SAN FRANCISCO -- Privacy and security considerations may require California regulators to move more slowly than planned to require the distribution of smart grid data on customers’ electric usage over the Internet or other networks, said the official handling the work. The issues “are even more complex than I thought, and so we might need more time,” said Administrative Law Judge Timothy Sullivan Friday, speaking just after a panel at a Public Utilities Commission workshop in which consumer advocates, including one from the commission, pleaded with it to slow down because of the mass, detail and sensitivity of the information and what they called a need for careful planning by the PUC and utilities.

Google’s reported plans to partner with Intel and Sony to bring its search and other software to TV sets and broadband-connected video devices didn’t come as a surprise to those who monitored the lobbying ahead of the National Broadband Plan, industry lawyers said. “Most companies involved in various aspects of video distribution are looking at the potential convergence of RF broadcast and IP delivery, and Google is one of those,” said Steve Effros, who consults for cable box maker Beyond Broadband Technology. “So it’s a logical thing for Google to be doing.” Google and Sony declined to comment on the reports, which appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Intel didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Consumer demand for the gateway devices sought last week by the FCC as part of the National Broadband Plan is untested because no product has been developed, agreed cable, satellite and consumer electronics executives we surveyed. Assessing manufacturing costs for a simple device to connect set-top boxes to cable systems, direct broadcast satellite, telco-TV and Internet content can’t readily be done because there’s no set specification, the eight executives agreed. The plan called for all pay-TV providers to offer gateway devices by 2013 (CD March 17 p9) .

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Capitol Hill committees are being asked to hold hearings on the risks and shortcomings of U.S. strategy for carrying out cyberattacks, said the director of an expert study for one of the congressionally chartered National Academies. Chief Scientist Herbert Lin of the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board told us that participants in the board’s Committee on Offensive Information War have made inquiries about hearings in the Foreign Relations committees or preferably the Intelligence committees. “We're working to the issue,” Lin said at the University of California campus. “We don’t know that there will be hearings."

Viacom is portrayed as a jilted lover, and Google a serial obfuscator, in the companies’ filings for summary judgment unsealed Thursday in the long-running copyright infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York. Each unleashed a torrent of documents, from internal e-mails to acquisition proposals, to show the other was at fault to varying degrees for the prevalence of copyrighted content on YouTube.

The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates asked the FCC to approve a request by Maine’s Public Utilities Commission that incumbent carriers be required to offer competitive local exchange carriers access to dark fiber and line sharing. The carriers that have led the opposition, including AT&T, Verizon and Fairpoint, kept it up in reply comments. The Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance said Maine’s request would work against the extension of high-speed access sought by the National Broadband Plan. At issue in the proceeding is whether Section 271(c)(2)(B) of the Telecom Act requires incumbent carriers to provide access to elements including dark fiber loops, dark fiber transport and dark fiber entrance facilities.

Broadcasters are becoming more interested in mobile DTV opportunities and seem keen to use their spectrum to offer new services, rather than sell it in a voluntary auction like the one proposed in the FCC National Broadband Plan, said Open Mobile Video Coalition President Brandon Burgess. “We have gotten some surprisingly amazing support from our members encouraging us to do what we're doing,” Burgess, also Ion Media CEO, said Thursday. “We have members joining us in real-time.”

BERLIN -- “Achieving a standard for broadcast 3D is our objective,” CEO Ferdinand Kayser of SES Astra satellite broadcasting of Luxembourg told reporters Wednesday. “We recognize the need for this, or users will be lost,” Kayser said: “The lack of a standard is not an advantage for broadcasters, it’s not an advantage for viewers and it’s not an advantage for the industry. We have already said that we will issue a communique on this in 2010 and we now expect to have something positive to say over the next few weeks, or months."

The FCC National Broadband Plan calls for more transparency in broadband advertising, better personal data protection and consumer access to accurate information, said Chief Joel Gurin of the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau. The agency meanwhile is expected to work more closely with the Federal Trade Commission, he told a conference hosted by the Association of National Advertisers. “We always look for opportunities to work with FTC."