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.

A wide range of pay-TV companies panned the idea of FCC standards for what the agency calls gateway devices to let all subscribers connect consumer electronics devices bought at retail to multichannel video program distributors (MVPD). Cable, satellite and telco filings posted by the FCC Wednesday in docket 97-80 sought flexibility in their services connecting to what are also called AllVid user interfaces. Google, Intel and major CE companies including Sony backed the commission proposal for an AllVid device, which also could get online content.

Online video competition is among the media market threats from Comcast’s planned purchase of control of NBC Universal, many speakers said at a Chicago FCC informational hearing on the deal that continued into Tuesday night. The combined companies have ample incentive to maintain exclusivity over their broadcast and cable programming, to the detriment of rival pay-TV companies, websites and other companies, some speakers said.

The National Broadband Plan’s suggestions for transforming funding support for voice and broadband generated a sharp divide between small, rural carriers and larger carriers that serve both urban and rural districts. The FCC received nearly 100 comments Monday, the deadline for responding to a notice of inquiry and notice of proposed rulemaking on changing legacy support systems, bringing broadband to unserved areas before the Connect America Fund (CAF) is created and using an economic model to target support. The wireless industry also weighed in, with carriers making the case that reforms have to be competitively neutral, not giving wireline any advantages.

Data roaming is critical to competition in a wireless market increasingly dominated by a few large carriers, Free Press said in reply comments at the FCC. Small carriers also urged the FCC to move forward quickly to mandate data roaming as recommended by the National Broadband Plan. Small and mid-sized carriers presented a united front last month in arguing that the FCC should use its authority under Title III of the Communications Act to impose a data roaming obligation on carriers similar to the one approved for voice in 2007 (CD June 16 p2). AT&T and Verizon Wireless countered that the commission cannot mandate data roaming as wireless is currently regulated.

Loosening rules barring common ownership of a radio or TV broadcaster and a daily newspaper in any city outside the top 20, easing limits on owning two TV stations in a market and lifting caps on radio station ownership in a community were sought at the FCC by 29 companies. In comments on the 2010 review of media ownership rules posted Tuesday in FCC docket 09-182, the main lobbyists for the broadcasting and newspaper industries also sought to get some restrictions lifted. Opponents of consolidation again said the commission should study how the sharing of services between TV stations within a market circumvents current limits (CD July 9 p6). So did cable operators including Time Warner Cable and the American Cable Association seeking changes in the way the FCC handles carriage disputes.

FCC indecency rules that led to censures for broadcasters that aired unscripted expletives are unconstitutionally vague, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in New York said in a decision released Tuesday. “If the FCC cannot anticipate what will be considered indecent under its policy, then it can hardly expect broadcasters to do so,” Chief Judge Rosemary Pooler wrote in the decision in Fox v. FCC on behalf of herself and Judges Peter Hall and Pierre Leval. The loss for the commission was expected, based on oral argument in January (CD Jan 14 p4).