Doubt about the proposed FirstNet architecture’s reliability is widespread, the final round of comments to NTIA show. The agency had requested information about a September proposal of the architecture, with comments due Friday. Several state entities expressed concerns about appropriate hardening and requested the early deployment of pilots. The last round of comments also reveal concern about the FirstNet devices, the FirstNet law’s constitutionality and the question of who should access the eventual network.

The FCC gave ILECs a “five year competitive head start” when it gave them an exclusive five-year right to Phase I Connect America Fund funds for broadband deployment, and an exclusive right of first refusal to obtain CAF funds in Phase II, CLECs and other challengers argued in briefs filed last week. They're challenging the FCC’s USF/intercarrier compensation order in the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The commission’s “disparate treatment” of ILECs and CLECs in distribution of USF support violates its own “competitive neutrality” principle that support mechanisms “neither unfairly advantage nor disadvantage one provider over another,” they said.

Suddenlink will field the TiVo Mini in Q1 as means to expand whole home DVR service, CEO Jerald Kent said Friday on an earnings call. TiVo officials weren’t available for comment, but Suddenlink would be among the first cable operators to offer the product, which originally was to be available this fall.

The FCC mass-media agenda may be light in 2013, compared with work on USF and spectrum issues that will take up much of the eighth floor’s and many bureaus’ and offices’ attention, commission and industry officials predicted in interviews last week. They said Media Bureau staff may find the new year sharpens their focus on spectrum, with Chairman Julius Genachowski hoping to finish an order for the voluntary incentive auction by the end of next year. He would need rules for how to change the channels of stations that don’t agree to sell all or some of their frequencies.

Advocates championed broadband and community networks Thursday and Friday in Danville, Va. Attendees from industry, city and state government and academia were at the Danville Economic Development Conference on municipal broadband, hosted by Broadband Communities Magazine and municipal telecom attorney Jim Baller, conference chairman and a vocal force pushing for these interests.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau Friday approved three requests seeking a waiver of the FCC’s Jan. 1 VHF/UHF narrowbanding deadline. The FCC has said repeatedly it will carefully review all waiver applications from the thousands of licensees that face the deadline to move their operations to a channel bandwidth of no more than 12.5 kHz, or equivalent efficiency and that licensees that don’t comply face penalties from the Enforcement Bureau (CD Sept 28 p3).

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Friday defended the agency’s decision last year to kill the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. His remarks came on CNBC’s Squawk Box, a Wall Street-oriented morning news show. Genachowski insisted he has made no decision to leave the agency, following Barack Obama’s election to a second term as president. He also said the FCC has to consider what new regulation may be needed in light of Sandy and other recent storms that have led to widespread communications outages.

The telecom industry’s transition to an all-Internet Protocol infrastructure will almost certainly require updated regulations, said industry officials and observers we interviewed. But they don’t agree on how to get there. AT&T’s proposal Wednesday that the FCC start a proceeding on the transition from TDM to IP networks (CD Nov 8 p11) raises issues of agency jurisdiction under Section 214 of the Telecom Act, regulatory disruptions and competitive carrier concern of what will happen if they can’t get access to incumbents’ infrastructure, they said.

The chairman of the FCC, regardless of who won Tuesday’s election, would have had to act on some big telecom issues, from pending follow ups to USF orders to preparing for an incentive auction of broadcast spectrum, government and industry officials said. The difference likely will come on merger policy and on what other issues the next chairman decides to target, as well as the issues Julius Genachowski takes on in his remaining time as chairman, with a Democratic FCC more likely to impose regulation on at least a few fronts.

The gavel grab is on for House Commerce Committee Republicans seeking to elevate their position in various subcommittees, according to Capitol Hill aides. The chairman’s seat at one and possibly two other influential subcommittees could be vacant at the end of the 112th Congress, and competition among ambitious Republican members is heating up. The Republican Steering Committee (RSC) will begin meetings next week to determine who will take any vacant subcommittee leadership seats, said one outgoing Republican Congressman. The process will take weeks and subcommittee leadership positions probably won’t be finalized until mid-December, he said.