The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Monday sought comment on the kinds of performance-related information that’s the most useful to consumers when they assess which broadband service to buy. Bureau Chief Joel Gurin told us the notice isn’t focused on the kinds of basic information carriers will eventually be required to offer potential subscribers under the transparency requirements in the net neutrality rules approved in December. Instead, it will offer the public a better perspective on what kind of service they need based on the way they use the Internet, he said.

LAS VEGAS - The FCC would do a thorough rulemaking before beginning any incentive auction for TV broadcast spectrum, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake told the NAB convention Monday. The rulemaking would address broadcasters’ concerns about repacking the TV band and other consequences of the potential auctions, he said. But the agency can’t work out those details before congress acts to give it the authority to do the incentive auctions in the first place, he said. Broadcasters want those details now, said Alan Frank, CEO of Post-Newsweek Stations. “We need to start by defining not how the auction works, but what it means for the broadcasters who don’t participate in the auction,” he said.

Level 3 agreed to buy Global Crossing in an all-stock transaction worth $3 billion, including a $1.1 billion Global Crossing debt, the companies said Monday. The combined network will serve a customer set with owned network in more than 50 countries and connections to more than 70, executives said during a conference call. Industry analysts said they expected the deal to be approved with few or no regulatory obstacles. The deal will have to be approved by the FCC, the Department of Justice, likely with input from the government’s “team telecom” -- staff from the Departments of State, Homeland Security and the Pentagon, one telco lawyer told us.

Commissioner Michael Copps took aim at the FCC on media issues, adding to his previous calls for the agency to act on more issues in that area and to do so quickly. In a speech Saturday at the National Conference for Media Reform, and in an interview Monday with Communications Daily, he expressed disappointment the regulator hasn’t done more. Having acknowledged this will be his last year on the FCC (CD April 11 p6), Copps said his priority for the remainder of his tenure is for it to move ahead on “media reform."

Dish Network plans to use DBSD’s technology and spectrum for mobile broadband services, offered “both on a stand-alone basis and in a consumer-friendly bundle with its multichannel video services,” Dish said in a license transfer application at the FCC International Bureau. FCC approval would allow DBSD’s parent company ICO Global to transfer its satellite, several S-band, Ku-band and Ka-band earth stations and S-band mobile satellite service/ancillary terrestrial component blanket license to Dish, the filing said. DBSD controls 20 MHz of S-band spectrum.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., said she will take charge of any data-privacy bill that gains steam in the House. “I will lead that effort,” as chair of the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee, she said Monday in a brief video message to the Adweb 3.0 conference. But it will happen only if research shows that legislation is needed and if it takes an up-to-date regulatory approach, Bono Mack said. She expressed concern that any government action not hold back U.S. economic growth or the competitiveness of American companies around the world, and she called regulatory certainty important in achieving those goals.

Much more research on 3D TV health issues is needed before widespread terrestrial 3D broadcasting can begin, said the interim report on visual sciences that recently was released by an Advanced Television Systems Committee planning team (CED March 24 p1). It exposes huge gaps in knowledge and understanding, along with the Catch-22 issue of what meaningful research can be safely done on viewers of all ages when little is known about possible side effects.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell warned that time is running short for Congress to authorize the commission to hold voluntary incentive auctions of broadcast spectrum. McDowell, speaking on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, said a mechanism must be created to make auctions “fair and voluntary” for broadcasters.

With budget negotiations between Congress and the White House still stalled at our deadline, the FCC said a government shut down would idle 1,751 FCC employees. In a “Shutdown-Plan” issued Friday, the commission said that 37 employees, including Chairman Julius Genachowski and the four commissioners, would remain on duty. It said it anticipated it would take less than four hours on Monday to have employees come in, secure their desks, cancel travel plans and meetings, change their outgoing voice mail messages, and receive furlough letters.

The U.S. Trade Representatives urged trading partners to remove access barriers to supplier networks, and provide reasonable termination rates and more transparency in satellite rules, said its annual review of the operation and effectiveness of telecom trade agreements. The 2011 Section 1377 Review noted increases in fixed and mobile call termination rates in Tonga, Ghana and Jamaica; access challenge to major supplier networks in Chile, Germany, India and Mexico; and licensing, transparency and regulatory requirement issues in China, Costa Rica and India.