International Launch Services is doing an investigation into the failed launch of three Russian satellites on a Proton M rocket. The rocket crashed Tuesday about 10 seconds after liftoff from Kazakhstan, ILS said in a press release (http://bit.ly/17RkaTF). The rocket was carrying three Glonass navigation satellites for the Russian Federal Government, it said. The Russian Federal Space Agency set up a special commission “to determine the cause of the failure and telemetry is currently being amassed and processed,” it said.

The FCC Media Bureau granted a Cox Communications petition this week to exempt it from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices for several communities in Rhode Island, said a Media Bureau order released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/15eaONN). Cox’s petition cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects just under 35,000 households, including the communities of Jamestown, Portsmouth and Little Compton.

European Union residents receive an average of 74 percent of the advertised broadband speed they subscribe to, compared to 97 percent for U.S. residents, said Broadband for America (BfA) in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/14oG3F0). A report by the European Commission found fiber connections provide 91.4 percent, cable 84.4 percent and asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) 63.3 percent of advertised broadband speeds for European residents (CD June 27 p19). In the U.S., cable Internet connections provided an average of 99 percent of advertised speeds, while fiber and satellite services exceed their stated offerings with 115 percent and 137 percent, said BfA. In Europe, broadband services are advertised as offering up to a certain speed, which means the speed received will be lower than the speed advertised by ISPs, said BfA.

The New York state attorney general’s office again came down against Verizon’s Voice Link service, both regarding its attempted deployment beyond Fire Island and in comments before the New York State Public Service Commission generally. The AG defended its emergency petition accusing Verizon of illegality in promoting the fixed-wireless Voice Link as a copper replacement in the Catskills. Verizon has maintained the deployment is optional and fully permissible under a May PSC order -- and strongly defended the use and virtues of the new option overall (CD July 1 p18). “While it is true that Verizon’s tariff permits ‘offer[ing] such an alternative service as an optional service’ outside Fire Island, the company’s practices show that Verizon is not, in fact, offering Voice Link as an ‘option,'” the AG told the PSC Tuesday of Verizon’s defense (http://bit.ly/12EQbFl). “For such choice to have any meaning, customers need to be told they have a right to choose to retain their landline service. ... Based on information received from multiple consumers, Verizon is clearly not offering them such a choice.” It described three accounts of consumers receiving Voice Link pressure. The telco fails to tell consumers all relevant Voice Link details and has given “false information, such as asserting that storm damage from Sandy rendered the land line network in the Catskills beyond repair,” the AG said. It urged the PSC to audit Voice Link deployment attempts. The AG and Communications Workers of America also supplied the PSC with comments on the service Tuesday, despite the PSC’s extension of its comment deadline until September. In its comments (http://bit.ly/18tGUsb), the AG slammed Verizon’s copper strategy and referred to ways Voice Link doesn’t match up to landline service. CWA reiterated its concerns with the service and criticized Verizon’s vague language surrounding its deployment: “The Commission needs to get the real story on Verizon New York’s plans for Voice Link and to take an leadership [sic] role in setting the ground rules for any future expansion of the service as Verizon NY’s sole service offering,” the union said (http://bit.ly/14oEebb).

The House Communications Subcommittee will hold an FCC reform hearing on July 11, said Capitol Hill and industry sources. Expected to testify is former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, now a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, sources said. The hearing has not been announced and a subcommittee spokesman had no comment Tuesday.

The Satellite Industry Association and EchoStar urged the FCC to deny a petition from Utilities Telecom Council and Winchester Cator for a review of the commission’s decision denying secondary use of the 14.0-14.5 GHz band. Enforcing upper limits on the amount of critical infrastructure industry (CII) receivers authorized to operate on a secondary basis “would not address how and when particular transmitters could be located and shut down in the event of harmful interference,” SIA said in comments in docket RM-11429 (http://bit.ly/121loUk). The commission rightly concluded that the public interest isn’t served “by allowing CII users on a secondary basis in frequencies where the risk of interference to FSS [fixed satellite service] earth stations is significant,” SIA said. The UTC-Winchester centralized coordination role “does not adequately address all cases of potential interference since it fails to take into account the particular sensitivities of individual satellites,” EchoStar said (http://bit.ly/1azl6Mz). The petitioner hasn’t included a workable plan to pinpoint specific interferers, it said.

Lawmakers from the Utah congressional delegation urged acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn to consider the impact that the upcoming spectrum incentive auctions could have on Utah residents who rely on broadcast TV, in a letter made public Tuesday. “Utah has many rural communities which rely heavily on broadcast television to obtain critical information,” the letter said. “We are concerned that the spectrum repackaging may have a detrimental impact on the ability of these communities to receive broadcast television, especially in cases of severe weather or emergencies,” it said. “We strongly encourage the FCC to give meaningful attention to the Americans who are served by broadcast television, especially those living in rural areas, as it moves forward with the rulemaking process.” The letter was signed by Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch, and Reps. Rob Bishop, Jason Chaffetz, Chris Stewart and Jim Matheson, a Democrat.

Cablevision and the Game Show Network are waiting to see if The Tennis Channel will pursue an en banc rehearing of its case against Comcast by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, carriage dispute opponents said in status reports filed in docket 12-122 (http://bit.ly/1cNxANn) at the request of Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippell (CD June 27 p21). Comcast was decided in the cable provider’s favor May 28 (CD May 29 p1). “The deadline for seeking rehearing en banc of the panel’s opinion is set to expire on July 12, 2013, and Tennis Channel has publicly stated that it intends to pursue further remedies, including en banc review of the panel decision,” said GSN. Since the decision could still be appealed, it’s not clear how it will apply to the Cablevision/GSN case, said both the cable provider and the network. Both companies said the final result of the Comcast case may cause them to change evidence or seek new evidence for their own case, which has been delayed indefinitely to allow Comcast to resolve.

The American National Standards Institute Accredited Standards Committee C63 (ASC C63) asked the FCC to extend by two weeks a July 17 deadline for reply comments on a Feb. 12 NPRM on the commission’s equipment authorization program. The NPRM asked a battery of questions on possible changes to the commission’s Part 2 equipment rules, focusing in particular on the role played by Telecommunication Certification Bodies (http://bit.ly/19TSLBa). “ASC C63 recognizes that it is not the Commission’s policy to routinely grant extensions of time in rulemaking proceedings,” the filing said (http://bit.ly/12ELvPR). “However, a two-week extension of the reply comment period is warranted here in order to facilitate a more thorough consideration of the important issues raised and will not cause undue delay of the proceeding.”

The House Commerce Committee named David Redl chief counsel of the House Communications Subcommittee. Redl previously was counsel to the subcommittee, and was CTIA director-regulatory affairs before then. Redl will replace outgoing subcommittee chief counsel Neil Fried, the committee said. Fried, whose name was previously floated as a possible candidate to replace former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell (CD April 10 p1), is planning to work for the MPAA, Capitol Hill and industry officials told us. The MPAA had no comment Tuesday. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in a news release that Fried has been a “valuable member of our team for many years. From our efforts to free up spectrum to rooting out waste in government to reforming federal agencies, Neil has been there every step of the way.” The committee said Ray Baum, a senior adviser on the subcommittee, will “provide strategic counsel for the committee in an expanded role as senior policy advisor and chief strategist on state initiatives, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and technology.” Before his work on the committee, Baum was the majority leader of the Oregon state House of Representatives and is former chairman of the Oregon Public Utility Commission. The committee named Kelsey Guyselman subcommittee counsel. She was most recently a law clerk for regulatory affairs at CTIA. The committee hired Noelle Clemente to be a member of the committee’s communications office. She was previously a press secretary at the American Action Forum, a sister organization to the American Action Network, a policy group cofounded by former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.