Public access channels remain in regulatory and business limbo, facing digitization in more cable systems because the FCC hasn’t acted on petitions made in early 2009 by the channels, said advocates for public, educational and governmental programmers. PEG programmers have sought a commission ruling that AT&T’s U-verse pay-TV service and cable operators can’t move public access channels off the analog tier. Lack of action on the petitions has emboldened cable operators, with Cox Communications being the most recent, to digitize PEG networks before doing so for commercial programmers, advocates contend.

Netflix continues to gobble up bandwidth, but the company’s explosive growth still hasn’t threatened cable, said a study released Tuesday by analyst Bruce Leichtman. Nearly 30 percent of survey respondents watched online video at least once per week through Netflix. Three percent of non-Netflix subscribers reported that they were watching streaming video, Leichtman said. While Netflix is growing exponentially, over-the-top streaming is growing only incrementally: 12 percent of the adults surveyed told Leichtman that they watched TV shows online once a week, up a percentage point from last year and up from 10 percent in 2009. “People watching TV online has barely moved,” Leichtman told us. “The reality is, in this over the-top emerging video world, there’s only two winners: Netflix and YouTube. Everyone else is losing out."

A recent audit that criticized the FCC for not following federal guidelines on tracking public spending (CD March 28 p11) “may come up” when Chairman Julius Genachowski testifies before a House appropriations subcommittee, said a spokesman for Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo. The chairman of the subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government “is aware of the situation,” her spokesman said. Managers at both the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. were recently ordered to “update and reinforce” rules for entering expenses into the federal accounting system, after outside auditors labeled the commission’s accounting system “a significant deficiency."

Advocacy for and against a proposed data roaming mandate has been relatively quiet in recent days, according to FCC officials and recent ex parte filings at the commission. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is slated to circulate the sunshine agenda on the April 7 meeting Thursday, cutting off further lobbying. The order appears likely to be approved by the commission, though commissioners Meredith Baker and Robert McDowell may dissent based on jurisdictional concerns, industry and FCC officials said.

NTIA has no problem with a developing bill to speed the return of unused broadband stimulus funds to the U.S. Treasury, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said at a conference Tuesday of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition. Strickling and Rural Utility Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein plan to testify at Friday’s hearing on the bill before the House Communications Subcommittee. In an earlier panel Tuesday, Democratic Hill staffers questioned the need for legislation.

Attorneys general in New York and potentially other states will review AT&T’s plan to buy T-Mobile, they said. It’s uncertain if state regulatory commissions, which have limited authority over wireless mergers and played no role in previous wireless deals, would play a part, state officials and analysts said in interviews.

Dynamic spectrum sharing poses risks for carriers and other incumbents, since the record shows the FCC has never been good at protecting them from interference, CTIA said in reply comments in docket 10-237. The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC) said the comments filed thus far speak to the great potential for spectrum sharing patterned on pending use of the TV white spaces. The commission sought comment on dynamic spectrum access in a notice of inquiry approved at its November meeting.

The departments of Defense and Transportation “were not sufficiently included” in the FCC’s development of LightSquared’s initial work plan and milestones, the agencies said in a letter to the FCC. Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari and Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn piled on criticism of the commission’s handling of LightSquared’s plans for wireless service, in a March 25 letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. It hasn’t been made public yet. LightSquared and the U.S. GPS Industry Council are leading a working group review of GPS interference issues, as required by the FCC. DOD and DOT said they had several concerns with the International Bureau’s response to questions on the set-up of the working group (CD Feb 17 p8).

DUBAI -- Given the high priority of spectrum issues, it’s extraordinary that spectrum management is still such a relatively obscure and isolated field, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure said at Tuesday’s PolicyTracker Middle East spectrum conference. Those who become managers are often engineers with little knowledge of the legal, economic and negotiation skills needed for managing spectrum, he said. As wireless services come to dominate the spectrum landscape, there’s growing public recognition of spectrum management, he said. The ITU is looking at ways to help governments, particularly in developing countries, deal with spectrum issues in the real world, he said. The ITU, and events like the one in Dubai, are “shaping the future itself,” but that won’t happen without the tireless efforts of spectrum managers, said Toure.

Sprint Nextel announced its formal opposition to AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile in a statement released Monday. The development was not a surprise given negative comments on the deal by Sprint CEO Dan Hesse at the CTIA conference in Orlando, Fla., last week (CD March 23 p1). But Hesse stopped short then of asking federal regulators to block the deal. On Monday, his lobbyists did.