Public safety may be in striking distance of winning the 700 MHz D-block in the House Communications Subcommittee, after the subcommittee looked likely to say no. Communications Subcommitee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said Friday she expected Democrats would file an amendment to reallocate the D-block to public safety (CD Oct 17 p6). If all 12 of the subcommittee’s Democrats support reallocation, as some expect, public safety would only need three of 16 Republicans votes to have the amendment adopted. Some subcommittee Republicans said Monday that they are undecided on D-block. And the Public Safety Alliance is “feeling confident” it will have Republican votes, said spokesman Sean Kirkendall.

Congressional leaders have revived notions of raiding the Universal Service Fund to help close the nation’s budget deficit, telecom lobbyists told us Friday. The lobbyists were told that House GOP leaders are still weighing whether to use universal service cash to help balance the nation’s books once the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction completes its work.

The FCC asked how it might let cable operators encrypt their basic tiers of service on all-digital systems without putting undue financial pressure on low-income cable subscribers. The questions come in a notice of proposed rulemaking released Friday. As expected (CD Oct 3 p8), the commission tentatively concluded in the NPRM that letting cable operators encrypt the basic tier won’t hurt compatibility between cable systems and consumer electronics devices for most subscribers. And it said the bulk of consumers wouldn’t be affected much either.

Verizon won round one in the next stage of its fight to overturn the FCC’s net neutrality rules when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was picked in a lottery as the court that would hear a consolidated challenge. The next key question is which panel will hear the case. Verizon hopes for review by the same judges that vacated the FCC’s order in Comcast v. FCC in April 2010, industry officials agree. In January, in a pleading filed with the court, Verizon asked that the same panel that heard the Comcast case hear its appeal.

Rate-of-return carriers would be subject to recovery caps on capital and operating expenses from July 1, 2012, under FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s universal service reform order, a telecom official told us Friday. The commission would use a regression analysis to come up with a formula for the caps initially, but will publish a further rulemaking notice seeking comment on how to structure cap formulas, the official said. A revised draft of the order was expected to circulate among commissioners and their aides late Friday.

Two of the three judges who heard ICO Global Communications v. FCC focused on the issues of definition of band entry and sunset date to seek reimbursement as they considered ICO’s appeal of an earlier FCC declaratory ruling intended to clarify several rules on broadcast auxiliary spectrum relocation expenses. The declaratory ruling (CD Oct 1 p2) helped Sprint Nextel’s lawsuits against DBSD, then owned by ICO Global, and TerreStar seeking reimbursement of the expenses or relocating BAS spectrum. In a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit hearing Friday, judges also questioned if reimbursement requirements were clearly explained.

House Democrats will likely offer an amendment to reallocate the 700 MHz D-block when the House Communications Subcommittee marks up spectrum legislation, said Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Eshoo and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., co-chairs of the Congressional E-911 Caucus, also advocated their next-generation 911 bill (HR-2629) during a visit Friday morning to Washington’s 911 call center. The legislators hope their bill to fund NG911 will be included in the comprehensive spectrum bill, Eshoo said.

ViaSat will reignite a battle for high-speed broadband subscribers with the launch of the ViaSat-1 Ka-band satellite next week, pitting it against Hughes Communications as well as DSL and cable providers, industry executives said Thursday at the Content & Communications World show in New York.

The deployment of stimulus-funded broadband networks and international events like Japan’s earthquake are tightening the fiber cable market, causing some delays in fiber delivery, officials and companies said. But many stimulus projects are moving forward. Some are even ahead of schedule.

Price cap carriers would be given $300 million for broadband deployment in unserved areas in the first year of universal service and intercarrier compensation reform under a proposed order being circulated at the FCC, telecom officials told us Thursday. The money would come on top of the legacy universal service support the price cap companies are already receiving, the officials said. Having received the money, the price cap companies will have to meet minimum standards for broadband deployment within two years, they said.