NTIA’s top official criticized an FCC order set for a vote Friday (CD July 28 p1) that says Comcast violated the commission’s net neutrality principles by blocking peer-to- peer file transfers. NTIA Acting Administrator Meredith Baker said she’s “concerned” about the order, although she hasn’t seen it and isn’t taking a position in the “dispute” over whether Comcast blocked P2P transfers. The vote tally for the order is 3-0, three agency officials said late Thursday.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin apparently deems it a priority to bar programmers from forcing pay-TV companies to carry multiple networks so they can distribute one they want, said communications lawyers on both sides of the matter. Martin recently signaled in private that he’s weighing a broad order (CD July 10 p2) to ban compelled wholesale bundling, forbid cable operators from withholding their networks from rivals and require cable operators to make quick decisions on whether to carry independent programmers, they said. But the Media Bureau doesn’t seem ready to circulate a draft order, cable lawyers said. The document probably will reflect arguments in recent filings by small cable operators, Free Press and other groups, cable lawyers said.

Intel seeks consensus among cable operators and consumer electronics companies in favor of a proposal it recently revived (CD July 23 p10) for the FCC to require that HD set- top boxes have Internet Protocol connections, an executive said. Company executives have recently spoken with counterparts in the two industries to see if common ground can be reached, said Intel Content Policy Director Jeffrey Lawrence. He said officials from both industries have shown “some interest” in Intel’s plan, talked up in recent FCC meetings and at the commission’s Monday hearing on broadband.

Pay-TV companies support movie studios’ bid for an FCC waiver (CD May 13 p7) of the ban on selectable output control for HD movies distributed to the home on cable or satellite before they're available on Blu-ray or DVD. Commenting to the FCC on the Motion Picture Association of America’s request for a permanent waiver of the SOC ban in commission’s 2003 one-way plug and play rules, AT&T, DirecTV and the NCTA said they supported it. TiVo wants the FCC to issue a more limited waiver, while cinema owners and seven public interest groups oppose the request entirely. Sony said a waiver has merits, but the CEA said the studios shouldn’t be allowed to use SOC, as MPAA seeks.

Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein hopes the FCC soon can finish considering the proposed merger of XM and Sirius, but can’t predict when review will end, he told reporters Monday. “I hope we can wrap this up as quickly as possible,” he said after speaking to the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. (See separate report in this issue.) Enforcement issues involving the satellite radio companies should be resolved before the transaction is approved, Adelstein said. “I appreciate Commissioner Tate’s focus on that,” he added. Tate declined to comment. The independent monitor Adelstein has proposed for the deal (CD July 18 p1) would cover all conditions, the commissioner said. The monitor would review complaints related to the deal and ensure compliance with conditions, he said. “I'm always open to” discussing potential conditions or concerns with colleagues, Adelstein said. Addressing the conference, Adelstein noted that the two companies, if joined, would have more spectrum than the AM and FM bands combined. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps again signaled that he'll scrutinize the satellite radio combination. The merger faces a “steep climb” with him and involves a “monopoly,” Copps told reporters.

A federal appeals court remanded to the FCC a $550,000 fine against CBS for airing a split-second live shot of Janet Jackson’s breast at halftime of the 2004 Super Bowl. Writing for himself and Judge Julio Fuentes, Chief Judge Anthony Scirica of the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court in Philadelphia said the fine over a fleetingly indecent image marked a policy change made by the FCC without adequate notice. Fuentes said Jackson and Justin Timberlake, who ripped off the singer’s bustier, were independent contractors, not CBS employees, as the agency found. Judge Marjorie Rendell agreed with her colleagues’ conclusion in CBS v. FCC, dissenting in part because she felt they should have vacated the case entirely and not remanded it. Monday’s decision was foreshadowed in questions by the jurists in oral arguments (CD Sept 12 p2).

Broadband prices may be too high, two FCC members said at the start late Monday of a commission hearing in Pittsburgh on the technology. “The cost of broadband is still too high for some consumers,” said Chairman Kevin Martin, citing Free Press research. Still, he said, the commission has made “significant progress” removing barriers to broadband and other telecom competition. The FCC must “promote and preserve” the Internet’s “open character,” Martin said, noting that the agency has before it a complaint against Comcast involving BitTorrent (CD July 16 p2).

Four commissioners seemed lukewarm to having a cabinet-level agency oversee telecom and media regulation, a notion the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council said deserves study. The Council wants a “blue ribbon commission” to weigh the cabinet idea. Speaking Monday to the Council’s conference, FCC members agreed on the need to do more to help minorities buy media and other assets. But they disagreed on whether the FCC does enough in that vein.

Additional broadcasters will run “soft” analog signal cutoffs (CD May 12 p1) to alert viewers to the digital TV transition, industry executives said. Ion Media last week became the latest company to say it will run the tests, in which analog signals go off for a minute or less at announced times and simulated static or black appears on older TV sets not hooked up to cable, satellite or telco TV. The broadcaster asked other stations to follow suit, as has the NAB.

Tests of a way to speed peer-to-peer file transfers and similar bandwidth-intensive use of ISPs (CD April 17 p8) are proceeding well, said participants. The trials, involving about a half dozen cable operators and telcos, go further than an earlier round and could be finished at month’s end, with full results coming later, Distributed Computing Industry Association CEO Martin Lafferty said. Both he and Pando Networks CEO Robert Levitan said the data should show that P4P -- a standard letting networks owned by various ISPs communicate with each other -- works on both cable and telco networks using Pando’s product and lets P2P applications sap less network capacity.