Netflix regrets the need for the paid-peering broadband deal it signed with Comcast (CD Feb 25 p2), but the increasingly poor broadband speeds that Netflix members were experiencing on Comcast left Netflix with few options, CEO Reed Hastings said Monday in a Q1 earnings interview.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai wants the rate floor for phone service frozen indefinitely at its current $14 monthly average per subscriber, his spokesman said Monday. While the rate is frozen, Pai would be in favor of studying how to curtail “excessive subsidies,” which the rate floor doesn’t target, the spokesman said. The FCC last month announced the new rate floor of $20.46 (CD March 21 p14). A circulating order up for a vote at Wednesday’s commission meeting would phase in the rate increase, upping it to $17 in early 2015, with the rest of the increase scheduled for 2016, an FCC official said. A Wireline Bureau spokesman declined to comment.

Spectrum aggregation rules for the TV incentive auction likely are key to Sprint’s and T-Mobile’s bidding aggressively in the spectrum sale, UBS analyst John Hodulik said Monday in a research report. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is expected to recommend for a vote at the agency’s May 15 open meeting a two-step process under which AT&T and Verizon could see bidding restrictions in many markets (CD April 21 p1). Industry and public interest groups, meanwhile, continue to weigh in on the auction, in FCC meetings, and the Phoenix Center is releasing a report warning that restricting the top-two carriers from bidding would hurt the auction.

Two-and-a-half years after the direct broadcast satellite industry appealed restrictive satellite dish placement laws in Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia to the FCC, local officials said in interviews they're growing impatient at the lack of action. With the laws on hold pending an FCC decision, officials in those cities say what they consider to be an unsightly blight is getting worse. The three cities’ placement laws have been stayed by the FCC.

Battery technology has been the “ugly stepchild” of the mobile device industry -- getting little attention as devices take the spotlight -- but awareness of the need for technology advancement in battery life is growing as power requirements of mobile devices expand, said Nick Spencer, senior practice manager of ABI Research on a webcast. Battery life is “a key, fundamental pillar” that will enable the next wave of innovation in wireless devices, Spencer said.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s questions and responses to oral arguments Tuesday in ABC v. Aereo will provide some insight into whether the court will side with broadcasters or streaming TV service Aereo when it issues a decision this summer, said several attorneys, one of whom is involved in the case. Because broadcasters sued Aereo and similar competing service FilmOn in many venues all over the country, multiple lower courts have had the chance to issue rulings based on the same information the Supreme Court will use in its decision, and those rulings have varied widely, said Fletcher Heald appellate attorney Harry Cole. The courts have issued “complete differences of opinion based on essentially the same facts,” Cole said in a webinar examining the case on Fletcher Heald’s CommLaw Blog (http://bit.ly/1eIRjVg). That makes it hard to predict the case now, but the questions the justices will ask may shed some light on how they view the case, several attorneys said.

FCC, NTIA, other government entities and the wireless industry are gearing up for the next steps leading to the auction of AWS-3 spectrum. Information on the coordination process, setting a reserve price and outlining transition plans are some of the tasks that need to be carried out, they said Thursday at an FCBA event in Washington.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated service rules for the incentive TV auction Thursday, a senior FCC official confirmed Friday, for a vote at the agency’s May 15 open meeting. Meanwhile, Wheeler made clear in a blog post that he considers low-band spectrum, like the 600 MHz spectrum to be offered in the auction, to be special. Parts of the proposed auction rules could see further revisions as other commissioners make their case for revisions, industry and agency officials said.

Automakers are employing a multi-pronged strategy to tightening vehicles’ links to the Internet as they spread deployments of operating system software and applications across model line-ups, industry officials told us last week at the New York Auto Show.

The government spectrum reports NTIA posted April 11 offer a good start on making better information on federal use of various bands more widely available, wireless industry officials said in interviews last week. The industry has sought better information as it looks at bands that are well suited for sharing or clearing for commercial use (CD April 14 p12).