FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan stressed the importance of spectrum sharing in making more frequencies available for wireless broadband, at an FCBA wireless lunch Thursday. Kaplan said questions need to be answered about the 1755 MHz band, a key target of carriers. Kaplan, a former aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski, moved to the bureau in late June.

The FCC is likely to get the Universal Service Fund revamp done in 2011, panelists said during a Regulatory 2.0 workshop Thursday. Congress should give the FCC as much flexibility as possible as it considers legislation giving the commission authority for incentive auctions for broadcast and other spectrum, they said.

House lawmakers are pointing to large costs and national security concerns as reasons not to allow LightSquared to move forward with its plan to build a national network. At a hearing Thursday before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Democrats and Republicans said the cost of testing for and implementing methods to mitigate GPS interference might outweigh the benefits. The hearing also contributed to a political firestorm over an allegedly cozy relationship between LightSquared and the White House. And Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner, R-Ohio, berated FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski for not appearing at the hearing.

CLECs are urging the FCC to get moving on its broadband business docket. The commission issued a public notice on docket 10-188, seeking comments on “the current state of … business broadband markets.” One year later, CLECs say they're growing impatient. “Completing this docket would help safeguard competition in broadband, encouraging investment and innovation and increasing the number of businesses with access to affordable broadband services,” XO Vice President Lisa Youngers said in a statement Thursday. “By moving forward on the Business Broadband Docket, the FCC could help improve productivity and spur job creation across America."

A proposal to test a hybrid broadcast-broadband system on low-power TV stations using an alternate broadcast transmission technology again stalled at the FCC Media Bureau, executives for the company proposing the test said. LPTV operator WatchTV had asked the commission for special temporary authority to test new DTV transmission technology on some of its stations, after the bureau earlier denied its similar application for an experimental license. WatchTV executives had been confident the new tack would be successful (CD July 29 p13). Now, the executives aren’t so hopeful. “We've got a clear indication that no matter what benefit we can demonstrate, someone is deciding they have been anointed to pick winners and losers in this game,” said CEO Gregory Herman.

Seven major ISP and Web companies engage in de facto “censorship” because of policies against hate speech, and some have banned certain Christian content, a group representing religious broadcasters said. The National Religious Broadcasters said the companies decide what’s so shocking as to not be allowed on their websites. Its 41-page paper said Twitter was the only major Internet player whose policies it reviewed that didn’t censor speech on those private companies’ sites. Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, MySpace and Verizon all have policies that could let them engage in such discrimination, NRB said. Those companies had no comment.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- LightSquared is “very confident that we'll get a positive signal” from regulators “to get our network up and running,” after giving federal agencies two prototype filters Thursday that it said prove the operation doesn’t need to interfere with precision GPS, an executive said. Interference has been a “problem for less than 0.5 percent of devices in the market and we've now found a solution to it,” said Patrick Parodi, vice president-ecosystem development.

Senate Judiciary Committee leaders sparred Thursday over the costs that three pending data breach bills would impose on U.S. businesses before adjourning due to a lack of quorum. The committee approved three amendments to Chairman Patrick Leahy’s, D-Vt., S-1151, and shelved at least four more because only four members were present to vote. The committee will resume the markup Sept. 22 at 10:00 a.m. in room 226 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Retransmission consent revenue from NBC’s station group and compensation from its TV station affiliates could amount to “hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars” for NBCUniversal, Steve Burke, executive vice president of Comcast and NBCU CEO, said at a Bank of America conference Wednesday. “If we get what I think the market will shake out at for our own stations, plus we get a big chunk of what our affiliates end up charging,” NBCU will see large gains in retransmission consent revenue at the broadcast division, he said. “Perhaps our biggest upside at NBCU in the near term is broadcast."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has asked cable lobbyists about what the commission should do with carrier of last resort (COLR) obligations as it contemplates universal service reform, cable executives told us Wednesday. Wireline staff have also asked questions about whether cable companies would be willing to go through the eligible telecommunications carrier process if the commission gets rid of the provision for ILEC right-of-first refusal in the proposed America’s Broadband Connectivity plan, executives said in a reporters’ briefing Wednesday at NCTA headquarters in Washington.