Some rural telcos are worried that cuts to the Rural Utilities Service budget in the fiscal 2011 continuing resolution could upset rural broadband investment. But other groups are breathing a sigh of relief that the budget deal, up for a House vote Thursday, dropped a proposal to prohibit the FCC from acting on its net neutrality order. The resolution would fund the government through September.

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., called for major reforms in how the FCC does business. The chairman of the Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee spoke Tuesday at a Free State Foundation event. Stearns said change is overdue and promised his subcommittee will focus on regulatory reform in a series of upcoming hearings.

Legislation to authorize voluntary incentive auctions could include provisions to spur investment by broadcasters, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Tuesday at a House Communications Subcommittee spectrum hearing. Most members appeared to support incentive auctions. But Walden and others said they are still considering how best to use the 700 MHz D-block to build a national public safety network.

Some claimed as inevitable a transition to broadband from public switched telephone networks, while others cautioned that IP-to-IP networks lack the economy and regulation that public switched telephone network (PSTN) has. The comments came at a Regulatory 2.0 Workshop hosted by Pillsbury Winthrop on Tuesday.

The FCC went too far with the questions it asked in a Jan. 25 rulemaking notice on a common technology platform for a nationwide public safety broadband network, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials and the Public Safety Spectrum Trust warned in separate comments in docket 07-100. The notice delves too deeply into operation of the 700 MHz network, APCO said. “The Commission should limit its rules to that which is necessary now to ensure nationwide interoperability across the network.” Operability requirements “should not be incorporated into the rules,” APCO said. It said the agency must avoid adopting prematurely “rules covering operational and technical issues that have yet to be fully explored in real world environments."

LAS VEGAS -- “It feels great to be back,” as a member of NAB, said CBS CEO Leslie Moonves during an on-stage conversation with association President Gordon Smith at the NAB convention Tuesday. “At the time we left, there really was a rift between what some of the stations wanted to do and what the networks were doing,” Moonves said. “And now some of those issues look rather trivial.” Before rejoining NAB, Moonves said “I looked at how the cable people were operating [their trade association] and they were operating with a bigger voice than we were, and I said, ’there was something wrong about this.'"

LAS VEGAS - Broadcasters had mixed responses to a speech in which FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski stressed what he called the importance of freeing up spectrum for mobile broadband through voluntary incentive auctions (CD April 12 p1), they said in interviews Tuesday. “We respect the position that there is a need for spectrum, but there is a lot of information that is not fully developed,” said Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith’s Local Media Group and a member of the NAB executive committee. Genachowski emphasized a need for cooperation and attacked some arguments against the commission’s auction plans. Wireless industry officials rushed Tuesday afternoon to support Genachowski and criticize the NAB.

"Count on me to be that cop on the beat,” FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Tuesday on monitoring Comcast’s compliance with FCC conditions on its purchase of control in NBCUniversal. “I expect to hear from you of anything that escapes my attention,” she told the American Cable Association. “Operators like you needed certain protections in place and available remedies to utilize,” including baseball-style arbitration with Comcast over access to its programming, she told the conference. A curb that she pushed for requires the dispute resolution, in which an arbitrator chooses one of the sides’ final offers.

States have concerns about a revamp of the Universal Service Fund, Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission member Larry Landis said Tuesday. The Republican supported the FCC’s undertaking a USF overhaul that could reallocate some money to broadband service. Some states are worried about how companies that rely on the high-cost part of the fund will be affected by a revamp, Landis said at an American Cable Association conference. Some providers get a large chunk of their revenue from that part of USF, he noted. “The one concern that would be shared by many of my colleagues” is that whenever intercarrier compensation and USF overhauls are done, “you are bound to have some unexpected challenges that come up,” Landis said.

T-Mobile asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to overrule a lower court and allow the carrier to install antennas on an electric utility pole, after the application was denied by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. The case has broader implications since the 4th Circuit is at odds with other judicial circuits in saying only a “blanket ban” on wireless installations would violate the “effective prohibition” standard of Section 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(II) of the Communications Act.