The U.S. is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement under the “presumption that data should move,” said Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Telecom and Electronic Commerce Policy Jonathan McHale. “There’s some protectionist challenges we have to meet.” He cited governments that demand that data storage companies locate their servers in those countries to sell products and services to their citizens. In many cases, these kinds of protectionist policies can harm not just American companies, but also foreign users, he said at an event at George Washington University on Friday: “There really is a strong understanding that all the commercial entities in these countries and the consumers benefit” from having a free flow of information across borders.

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) agreed with the U.S. earlier this month on many core components of how the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) should be revised at the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications, Terry Kramer, head of the U.S.’s WCIT delegation, said Friday. CITEL met in San Salvador, El Salvador, to determine its position ahead of WCIT, which begins Dec. 3 in Dubai. The U.S. delegation has been meeting with regional groups like CITEL and other ITU member nations to get them to adopt the U.S.’s position on the ITRs, which it outlined in formal documents filed with WCIT in early August (CD Aug 6 p2). The U.S. is likely to file an updated set of documents on its position in mid-November, Kramer said.

The advent of online content is causing the media industry and policymakers to assess whether there is a need for regulation in that space, some media professionals said Friday on Capitol Hill at an event hosted by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. So far, programming through the Internet is flourishing amid discussions around proposed and existing regulations like the FCC program access rules and the Video Privacy Protection Act, they said.

Granting Nagra USA’s request for a waiver from FCC set-top box rules (CD Sept 4 p5) could lead to a “Balkanization of home network interfaces that would further frustrate competition and also undercut common reliance on CableCARDs,” CEA said in comments on the requests. “CEA has opposed and will continue to oppose any waiver request that would undermine CableCARD common reliance unless and until an IP-based successor interface that is nationally standard and is nationally portable is referenced in FCC regulations,” it said (http://xrl.us/bnqtix). Nagra sought waivers from requirements that cable boxes include a CableCARD slot and an HDMI or DVI output.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced the Internet Radio Fairness Act Friday, aimed at aligning the differing broadcast platform royalty payments under the same standard used to establish rates for cable and satellite radio services. The bipartisan, bicameral bills would level the playing field for Internet radio services by placing them under the Copyright Act 801(b) standard. The bill was backed by an array of technology and broadcasting groups but panned by some musician coalitions. It is unlikely that the bill will receive a floor vote in either the House or Senate when lawmakers return to the Hill after the November elections.

FCC and industry officials gathered Friday to discuss adding mobile measurements to its two-year-old broadband measurement program. “It remains difficult for consumers to get detailed information about their mobile broadband performance,” said FCC attorney Daniel Kirschner. After releasing two “Measuring Broadband America” reports and being on track to release a third later this year, the FCC will look into measuring mobile broadband performance, as proposed in the National Broadband Plan. For the first time, U.S. consumers will have information about mobile networks, which have become an “integral” part of consumers’ daily lives, Kirschner said.

The Democrats and Republicans agree on most fundamental aspects of Internet policy, industry policy experts said Thursday night at an Internet Society event hosted by Google’s Washington office. That lack of fundamental disagreement has mostly kept Internet issues on the backburner over the course of the parties’ 2012 campaigns for president and Congress, even though Internet issues continue to infiltrate other areas of national policy, they said. The Internet Society had intended to bring in surrogates from the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but eventually decided to bring in former members of the Obama and George W. Bush administrations to articulate their parties’ positions, said Georgetown University professor and panel moderator Michael Nelson. None of the panelists were speaking on behalf of the Obama or Romney campaigns, he said.

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and other GOP members expressed their displeasure with the way the FCC revoked its approval for LightSquared’s 4G wireless broadband network, during a subcommittee hearing on Friday. Stearns, the outgoing chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, capped his eight-month investigation Friday with a terse examination of the FCC’s role in the fiasco. “All of us are frustrated with the loss of this huge innovation leap and the loss of this company,” said Stearns, in what is likely to be his last hearing as subcommittee chairman.

U.S. and EU regulators cleared Universal Music Group’s proposed takeover of EMI’s recorded music business. The European Commission imposed tough conditions on the $1.9 billion deal, including mandatory divestiture of several major assets, while the FTC concluded that the transaction didn’t pose a competition threat in the U.S. and closed its investigation. The decisions disgusted Impala, which represents European independent music companies, and Public Knowledge.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sprint’s perspective on spectrum “exhaust” centers on delivering a good user experience to its customers, Chief Technology Officer Stephen Bye said during a GigaOm conference Thursday. “One of the challenges is just how one defines exhaust,” Bye said. “If I have one cell site that may be, under certain load conditions, very congested, one might argue I have exhausted spectrum on that site,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean I have exhausted spectrum across an entire market,” or nationally, he said.