TORONTO -- Scrambling to upgrade to Internet Protocol video transmission as quickly as possible, four of North America’s largest cable operators don’t think existing cable set-top boxes, TV sets and other legacy video devices will disappear from homes for many years to come. At the Society of Cable Telecom Engineers Canadian conference last week, top engineering executives from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Rogers Communications and Bright House Networks said they view IP video as the best way to deliver more advanced features and applications to subscribers, such as multi-screen video, network DVR service, interactive TV applications and converged services. They see IP video as the best way to reach the rapidly growing number of new IP-enabled devices, including smart TVs, game consoles, tablets and smart phones.

The FCC took the next step toward its goal of digitizing U.S. schools by 2017. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan hosted a meeting Thursday with education technology executives, including leaders from Apple, Discovery Education and the Leading Education by Advancing Technology (LEAD) Commission, to discuss concrete steps to meet the challenge to digitize the U.S. education system. Genachowski and Duncan have challenged U.S. schools to switch to using only digital textbooks in five years and endorsed the Digital Textbook Collaborative, an initiative to meet that goal (CD Feb 10 p4).

NTIA’s 1755-1850 MHz report could be bad news for Verizon, SpectrumCo and Cox and their proposed spectrum deal. The long timetables and huge price tags baked into Tuesday’s report mean more pressure on the FCC as it reviews whether to approve the sale of AWS licenses from the cable operators to Verizon, commission officials said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has asked the FCC to be flexible in its system for waivers of the USF/intercarrier compensation order, so the Rural Utilities Service has the flexibility it needs to adjust RUS loans held by rural carriers, Secretary Tom Vilsack told the Agriculture Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. “If we have it then I think we can make adjustments,” he said. His comments came in response to questioning by Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who in a February letter to Vilsack expressed his concern over how the order would affect the viability of the rural telecom companies, many of whom take out loans from the RUS.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell sought feedback on letting TV stations lease spectrum in the rulemaking the agency’s expected to start in what he expects to be a multi-year effort to auction the frequencies of broadcasters who agree to participate (CD March 15 p1). He’s happy Chairman Julius Genachowski is “talking more and more about the need to have flexible uses of spectrum” as the commission seeks to reallocate frequencies to wireless broadband. On Internet governance, McDowell said U.S. companies and the government must step up efforts to oppose a growing number of nations’ desire to have authority he said could include charging for international over-the-top video and other traffic (http://xrl.us/bmztw6). Much of McDowell’s Q-and-A with Media Institute President Patrick Maines was devoted to Internet and spectrum matters.

House Republicans said they were skeptical about the need for federal privacy legislation during a House Commerce Manufacturing Subcommittee hearing Thursday. Meanwhile, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz and NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling urged Congress to set baseline privacy standards to ensure that websites and data brokers offer fundamental privacy protections to consumers.

Senators debated whether the government needs to step in to require more regulation of mobile banking. The discussion came during a hearing Thursday of the Senate Banking Committee. Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said more hearings are on the way in an area expected to grow in importance as consumers make more use of smartphones for financial transactions of all kinds.

The House Communications Subcommittee plans to work on cybersecurity, broadband stimulus, market competition and spectrum, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said this week. He also expects to do oversight on the national public safety network. He questioned the need for an FCC rule requiring broadcasters to post public files online, as well as legislation to stop employers from asking for Facebook passwords. His comments came in a recorded show scheduled to be shown this weekend on C-SPAN’s The Communicators.

SILICON VALLEY -- Privacy problems are among the most stubborn of a cluster of obstacles to a shift to mobile and Internet technologies that healthcare needs for financial and service reasons, executives said. Telehealth requires a high “level of invasiveness” in patients’ homes, “in their personal lives,” said Dr. Michael Blum, chief medical information officer of the University of California-San Francisco’s Medical Center. It calls for monitoring of patients’ weight and activities including eating and movement, he said late Wednesday at the Institute for Health Technology Transformation’s Health IT Summit, and only “a small group accepts that.” Dr. Yan Chow, Kaiser Permanente’s director of advanced technology, said there are techniques for placing devices for digital monitoring and communication so they are unobtrusive.

A New Hampshire deregulation bill that sailed through the state Senate recently is making its way through the House. Supporters said SB-48, which will loosen retail service requirements on regulatory reporting, service quality penalties and rates, has broad industry support and will be passed this year. However, independent ISPs like Destek Group see deregulation as bad news for consumers and small ISPs in the state. The bill would overturn a New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission decision to regulate VoIP.