Communications Security, Reliability & Interoperability Council (CSRIC) Working Group 4 will be able to report at CSRIC’s meeting Wednesday that it has made “substantial progress” on its work to use the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework for communications sector needs, said Working Group 4 Co-Chair Robert Mayer in an interview.

The FCC Technological Advisory Council is considering proposals that could radically transform how the commission views interference and how rules are enforced, according to a presentation Tuesday by TAC’s Spectrum and Receiver Performance Working Group. TAC held its quarterly meeting at FCC headquarters.

Interim agreements to continue allowing signals to be retransmitted over pay TV during retransmission or carriage negotiations should remain voluntary, and not mandated, said broadcast executives Monday. As DirecTV and Raycom continue their agreement in principle following a blackout of Raycom stations to the DBS company, some multichannel video programming distributors continue to support pending congressional legislation to mandate interim agreements during such disputes.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel urged the FCC to look at some nontraditional bands, as low as 400 MHz and as high as 90 GHz, as one way of addressing a looming spectrum crisis. Rosenworcel also called for an examination of whether some federal laws, such as the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, are limiting the ability of government agencies to move more quickly to other frequencies, speaking Monday at the GSMA 360 North America conference in Atlanta. The FCC put her remarks online (http://bit.ly/1uyreeB).

Broadcasters asked the FCC not to require Comcast and Time Warner Cable to disclose sensitive retransmission consent information as part of the combining cable companies’ response to the agency’s recent request for more information on the deal, said a letter posted Monday in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1sVbe42). Though such documents would be treated as confidential and redacted to anyone not a party involved in the proceeding, said the letter addressed to Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake from E.W. Scripps, Gray Television, LIN Television, Nexstar and Sinclair, it asked that FCC officials instead view the agreements at the Department of Justice. “Given the large number of parties to this proceeding, we have many concerns about the potential widespread dissemination of these extremely competitively sensitive documents, even if only among outside counsel,” said the broadcasters.

Congress received divided views on how important state authorities should be in any new communications regimen, in comments due Friday to the House Commerce Committee on a white paper about overhauling Communications Act USF policy (CD Sept 22 p7). Groups representing smaller telecom companies and state regulators emphasized the importance of an ongoing state role, and several commenters pointed to the FCC Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service and its potential importance for federal-state cooperation. Bigger industry groups such as CTIA advocated more limited state involvement.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., foiled a recent Senate attempt to pass Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization. Senate leaders attempted to “hotline” a STELA reauthorization proposal to the chamber’s floor for unanimous consent Thursday evening, shortly before Congress broke for recess. Markey, as expected in such a scenario (CD Sept 18 p8), put a hold on any unanimous consent consideration.

The FCC took a deep dive Friday into what has emerged as a key net neutrality issue: what constitutes a reasonable network management practice. Chairman Tom Wheeler opened a roundtable session by recognizing that engineers will have a huge role to play as the FCC develops net neutrality rules. Panelists agreed that, at least in part, wireless networks are fundamentally different (CD Sept 19 p1).

Legislation alone won’t solve international data flow and privacy issues, said stakeholders in interviews and at events Friday. A bill introduced Thursday would require U.S. authorities to get a warrant before obtaining data stored abroad on non-U.S. citizens. Microsoft -- and many technology companies -- have been seeking such a law. Privacy and civil liberties advocates heralded the bill as a significant step in their campaign to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).

Sinclair’s petition for review of the FCC incentive auction order (CD Sept 19 p12) raises a broader scope of issues than the NAB challenge (CD Aug 19 p1), and the company hasn’t decided if it will push for an expedited hearing of the case as did NAB and the FCC, Sinclair Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken told us Friday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an order Friday consolidating the two petitions and vacating the expedited briefing schedule requested by NAB and FCC.