The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has issued an interim final rule (see below for effective dates) in order to add a new Part 60 to 7 CFR to provide for a mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) program for farm-raised and wild fish and shellfish (fish and shellfish covered commodities).

The CE industry is reportedly putting the final touches on a financing model to support a national electronics waste collection and recycling system, after months of deliberations to bridge differences between TV and computer manufacturers. But state agencies are getting increasingly restive with the slow pace of progress in intra-industry deliberations and are promising a new round of legislative initiatives next year.

British Telecom (BT) will announce next week it’s cutting prices on IPStream broadband office products around 5%, a spokesman said Fri. The incumbent has been dueling with U.K. ISPs over its decision this year to raise fees for its end-to-end service (CD Aug 16 p4). It has met with the U.K. ISP Assn. (ISPA) and the U.K. Internet Federation (UKIF), a group of more than 70 small and medium-sized ISPs. Last Thurs., the BT spokesman said, the company met with ISPA to discuss IPStream. BT raised its prices for the products in anticipation of an Office of Communications (Ofcom) requirement on the margin between IPStream and DataStream, BT’s local access product, the spokesman said. When the decision came down, however, some numbers were lower than the telco had anticipated, so BT is now reducing its prices by 5% to bring them in line with Ofcom’s figures. The lower rates -- which Ofcom will have 28 days to review -- will be published next week and retroactive to Sept.1, the spokesman said. The price cut amounts to about 90 pence off BT’s original increase on IPStream products, an ISPA spokesman said. ISPA members are happier than they were, he said, but they're still talking “quite constructively” with BT about the costs. Another issue of concern to ISPs is when BT will introduce usage-based charging (UBC), under which ISPs pay for the amount of data they transfer along BT’s fat pipe. Under the current capacity-based charging (CBC) system, ISPs are charged as if they carried 5,000 customers per main pipe even if the actual number is much smaller. Last week, BT reassured ISPs it’s on target to launch UBC this year, the BT spokesman said. It’s important that ISPs work with BT to get UBC and CBC right, the ISPA spokesman said. Service providers hope UBC will help solve the issues of BT’s price hikes for smaller ISPs, he said. BT’s announcement that its UBC launch is on schedule is “good news,” the ISPA spokesman said. BT’s price reduction is really only BT giving back the 7% increase it “accidentally” overcharged when it acted on Ofcom’s order before it was published, a UKIF spokesman said. “This does not yet represent a change in the price structure on CBC but is really a rebate,” he said. The 5% cut isn’t the “big news we were hoping for,” the spokesman said.

Comr. Abernathy said Thurs. she would oppose making key changes to the 800 MHz rebanding order, at least on the scale of some changes Nextel has sought, without an FCC vote and probably only following a formal petition for reconsideration. Abernathy also said during a press briefing that she expected the Cingular-AT&T Wireless merger order to be sent to the commissioners in the next few days.

As the FCC Wireline Bureau races to complete proposed final UNE rules by Dec., it needs concrete information and proposals from industry, bureau staff said at an FCBA brown bag lunch Wed. There isn’t much time left to work on the rules, Deputy Bureau Chief Michelle Carey told the group. The record “closes” Oct. 19 and the bureau plans to have a proposal before the Commission for action at the Dec. agenda meeting, she said. Work on the TRO rewrite will take priority over some reconsideration requests, although the agency is likely to take up at least one raised by BellSouth relating to broadband rules, she said.

ISPs and fair use advocates have little to fear from an antipiracy bill pending in the House, according to the bill’s conference report filed by the House Judiciary Committee Fri. HR-4077, by Courts, Internet & Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chmn. Smith (R-Tex.), is a patchwork of legislative approaches to piracy. It calls for an education program by the Dept. of Justice, reduces thresholds for prosecution, targets distribution of prerelease works and camcording of movies, and protects a company whose technology allows viewers to skip racier parts of DVD movies. That last provision drew a separate critique from committee Democrats, led by ranking Democrat Conyers (Mich.) and subcommittee ranking Democrat Berman (Cal.).

Two financial analysts offered differing views of how telecom competition will play out. During a Brookings Institution panel Fri., Precursor Group CEO Scott Cleland predicted a major revolution soon based on burgeoning intermodal broadband competition, but Medley Advisors Senior Policy Dir. Jessica Zufolo said such developments would be more pertinent to investors if broadband were more widespread in the U.S.

Nextel late Tues. filed the most detail so far on its discussions at the FCC after the Commission’s release of the 800 MHz rebanding order Aug. 6. A Nextel spokesman said the company wanted to put an end to any accusations that the company was trying to renegotiate the report and order after the fact. The Nextel filing contains in some detail the carrier’s arguments on valuation of its spectrum and on how the FCC erred. The filing also confirms meetings this week between CEO Timothy Donahue, Senior Vp Robert Foosaner and 4 members of the FCC (CD Sept 22 p5). Nextel officials also met with FCC Chief of Staff Bryan Tramont.

Auctioning off a nationwide block of spectrum is an “interesting opportunity,” a senior FCC official said Thurs. In a Communications Daily audioconference, Bryan Tramont, chief of staff for Chmn. Powell, said the Commission is considering that in a future auction, which would be welcome news for national carriers and their Wall St. backers. Tramont and 2 former FCC officials also engaged in a debate over the future role of designated entities (DEs) in spectrum auctions. Tramont made clear that the FCC is on schedule with its Auction 58 of 234 10- MHz licenses, many of which are coming from NextWave. The conference took place a week after the FCC dismissed concerns of some carriers about moving forward with its H- block auction (CD Sept 10 p1).

CTIA indicated it will likely take the FCC to court over the National Programmatic Agreement (NPA) on tower siting, which was released by the Commission Fri. (CD Sept 13 p1). Sources said CTIA has been looking for some time for an opportunity to file an appeal on the federal “undertaking issue” - which involves the ability of the govt. to assert authority over an issue, and has implications for other issues as well. The NPA case presents CTIA with the chance to raise the issue, they said.