BOSTON -- Success stories of broadband projects that received federal money should be shared widely with those who seek to start new efforts, because Congress may not set aside additional money to support them, a funder and recipients of stimulus awards agreed Friday. It will be “a challenge expanding this beyond the federal money,” said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling. Hurdles can be overcome by understanding what worked in projects that got federal subsidies, he said. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act set aside $7 billion for the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service to help pay for broadband projects.

BOSTON -- AT&T’s plan to buy T-Mobile points up industry practices that some non-profit advocates have been trying for some time to draw regulatory and legislative attention to, they said Friday. Issues include spectrum policy, early termination fees, bill shock and handset exclusivity. Potential job losses because of the $39 billion deal also were mentioned, during a wireless panel at the National Conference for Media Reform. AT&T contends the transaction will speed the rollout of 4G wireless broadband and stimulate the economy. A company spokesman had no comment on the panel.

The FCC will get some scrutiny in a delayed commission report (CD March 9 p4) about prospects for the media industry, its author told industry executives and lobbyists. Steve Waldman said Wednesday that his forthcoming Future of Media report will offer a close look at the regulator’s media policies and say which are working and which aren’t. “We also will try to be honest about the FCC and its own policies,” although such inward looks aren’t “always a welcome effort” at the institution examined, he said. At the FCC, “to my delight, I have found that very few want to hold onto things the way they are just because that’s the way they have been,” he said. “There is a very strong desire to make sure that policy is effective."

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.

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).

An auction of TV spectrum may not raise as much money for the U.S. government and the incumbent broadcast licensees as some incentive auction proponents estimate, said an economist’s paper released Thursday by the NAB. The title of the paper by Managing Director Jeffrey Eisenach of Navigant Economics is: “Revenues From a Possible Incentive Auction: Why the CTIA/CEA Estimate is Not Reliable.” Those two groups’ estimate of winning bids of at least $33 billion to $34 billion (CD Feb 16 p7) is “based on historic spectrum prices, which are subject to wide variation,” it said.

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.

The U.S. shouldn’t recommend that the C-band be examined for other possible uses by an upcoming international conference on spectrum, said broadcasters, cable programmers and operators, and satellite companies. They said in filings that the FCC shouldn’t adopt an advisory committee’s recommendation for the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) that a swath of spectrum including that satellite band be looked at for mobile broadband wireless access (BWA). Instead, many of the filings said another proposal, which excludes the spectrum between 3700 MHz and 4200 MHz that’s used for the C-band, should be adopted.

Many cable companies backed a “telecom rate” for pole attachments last week, as the FCC got set to vote April 7 on an order that could lower rates some attachers pay to utilities (CD March 9 p5). Bright House Networks, Charter Communications and Comcast were among those that held lobbying meetings with agency officials, filings in docket 07-245 show. Comcast said it backs the rate formula in a rulemaking notice, and its conclusion that the telecom rate is consistent with Section 224 of the Communications Act. The company said it’s concerned about proposals to change unauthorized attachment and safety violation standards. Currently, telco pole attachment rates are often higher than cable rates.

Broadcasters are getting some breathing room on spectrum reallocation, because of AT&T’s agreement last week to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion, said station-group executives and their lawyers. They said the surprise takeover by AT&T has already meant that attention on Capitol Hill has been shifted to T-Mobile, and away somewhat from efforts to give the FCC authority to auction TV spectrum and for the government to split the proceeds with stations. The shift in attention means broadcasters will get time to keep honing their message on spectrum, which they don’t want taken away from them involuntarily, and to potentially reach a compromise with the regulator for legislation that could be more favorable for the industry, the officials said.