The Emergency Access Advisory Committee Interim Text to 911 Working Group is finishing its work on a report on a temporary solution allowing texting to 911, working group officials said Friday at a meeting of the FCC advisory group. Public Safety Bureau Chief David Turetsky assured the EAAC that text-to-911 remains a front-burner issue for the commission.

Cable associations and wireless ISPs opposed FairPoint’s petition for a waiver of the FCC’s requirement that recipients of Connect America Fund Phase I money wire unserved locations for $775 each in subsidy. The telco was offered nearly $5 million to accelerate broadband buildout to Vermont and Maine, but accepted less than half the offer, saying in July it was unable to meet funding conditions (CD July 24 p20). FairPoint last month sought a waiver to allow it to accept the full amount, “conditioned on the favorable disposition of litigation currently pending with the Maine Public Utilities Commission” (CD Sept 12 p14). The Maine PUC believes FairPoint is already obligated to extend broadband service to locations throughout the state, pursuant to its prior merger commitments.

The U.S. is in a “pre-9/11 moment” where immediate action is required to secure its critical computer network infrastructure from a potentially devastating attack, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told New York business leaders Thursday evening (http://xrl.us/bntuyw). The former director of the CIA said that while Congress dithers on cybersecurity legislation the White House has “no choice” but to consider issuing an executive order to “move as far as we can in the meantime.”

If Japanese wireless carrier Softbank buys Sprint Nextel, it would mark the biggest investment by a foreign operator in the U.S. wireless industry in more than a decade. Sprint said in a brief statement that talks are underway and involve Softbank making a “substantial investment” in Sprint. Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on its website that Softbank is looking at a purchase of Sprint for more than $19 billion. Analysts were taking the deal seriously and agreed Softbank likely is also interested in Sprint partner Clearwire and its extensive spectrum holdings, though Stifel Nicolaus said it “can only be considered surprising news."

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear a case challenging a 2009 FCC wireless zoning shot clock order may have much bigger implications for the commission and other regulatory agencies, lawyers and analysts said this week. The court granted cert Friday (CD Oct 10 p15) in Arlington, Texas, v. FCC, in a case that could mean high court review of the broader Chevron doctrine. The doctrine requires federal courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute, as long as that interpretation is deemed “reasonable.” The doctrine dates to a 1984 case, Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

California is a step closer to offering a new definition of residential basic phone service this month. Californians offered many public remarks in favor of overhauling the definition at Thursday’s California Public Utilities Commission meeting and stressed the importance of mobility for basic service. They referred to a longtime CPUC proceeding to redefine what basic telecom service means, how its requirements should apply to new technologies and what role reliability should play. The CPUC is gearing up for another vote on a new proposal, at its Oct. 25 meeting.

Major cable operator and programmer incumbents remain at odds with municipalities and newer entrants over video regulation by the FCC. Also shown in replies to a commission inquiry for the agency’s next multichannel video programming distributor report to Congress, ABC affiliates and Comcast still differ on whether online video distributors (OVDs) should be considered MVPDs by the commission. Commenters generally agreed that OVDs have increased competition for pay TV. Local franchise authorities (LFA) want more competition, as companies including Comcast said there’s never been more rivalry. OVDs including Netflix, in a class of products initial filings agreed complement MVPD service (CD Sept 12 p7), aren’t a substitute for pay TV, Comcast said: They “nonetheless have had a significant impact on MVPD behavior and innovation."

Sirius XM pays a fair royalty rate based on a situation “entirely different” from that of “pure radio” that’s dependent on the SoundExchange performance rights group, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said Wednesday at the company’s investor conference in New York.

As the FCC prepared Wednesday for the next phase of its broadband measurement program focusing on mobile measurement, the agency faced attacks on two fronts. House Republicans criticized the commission for sending stimulus money to a foreign measurement company, SamKnows, and for expanding into wireless testing despite difficult technical challenges. The Competitive Enterprise Institute and a coalition of free market and civil liberties groups warned that consumers who agree to test their broadband connections face “privacy risks” because the commission “appears to be collecting more personal information than necessary."

T-Mobile USA’s proposed merger with MetroPCS is unlikely to have a significant impact on U.S. tower companies if the U.S. government approves the deal as expected (CD Oct 4 p1), industry officials told us. Any carrier consolidation is likely to lead to concerns because the tower companies end up with fewer customers -- but those concerns are mitigated by the carriers’ network build-out plans, Benchmark analyst James Dobson said. “With MetroPCS forming up with T-Mobile, it gives them a stronger parent company, more of solid capital base with which to roll out their next-generation network,” he said. “Everyone’s going to these LTE networks, and if T-Mobile’s going to compete on a national scale, they're going to have to be aggressive in building out their LTE network. That’s going to ensure that the MetroPCS will also build out."