FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler pushing for a resolution in Time Warner Cable’s carriage price dispute likely won’t go very far in putting pressure on TWC and DirecTV and other pay-TV providers to have a successful binding arbitration, some observers said in interviews Wednesday. Wheeler said the FCC will monitor the dispute on pricing for carriage of SportsNet LA, and intervene as appropriate (CD July 30 p7). While the commission does not have jurisdiction over programming, the publicly stated concerns of the FCC and lawmakers put more eyes on the situation, said professionals in the sports media and media economics fields. Some observers said pressure to end the dispute would most likely come from each company’s interest in pending transactions before the FCC.

Basing net neutrality rules on Communications Act Title II would mean small- and medium-sized ISPs would be “burdened with the costs required to retain lawyers” and “to administer the reporting and other rules that would no doubt go along with it,” 99 companies wrote Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, hoping to push President Barack Obama’s administration to oppose treating the companies as common carriers. “We want to get the president’s ear,” said Alex Phillips, FCC committee chairman for the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, of the letter to the cabinet-level agency from WISPA members.

Regulators need to embrace a new “network compact” that recognizes the large number of choices consumers now have, relative to what was available in the former, more regulated communications world, the Internet Innovation Alliance said Wednesday in a white paper, “The New Network Compact: Consumers Are in Charge.” The paper was authored by Anna-Maria Kovacs, visiting senior policy scholar at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.

IBiquity Digital’s goal to sell smartphone makers on building HD Radio chips into handsets as a “stand-alone feature” no longer has the emphasis it had two years ago (CD May 1/12 p3), said iBiquity Chief Operating Officer Jeff Jury in an interview. IBiquity’s emphasis now is to support the radio industry’s NextRadio app in smartphones to promote “a more compelling radio experience in the handset,” whether it be analog or digital radio, Jury said.

Copyright attorneys and experts couldn’t agree on whether statutory damages are a legitimate deterrent to copyright infringement, they said at a Commerce Department and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office roundtable in Los Angeles Tuesday. The roundtable was webcast. It was the third roundtable (http://1.usa.gov/1rNlO1D) in response to the department’s Internet Policy Task Force green paper (http://1.usa.gov/1bySZcG) reviewing copyright law in the digital age. The panel on music remixes became subsumed by a debate on whether intellectual property has the same protections as physical property (CD July 2 p9; May 14 p11). Another roundtable will be held Wednesday in Berkeley, California.

Satellite operators, manufacturers and communications capacity providers awarded contracts under a new government indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract for hosted payloads are looking forward to better collaboration of time frames and improved methods in the government acquisition process, they said. The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded the contracts to 14 satellite industry vendors this month under the Hosted Payload Solutions (HOPS) program, SMC said Monday in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/UJbWY7).

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is working with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., to create an FCC workshop to bring together minority entrepreneurs with companies and individuals who can provide them with funding, Wheeler said Tuesday in a pre-recorded video presentation at a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council conference. Along with providing more opportunities to minorities, speakers at MMTC discussed the lack of minority representation in the leadership of technology companies, legislative efforts to update the Communications Act and the FCC’s recent waiver to Grain Management (CD July 29 p1).

The timing of any Senate action on the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (HR-3696) and three other cybersecurity bills the House passed Monday night remains unclear, said industry lawyers and lobbyists in interviews. The bills encountered virtually no opposition on the House floor, as expected (CD July 29 p9). The House passed HR-3696, the Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act (HR-2952) and the Safe and Secure Federal Websites Act (HR-3635) on voice votes. It passed the Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act (HR-3107) 395-8. HR-3696 codifies the Department of Homeland Security’s current cybersecurity role, while HR-2952 and HR-3107 are also DHS-centric. The Senate Homeland Security Committee has passed a few bills seen similar to these bills.

With the FCC TV incentive auction set to start sometime next year, its outlook remains cloudy, and while commission officials are projecting optimism, how the auction will play out remains anybody’s guess, industry officials said in interviews. Unlike traditional auctions, which depend on the willingness of carriers and potential providers to bid, the incentive auction also relies on broadcaster buy-in for the FCC to have any spectrum to offer for sale.

FCC commissioners agreed Tuesday the agency needs to continue pressure to eliminate abuse in the federal Lifeline program, in a panel discussion at the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council Access to Capital conference Tuesday. The next step could be expanding the program to also cover broadband, commissioners said.