A Dec. 1 FCC deadline for set-top boxes to include new standard home-networking outputs will probably be temporarily waived, lawyers for cable and consumer electronics companies predicted. The Media Bureau is reviewing a request by TiVo to be let out from the requirement, and is expected to act soon, they said. “I think they realize nobody is going to comply [by Dec. 1] and they haven’t been very clear about what they want people to do,” said a lawyer.

TV stations that have joint sales agreements with rivals within a market would see those JSAs attributable under FCC ownership rules, while a limit on common ownership of a radio station and daily newspaper in the same geographic area would end under a draft order, agency officials said. Those are the mandates in a Media Bureau order that were not proposed but were asked about in a December rulemaking notice. The draft order FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated as expected Wednesday for a vote (CD Nov 13 p1) otherwise mostly follows what was proposed in the notice, agency officials said.

If portions of the revised International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that come out of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) next month prove objectionable to the U.S., there’s no chance the Senate would vote to ratify the revisions to the treaty-level document and make it a part of U.S. law, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said Wednesday. But McDowell and others at an American Enterprise Institute event said they believed a worst-case scenario coming out of WCIT could result in a “balkanization” that would disrupt the growth of the Internet. The U.S. delegation to WCIT sees controversial proposals that would expand the ITRs into the realm of Internet governance -- including cybersecurity and Internet traffic compensation -- as “non-negotiable” items, said U.S. delegation head Terry Kramer. That makes it all the more critical that the delegation focus on outreach efforts to wavering delegations in the weeks before WCIT convenes in Dubai Dec. 3, he said.

NEW YORK -- The very small aperture terminal (VSAT) industry expects current initiatives to help mitigate interference and resolve interference instances quickly, VSAT industry executives said Wednesday at the Content and Communications World SATCON conference in New York. The rapid and successful deployment of VSAT units worldwide has created a need for better interference mitigation, and better training is needed for personnel who install the terminals, they said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sought to invoke cloture on the Cybersecurity Act (S-3414) Wednesday and asked Republicans to offer proposals to improve the bill. This summer, lawmakers failed to compromise on the provisions of S-3414 primarily due to opposition from Republicans and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which said the legislation would create new and costly mandates for businesses (CD Aug 3 p3). Separately, the White House said President Barack Obama signed a presidential directive last month aimed at clarifying how law enforcement agencies and the military should react to cybersecurity attacks.

NEW YORK -- Satellite communications are expected to play a role in the changing approach to disaster and emergency situations, satellite industry executives said Wednesday at the Content and Communications World SATCON conference in New York. The performance of the satellite industry during Superstorm Sandy “provides us with an acid test of how we're doing,” said David Hartshorn, Global VSAT Forum secretary general. The Red Cross workers were moving their sites about every two days to where they could be of more help, said Justin Luczyk, a Tactical SATCOM Networks director for ViaSat. Satellite technology could enable them to “bring their communications further and further into the disaster area,” which was critically important, he said.

The National Weather Service issued 17 wireless emergency alerts (WEA) during superstorm Sandy, and one NWS/National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration official said Wednesday that feedback from East Coast residents who received the text alert messages on their mobile phones was mostly positive. “We've had numerous reports of messages being sent within seconds, and only one or two reports of delays,” said Michael Gerber, NWS/NOAA Emerging Dissemination Technology Program Lead. The WEA broadcast system will need improvement in other areas of the country, particularly the West, but results on the East Coast are positive, he said during a FEMA webinar on its Internet-based integrated public alert and warning system (IPAWS).

The rest of the world is watching to see whether the U.S. will regulate a portion of the Internet, and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell finds the idea “a little unsettling,” he said at a Silicon Flatirons conference on spectrum policy Tuesday. The danger, he said, is that a bad idea adopted by U.S. policymakers could get “amplified abroad” as teams at the ITU read everything the FCC writes. McDowell also discussed ideas for getting more spectrum into the hands of consumers, and endorsed the idea of paying federal users to get off their spectrum.

A 911 task force identified the “vulnerability of newer technologies” in a preliminary report about Verizon 911 failures during the June 29 mid-Atlantic derecho wind storm. Traditional hard-wired connections meant power loss didn’t result in loss of a dial tone or service, it said. The report named VoIP and standard Internet Protocol as two very different technologies that, when the power’s out, lose “access to 9-1-1 once the back-up battery contained within the equipment, drains,” the 911 directors said. Cellphones also encounter problems due to network congestion and the possibility of physical damage to cell sites, the report said.

Future low-power FM stations could be two notches away on the radio dial from full-power outlets, if LPFMs make certain interference showings similar to what other types of radio stations must make now. That’s under a draft FCC order tentatively set for a vote at the Nov. 30 commissioner meeting (CD Nov 12 p1), said agency, industry and public-interest group officials. They said the second-adjacent frequency spacing waiver would let LPFMs be two notches away if they won’t create interference in a populated area also reached by the full power.