Public interest groups on both sides of the net neutrality and broadband reclassification debates said the FCC should release full details of closed-door meetings that started Monday at the FCC with various industry players to discuss a possible compromise on how to give the FCC authority over broadband, without changing how carriers are regulated. While the first meeting was aimed at possibly providing advice to Congress on legislation, many key lawmakers also had not been told beforehand, Hill sources said.

USTelecom President Walter McCormick sharply criticized the FCC Tuesday for proposing net neutrality rules that could potentially keep carriers from passing the cost of broadband to anyone but subscribers. McCormick, who keynoted at the NextGenWeb conference in Washington, also warned that driving down prices won’t be enough on its own to lead to universal adoption, and expressed deep concern about the broadband reclassification inquiry the commission launched last week.

The FCC should require Comcast to offer wholesale broadband access service on a nondiscriminatory basis to at least four independent ISPs as a condition of approving Comcast’s deal to buy control of NBC Universal, EarthLink said. The condition could be modeled on a similar one attached to the AOL-Time Warner merger approval, it said. Meanwhile, AOL said the agency should impose the network neutrality rules it proposed in the open Internet proceeding, regardless of how that proceeding plays out. But it did not propose the wholesale access conditions EarthLink laid out. Other critics of the deal focused on the harms the merger could pose to the pay-TV programming market (CD June 22 p5). Some said certain divestitures should be a condition of approval.

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg cited several pending policy proposals and bills as major impediments to economic growth and competitiveness, at the Economic Club of Washington Tuesday. Potential negative effects of proposals in areas like broadband, trade, the financial revamp and taxes are “too significant” to ignore, Seidenberg said. He criticized the FCC’s approach on broadband as “overbearing.” (See separate story in this issue.) Meanwhile, he warned of unintended consequences of Congress’s proposed financial reform (CD May 5 p2). Some of the current proposals with respect to derivatives and proxy access go too far, imposing one-size-fits-all solutions on “highly dynamic and diverse businesses,” he said. The revamp would increase risk and volatility “at a time when just the reverse is required,” he said.

The reason some Americans don’t or won’t subscribe to broadband has nothing to do with FCC policies, Phoenix Center Chief Economist George Ford said Monday during a debate sponsored by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Some don’t subscribe because they don’t want broadband in their homes, Ford said. Others can’t because of costs.

How universal service fits into Congress’ planned rewrite of the Telecom Act is expected to come up at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Thursday on the Universal Service Fund, industry lobbyists said Monday. The Senate hearing opens a new avenue of Hill dialog on USF, an issue that lately has been mainly the domain of the House. House and Senate Commerce Committee staff meetings on the telecom law revamp start Friday (CD June 21 p8).

Sprint Nextel will work with its manufacturers reviewing green design criteria and specifications beginning Q1 2011, said Ralph Reid, vice president of corporate social responsibility, in an interview. Green is expected to play a bigger role in the company’s overall strategy, he said.

The FCC is considering comments in a rulemaking on robocalls. The commission is proposing changes to its rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and it intends to harmonize “TCPA rules with the FTC’s recently amended Telemarketing Sales Rule,” the commission said in the notice. The FCC is considering adopting the FTC’s rule, which would require companies to obtain prior express written consent from consumers before transmitting prerecorded messages to them.

Critics of Comcast’s plan to buy control of NBC Universal played up to regulators the horizontal aspects of the deal ahead of the Monday evening deadline for oppositions to be filed with the FCC. The combination of Comcast’s regional sports networks and the NBC TV stations NBCU owns will lead to higher prices for programming in the five markets where they overlap, the American Cable Association said Monday. It worries Comcast would control too much “must-have” programming in such markets, ACA said. Meanwhile, supporters of the deal filed comments praising Comcast.

Cable operators can use any set-top box with an Internet Protocol-based connector to output video in a format other devices can receive, instead of the required FCC IEEE 1394 interface for all HD boxes that some consumer electronics makers have said is outdated, the FCC Media Bureau ruled Friday afternoon. The waiver responds to requests for exemption from the IEEE 1394 standard made late last year by Intel, Motorola and TiVo. But any set-top box maker that manufactures compliant devices can take advantage of the waiver, which applies to any cable operator, said a bureau order. Operators won’t need to apply for individual exemptions, it said, http://xrl.us/bho6ne.