessarily the way to go, Copps said when asked about the hiring of a head for the review of Comcast-NBC Universal deal. (See separate item in this issue.)

Cash and other compensation for carriage of TV stations in more deals between them and pay-TV providers doesn’t mean the FCC needs to change how it handles contractual disputes, many broadcasters said late Tuesday. It’s a sign that additional competition for multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) customers with the addition of subscription-video providers means broadcasters can get fair value for their signals, they said. Cable operators are no longer the only ones consumers pay to view TV, giving broadcasters more leverage, some filings suggested.