The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved amended Internet accessibility legislation by Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and John Kerry, D-Mass., in a voice vote Thursday morning. The bill (S-3304) aims to increase the number of hearing aid-compatible phones, improve access to 911 emergency services, and expand and update closed captioning and video description requirements. Democrats and Republicans supported the bill, despite lingering concerns by consumer electronics companies (CD July 15 p12) .

A revamped rural health care telecom subsidy program should help more health facilities use broadband to connect to the outside world, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said. The commission initiated a rulemaking Thursday to change the rules of the USF program based on lessons learned from the Rural Health Care Pilot Program. The original program failed to live up to its potential, Commissioner Michael Copps said. In most years it disbursed less than 20 percent of the $400 million that could be spent.

The FCC voted to loosen rules in the 2 GHz band allocated to mobile satellite services Thursday, opening the process toward making MSS spectrum more accessible for terrestrial broadband. The rulemaking also would make MSS spectrum fall within secondary market spectrum leasing policies already in place in other bands. A separate notice of inquiry adopted Thursday focuses on eliciting investment in MSS spectrum and how to handle the increased value of the spectrum. The proceedings are part of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan.

FCC proposals to reclassify broadband transmission under Title II of the Communications Act and impose net neutrality rules on the industry could have a chilling effect on investment in broadband, two analysts and an investor said Wednesday. Telecom companies look at whether there is the “commercial opportunity” for more profits by increasing investment in broadband, Citigroup Managing Director Mike Rollins said at a panel at a New York Law School. “Investors like certainty and visibility of policy,” he said. “The reason it’s so important in telecom is these investments are very long term in nature.”

Cablevision faces a second complaint under revised program-access rules that recently took effect. AT&T Wednesday made good on its threat last month to make an amended complaint under the new rules if the cable operator and Madison Square Garden, spun off from Cablevision, wouldn’t let the telco carry in HD two New York-area regional sports networks (RSNs) in Connecticut. Verizon filed a similar amended complaint in June, and commission officials predicted renewed attention by staffers over the withholding from rivals of channels affiliated with cable operators (CD June 29 p6).

The House passed legislation to expand telework opportunities for federal workers after Republicans successfully tweaked it to their liking in a last-minute effort on the House floor Wednesday. The House voted 290-131 to approve an amended bill after voting 304-118 on a measure by Oversight Committee Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif., that included changes to the bill that Issa said would ensure the legislation is “cost neutral,” as well as ensure federal employee integrity while telecommuting. The bill moves to the Senate.

Communications companies will have a big role in the “smart grid” of the future, Verizon, AT&T, CTIA and other industry players said in a filing at the Department of Energy, which sought comment on the communications requirements of a smart grid. The smart grid was one of the focuses of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, released in March.

CTIA, USTelecom, AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and Sprint Nextel said the FCC should drop, at least for now, plans for a voluntary cybersecurity certification program that the commission proposed. In an April 21 notice of inquiry, the FCC asked how such a program would work and whether it would improve security.

A group of pay-TV operators, independent programmers and non-profit groups formed the American TV Alliance to lobby Congress and the FCC on changes to retransmission consent rules. The group, which announced itself in ads in Communications Daily and the Washington Post, includes DirecTV, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable and the American Cable Association, programmers Discovery, Outdoor Channel and groups including the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge. It sees potential to change the rules both at the FCC, where a petition from many of those entities is pending, and in Congress where leaders have discussed a rewrite of the Telecom Act, said Mediacom Vice President Tom Larsen. “Either would be a positive result for us,” he said. “I don’t think we're going to isolate ourselves to any single strategy.” Among the group’s main goals is to have carriage of TV stations preserved during disputes with distributors, it said.

The 1675-1710 MHz band is widely and constantly used by federal and non-federal users, and opening it to wireless broadband users could jeopardize important public safety and meteorological connectivity, Raytheon told the FCC. The company responded to an Office of Engineering & Technology notice requesting input on using the band for wireless broadband (CD June 1 p1). While the public notice said the agency believed the band to be “relatively lightly used, both geographically and temporally, and thus could be shared by others,” several disagreed.