The federal government hasn’t adequately created a process for its broadband stimulus grant recipients to conclude the grant process, the Commerce Department Office of Inspector General said in an audit report. Principal Assistant Inspector General for Audit and Evaluation Ann Eilers sent NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling her final memo on the topic, released this week and dated Friday. The government gave more than 200 Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants, coming to just shy of $4 billion, as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The agencies administering the three-year grants defended their efforts and outlined ways they will try to incorporate OIG recommendations.

Inmate calling service providers generally rejected in comments filed Friday the FCC’s proposed foray into regulating intrastate prison calls. They called it an impracticable plan to implement a uniform, national rate structure, in the face of complex security requirements that vary by location. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) was also against the plan, which it said overstepped agency authority. Public interest groups were for the idea, arguing unjust rates occur just as frequently within state borders as across them.

The Department of Energy abandoned efforts to regulate the energy efficiency of set-top boxes and network equipment and ways to test the power consumption of set-tops, as 11 multichannel video programming distributors and three of their box suppliers reached a deal with advocacy groups. Three groups pressing MVPDs to reduce the energy they say needlessly costs $1 billion-plus a year for unused set-tops that continue working will now participate in the voluntary agreement (VA) the companies reached previously. Talks between the sides cratered in 2012. The distributors expanded the previous deal, which had been reached with the industry (CD Dec 7/12 p5) only after the advocates wouldn’t sign on, to make commitments for a few years longer than the last edition of the VA.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed calls by the Professional Association for Customer Engagement (PACE) that the FCC clarify the rules for automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) calls to cellphones under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Cable is undergoing a transition to the cloud, moving functionality out of

Gannett’s $2.73 billion purchase of Belo and Tribune’s $2.2 billion purchase of Local TV were approved by the FCC Media Bureau, according to a pair of orders released Friday (http://bit.ly/1ds4aFD) and (http://bit.ly/1cGP7WV). That was as expected (CD Dec 19 p1). Though cable companies and public interest groups had filed oppositions to both transactions, bureau Chief Bill Lake said in an email to us that the agency had considered both deals in terms of their effect on the public interest. “Our public interest mandate encompasses giving careful attention to the economic effects of, and incentives created by, a proposed transaction taken as a whole and its consistency with the Commission’s policies,” said the bureau in the Gannett/Belo order. Free Press, which along with other public interest groups had opposed both deals, said it was “disappointed” by the decisions. The FCC “needs to fix its rules now, and throw out the rubber stamp that’s making America’s media system less local, less diverse and less accountable to the people in hundreds of communities,” said Free Press President Craig Aaron in a release.

Broadcasters said Friday they're pleased with the progress made on substantive issues during two days of talks (CD Dec 5 p9) at the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) on a treaty updating copyrighted broadcast signals. In proposed conclusions (http://xrl.us/bqbq23), many countries appeared to edge closer to agreeing that traditional broadcasting and cablecasting organizations would be the beneficiaries of the treaty, but not pure webcasters, said European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Head of Intellectual Property Heijo Ruijsenaars in an interview.

President Barack Obama suggested the U.S. might be able to accomplish its intelligence goals by other means than the Patriot Act Section 215 phone metadata surveillance, he told reporters at a news conference Friday before leaving for Hawaii. He had received 46 recommendations from a five-member review group he appointed on Wednesday (CD Dec 19 p4) -- recommendations that criticized the efficacy of the National Security Agency program, urged industry or a third party to hold the metadata and to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow for a public advocate, among other changes. AT&T, meanwhile, followed Verizon’s lead (CD Dec 20 p1) and said it will also post transparency reports.

State regulators want their values to be part of any Communications Act updates that the House Commerce Committee works on. In early December, Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., announced intentions for white papers and hearings on the broader Telecom Act updates in 2014 and legislation to be introduced in 2015 (CD Dec 4 p1). Two key NARUC telecom commissioners and its general counsel told us Friday it’s the right time to reexamine the Communications Act and they want states to be a part of the conversation.

The FCC granted Dish Network the relief it sought to decide on the operations of its AWS-4 spectrum. The waiver, granted Friday, is conditioned on Dish’s bid of nearly $1.6 billion in the H-block auction next month. “Failure by Dish to comply with either of these conditions will automatically terminate the waivers granted in this order,” the Wireless Bureau said in its decision (http://fcc.us/1i8eU1M). Dish must elect no later than 30 months from the release of the order whether operations at 2000-2020 MHz will be uplink or downlink, the order said. The DBS company also was granted a one-year extension of the final buildout requirement, which gives it eight years to build a terrestrial network service, it said.