Six consumer electronics companies and Google united to press the FCC to issue a delayed rulemaking on AllVid so all cable operators, DBS providers and telco-TV companies’ systems can connect to a wide array of CE equipment using inexpensive gateway devices. The AllVid Tech Company Alliance was formed Wednesday. It wrote FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to lay out a case many of the members have been making to the regulator separately in recent months. They contend that multichannel video programming distributors aren’t doing enough to let their subscribers use devices other than those provided by those MVPDs to access over-the-top and pay-TV programming.

The FCC confirmed that expanded-basic video prices continued to increase, in a report Tuesday detailing a survey of charges in 2008 by cable operators, city-owned video providers and telco-TV such as Verizon’s pay-TV service but not AT&T’s U-verse. That year, the average monthly bill for expanded-basic service rose 5.9 percent to $52.37, compared with a 0.1 percent rise in inflation. Over a 14-year period ended Jan. 1, 2009, cable rates rose 134 percent, while the consumer price index that measures inflation gained 39 percent. But bills rose 18 percent to 71 cents a channel during that period, for a 1.2 percent average annual increase. Industry officials and an economist whose group sometimes opposes regulation pointed out some of the report’s shortfalls, while a nonprofit group that’s concerned with rate increases said the survey supports its fears.

The time may finally be right for an overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and of intercarrier compensation, said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. He’s hopeful a “method” will be found to turn things like the rulemaking notice, approved by commissioners at last week’s monthly meeting, into “momentum” for making fixes to update the rules for the broadband age, he told us in a Q-and-A after his FCBA luncheon speech. “I think we've teed up an item that really raises all the issues,” he said, saying the regulator should hold stakeholder hearings on the issue. Copps used the speech to defend public broadcasting against Republican legislators’ efforts to cut funding and to urge the FCC and Chairman Julius Genachowski to do more to promote media diversity.

AT&T and NCTA joined to slam arguments by Level 3 that the Internet backbone provider’s dispute over network traffic peering with Comcast is an issue of net neutrality. In a rare joint filing late Monday by the telco and the cable association, which are often at odds on other issues, they said Level 3 is trying to upend commission precedent predating December’s net neutrality order that peering isn’t subject to regulation. “As the Commission’s approach to Internet policy has evolved over the last eighteen months -- from a proposed rulemaking on net neutrality, to an inquiry on reclassification, to a net neutrality order -- it has consistently emphasized at each step along the way that it has no intention of regulating the highly competitive market for Internet peering and other Internet backbone services."

The judge who dominated questions in oral argument on Cablevision v. FCC asked many questions that appeared skeptical of the cable operator’s challenge to program access rules at the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit. Judge David Tatel asked the vast majority of the questions of the cable operator and the commission Monday. He and Judge Thomas Griffith asked how Cablevision’s challenge could get around a ruling that the NCTA lost at the appeals court about exclusive arrangements between cable operators and apartment buildings.

A draft FCC rulemaking notice on retransmission consent deals asks many questions about rules and practices covering the broadcast and pay-TV industries and draws few tentative conclusions, commission and industry officials said Friday. The notice circulated about 7 p.m. Thursday, FCC officials said. The agency confirmed that it’s on the tentative agenda for the March 3 meeting, as had been expected (CD Feb 8 p1). Cable, DBS and telco-TV companies and public interest groups had sought such a rulemaking, while broadcasters have said retrans works well now. Other media issues to be voted on at next month’s meeting are an order that may make it harder for radio stations to move and a rulemaking on video descriptions, agency officials said.

The NCTA’s hunt for a new CEO is ramping up, with industry officials starting to float names, but with no list of candidates being evaluated by the cable association, executives watching the job search said. They said progress in finding a replacement for Kyle McSlarrow, who plans to leave this spring (CD Nov 11 p5), is at an early stage. Many member companies of NCTA haven’t been briefed on where the search stands, meaning that the day may still be a way off when a list of candidates for formal interviews is created, executives said. One cable executive said he and others wish they were more involved, while others said they're watching the search but haven’t been part of the discussion yet. Such involvement could come later.

Wireless broadband in 2021 may be faster than wireline access now is, cars could be virtual social networks, radio stations will have “fully embraced” HD Radio and “no one cares” anymore about net neutrality, predicted CEA President Gary Shapiro. Autos could become rolling “music devices” with Internet access and electronics in the backseat akin to “rolling homes,” with most cars having social media features, he said Wednesday. Speaking to communications lobbyists and executives, Shapiro acknowledged that his predictions were semi-serious and that he was asked by President Patrick Maines of the Media Institute, whose luncheon he addressed, not to speak about spectrum in his prepared remarks. He managed anyway to get in a dig at the NAB, at odds with the CEA over spectrum and broadcasters’ desire for more cellphones to receive terrestrial radio.

All submissions to the FCC must be available online, with staff required to assign docket numbers to all proceedings other than those in “exceptional circumstances,” the commission said in an order released late Friday. It’s the second order approved by commissioners last week that the agency said would help improve public access to FCC materials. “These two items should result in significant efficiency and fairness improvements for the Commission and for those who do business with us,” said FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick.

A forthcoming U.S.-wide check of the emergency alert system will help point out ways to make technical and operational improvements before switching to a new government standard for EAS, broadcast officials involved with such tests said in interviews Friday. Thursday afternoon, the FCC released an order (CD Feb 4 p10) requiring annual nationwide tests, which won’t immediately use the new standard, the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). It was finalized late last year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Not using CAP for the first test, which FCC officials have said could occur in late 2011, has benefits and drawbacks, state broadcast officials said.