Two Florida jurisdictions, Perry City and Bradford County, decided to drop out of the North Florida Broadband Authority’s (NFBA) middle mile BTOP project, citing the availability of broadband in the area, the project’s lack of action, and differences in guiding principles. However, the project could be getting three new cities on board, General Manager Richelle Sucara told us. She claimed the project, which started with 23 participating entities, is on track. NTIA appears to be pleased with the progress.

The Office of Management and Budget granted emergency approval for most of the information collection requests in the Lifeline order, but not before the FCC removed two provisions from the emergency request. Information collection related to the temporary address reverification rule, which requires reverification of a subscriber’s address every 90 days, and the requirement for a biennial audit for all recipients of more than $5 million annual support were removed. “FCC may re-submit these removed collections for OMB review at a later date after further consideration,” the OMB wrote in its notice Friday (http://xrl.us/bm33ez).

LAS VEGAS -- Touting recent policy victories, NAB CEO Gordon Smith told an NAB Show audience that the trade association “is back” and must continue fighting against efforts to encroach on TV spectrum and for policies that will help broadcasters flourish. Additionally, he said, the industry needs to, and through its NAB Labs initiative has begun to, invest in new technologies. “Our adversaries would like people to believe the best days of broadcasting are over. We will prove them wrong,” he said.

An FCC proposal to allow channels larger than 25 kHz in the enhanced specialized mobile radio (ESMR) portion of the 800 MHz band is good for consumers, Sprint Nextel said in comments filed at the agency. The FCC sought comment in February (CD Feb 24 p10) on a June petition from Sprint asking the FCC to clarify that its rules allow the larger channels. Other industry groups filed in support of Sprint, which owns a big chunk of the ESMR spectrum.

Continuing Comcast’s drive for a more advanced access architecture for cable operators, the company has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to vendors for equipment complying with the industry’s new Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) specifications. And equipment makers including Cisco and Motorola Mobility are introducing new CCAP equipment and getting orders for them, their representatives said in interviews.

LAS VEGAS -- The next-gen ATSC 3.0 over-the-air broadcast standard under development at the Advanced TV Systems Committee for terrestrial ultra-high-definition TV (UHDTV) delivery won’t be backward-compatible with existing ATSC or the coming ATSC 2.0 standards, said Jim Kutzner, senior director of advanced technology at PBS. The standard will represent a “major fundamental technology shift” from the current system, he said Sunday at the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering Conference. Still, ATSC 3.0 is needed to “keep broadcast television relevant” amid growing competition from other content-delivery players, Kutzner said.

A spectrum sharing order, set for a vote April 27, will move the FCC a step closer to holding an auction of broadcast spectrum, a key component of recently enacted spectrum legislation, agency and industry officials said. Meanwhile, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is poised to make a high-level appointment of someone to oversee FCC follow up on the legislation, working, at least at first, with former Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman.

The FCC ought to move on several proceedings that have been pending for years on limiting the amount of commercials children see on cable and broadcast TV, and curbing interactive ads televised to them, children’s advocates told us. Two groups last week asked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to act on rulemakings and inquiries started as early as 2008, and also act on requests made in 2004 to deny license renewals to TV stations that broke children’s ad rules.

House lawmakers will hit the ground running with two cybersecurity markups upon their return from the congressional spring recess. Both the House Homeland Security and Oversight committees plan to mark up cybersecurity bills Wednesday as GOP leaders gin up support for its upcoming “cyberweek,” committee aides told us Friday. Meanwhile, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., will delay the introduction of his legislation to update and reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a Judiciary Committee aide told us.

Two months after the FCC’s declaratory ruling to “remind” carriers about the longstanding prohibition on traffic restriction, call completion problems aren’t getting any better, several rural carriers and state public utility commissioners told us. Call completion will remain a problem until the FCC actively enforces rules already on the books, they said, stressing the inability of state commissions to deal with problems that cross state lines. According to a survey by network and infrastructure company Anpi Zone presented Thursday at the “IP Solutions” conference in Indianapolis, more than 60 percent of ILEC and CLEC respondents said call-quality problems have either not improved or gotten worse since the declaratory ruling.