Federal policy makers can help accelerate broadband adoption by the elderly -- but the hardest work has to be done by health officials, not the FCC, health IT consultant Jim Bialick said Tuesday. Medicare and Medicaid will receive $27 billion in federal funds this year, but “you're looking at a population that is not using technology for its healthcare,” Bialick said on a panel at a conference in Washington. One of the things preventing better use of technology in medicine for instance, is Medicare’s refusal to reimburse the expense of video conferencing in big cities, Bialick said. “That’s a monster barrier there. You're looking at people who are essentially not going to interact with the way the system is evolving,” he said. He also urged Washington policy makers to focus on “usable” technology, like Skype or Facebook. “There are significant policy barriers to implementing that,” Bialick said.

The FCC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday they're working with major carriers on an early version of a system that will send emergency alerts to wireless devices. The Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN) will premier in New York and Washington by the end of the year, with deployment to follow elsewhere in mid-2012.

At age 50, the “vast wasteland” speech is seen as having much to say about current issues in media and telecom by some current and former FCC members, while others said celebrating it should be out of style. An event Monday night marked the 50th anniversary of the speech given by then-Chairman Newton Minow to the NAB. (See coverage from May 15, 1961, in this issue.) Minow and his current successor, Julius Genachowski, told an audience at the National Press Club that the fears expressed in the speech still can guide policymaking, albeit on different issues. Other former FCC members said in interviews that they disagreed, citing the specter of government interference with free speech and other reasons.

Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., said he still has “serious doubts” that Google and Apple are respecting the privacy rights of consumers, during a mobile privacy hearing held by the subcommittee Tuesday. The companies both said they would consider adjusting their privacy policies after lawmakers closely scrutinized the way each company tracks and uses consumer location data. This was the subcommittee’s first-ever hearing but Franken said it would not be the last to examine mobile privacy issues.

As TiVo and Comcast prepare to deploy Comcast’s Xfinity on Demand service on TiVo’s Premiere DVRs, they halted expansion of a test that downloaded DVR software to cable set-top boxes, a Comcast spokeswoman confirmed.

Companies are beefing up lobbying efforts in Maine: One bill now before the legislature would put ILECs like FairPoint under the same regulatory structure as CLECs, while another bill seeks to deregulate VoIP. The latter proposal would interfere with ongoing litigation, now before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, consumer advocates said.

Small carriers, wireline and wireless, opposed to reverse auctions as part of Universal Service Fund overhaul could be fighting a losing battle in an effort to reverse a move in that direction by the commission. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to have at least three votes in favor of a controversial reverse auction plan, FCC and industry officials said.

Utility lawyers at Keller and Heckman are putting together “a coalition” of power companies to challenge the FCC’s pole attachments order (CD April 8 p3), lawyers Jack Richards and Tom Magee announced Monday. The order, which set deadlines for make-ready work, also lowered pole attachment rates for CLECs and gave ILECs a chance to lower their rates through FCC review. The order was published in the Federal Register Monday. “It’s contrary to the Pole Attachments Act and we just don’t think the FCC has the authority to do it,” Magee told us.

The Federal Trade Commission and three Utah film companies have each gone to federal courts over the companies’ marketing practices. Feature Films for Families, Corporations for Character, and Family Films of Utah filed a complaint in the federal district court for Utah last week, alleging that the FTC is trying to violate their free speech rights. On Monday, the FTC announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the three companies, alleging that they routinely violated the Do Not Call list rules and illegally signed a marketing agreement with a coalition of conservative family activists who try to identify and rate family-friendly films.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., introduced the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011 Monday, to a chorus of support from consumer protection groups. The bill would give individuals more control over how companies track their online and mobile activities and gives the FTC enhanced enforcement and rulemaking authority.