The FCC is changing rules for mobile satellite service (MSS), in an order released late Wednesday. The order was largely uncontroversial and is in line with the proposed rulemaking from last year (CD July 16 p1). The document will add secondary market spectrum leasing rules for terrestrial use in bands allocated for MSS and give terrestrial S-band use co-primary status. The order was developed by the Wireless and International bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology.

A dismal budget climate shouldn’t preclude support for broadband in tribal lands, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday. Inouye, the Appropriations Committee’s chairman, signaled that he would support increased FCC funding for that purpose. Advocates for Native American communities sought additional broadband funding, including through the Universal Service Fund and a new Native Nations Broadband Fund.

The House approved 241-178 Tuesday a rule clearing the way for a final vote on a resolution of disapproval to overturn the FCC’s net neutrality order. The debate on the rule presaged a fight that’s expected when House Joint Resolution 37 hits the House floor, probably Wednesday or Thursday.

Small cable operators are making a novel attempt to place conditions on approval of the sale of a TV station, over concerns its new owner could jointly strike retransmission consent deals with pay-TV providers. It’s the latest salvo in a battle over retrans policies. The American Cable Association asked the FCC last month to impose conditions rarely sought in previous sales of TV stations (CD March 18 p10). The association wants the commission to either block a proposed purchase of the ABC affiliate in Topeka, Kan., or forbid new owner PBC Communications from signing a retrans deal with anyone in the market including New Vision TV, with which PBC has similar arrangements in other markets.

The FCC on Wednesday is expected to approve an order requiring Video Relay Service companies to submit to yearly audits and have their executives certify company financial records under penalty of perjury and give federal whistle-blower protections to VRS employees and agents, commission officials said. Relay companies would be forbidden to be paid by the minute for their services and wouldn’t be able to hand out bonuses for increasing per-minute collections, under the proposal.

GENEVA -- A major ITU treaty conference in 2012 may deal with the economics of the international telecom transport mechanism, numbering misuse, and possibly cybersecurity and quality of service, said officials familiar with preparations. The first meeting this week in a new round of preparatory talks is building on discussions that started in 1998. Talks on Internet governance issues are possible but probably unlikely, American telecom lawyer Herb Marks told us. A 2010 policy-setting conference prompted the preparations, officials said.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she has some “serious concerns” that new obstacles, like anti-municipal broadband bills in some states, are being erected. Such legislation is directly contrary to the National Broadband Plan goals and could endanger some stimulus projects, she said in an interview Monday.

The FCC can reach its goal of an Internet protocol-based telecom network fastest and easiest by adopting a “bill-and-keep” approach to intercarrier compensation reform for VoIP, said Vonage and the Voice on the Net Coalition in comments. Bill-and-keep is an “economically efficient, forward-looking solution that will send appropriate price signals to consumers and the industry,” Vonage said in its comments, filed to dockets 10-90, 09-51, 07-135, 05-337, 01-92, 96-45 and 03-109. VON said “the identical nature of all IP traffic, and the relative burden such traffic imposes on the carrier networks, demands an intercarrier compensation regime that treats all traffic equally.”

Using Internet Protocol-delivered streams of video, instead of gateway adapters, for pay-TV companies to let consumer electronics devices access their programming may be a better way for the FCC to proceed on AllVid, said all of the executives we interviewed. Analysts weren’t so sure. Telco-TV providers already use IP to deliver at least a good chunk of their programming to subscribers, said the analysts and executives. They said cable operators are farther behind in the still-nascent transition to IP video delivery, though they're making early efforts to test and examine it. The new approach is being examined by the FCC for subscription-video providers to use IP instead of gateways to let DVRs, DVD players and other products get cable channels, without separating out the programming within networks (CD March 24 p1).

AT&T and USTelecom are trying to revive dormant efforts to create an industry-wide proposal on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms ahead of the FCC’s rigid schedule, multiple industry officials told us. Similar efforts have foundered in the past -- including a concerted attempt in 2006-07 -- but this time, “I think there is a possibility for a very broad industry coalition on this,” said USTelecom Vice President Jon Banks. “The FCC knows we're trying to do this,” he added. “Everybody -- ILECs, CLECs, cable wireless, rurals -- is trying to put together a path for the FCC to follow.”