Goodwill between the FCC and broadcasters on spectrum, diminished in the runup to frequency reallocation legislation President Barack Obama signed Feb. 22, ought to get a bump up in the coming months, executives and ex-commission officials said. They said the law all but requires both sides to collaborate so the agency can raise maximum proceeds from selling TV spectrum for wireless broadband use and so broadcasters not volunteering to sell frequencies have channels changed -- or repacked -- with the least amount of viewer and business disruption. Former high-ranking commission officials and industry executives pointed to 2009’s transition to DTV as a model for ways stations and the FCC can work together now.

An Arizona company is marketing license preparation services for spectrum the FCC is not even close to making available, is not accepting applications for, and which may have little value when it does, Communications Daily learned from company documents and interviews. The company, Smartcomm LLC of Phoenix, also has charged up to 280 times what others are charging for similar license preparation services.

Verizon will offer 100 percent refunds for unauthorized third-party charges to landline customers, a practice known as “cramming,” said a settlement released late Wednesday. The telco will also implement several reforms designed to eliminate cramming. The nationwide settlement is the result of a 2009 lawsuit alleging Verizon billed its landline phone customers for charges from third-party companies not authorized by the customer, in violation of federal and state law. “If we went to trial and won, we couldn’t have done better,” lead class counsel John Jacobs told us. “It’s a fabulous, fabulous settlement. It’s remarkable."

The cable industry ramped up efforts to get the FCC’s OK for all-digital systems to scramble the basic-tier (CD Feb 16 p7), to remotely turn on and off video service. Fourteen CEOs wrote Chairman Julius Genachowski asking he not wait any longer to circulate an encryption order, and NCTA CEO Michael Powell lobbied Genachowski on the subject. Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld, who had concerns that consumer electronics relying on encrypted signals won’t get programming, thinks the time has come for the FCC to vote (CD Feb 29 p18), with docket 11-169 (http://xrl.us/bmwmw8) having a sufficient record as long as poor customers are made whole. Boxee, the most frequent CE filer against encryption, said its concerns haven’t been addressed by operators.

Release of a report on the 1755-1850 MHz band is still on the way, though it has taken some time to wrap up review of the report by other federal agencies, NTIA head Larry Strickling said Thursday during a meeting of the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee. Meanwhile, NTIA Associate Administrator Karl Nebbia warned that spectrum sharing will be a fact of life for years to come if all or parts of the band are reallocated for broadband. Wireless carriers have long viewed 1755-1780 MHz as their top priority for reallocation for commercial use.

A couple dozen stations’ public files are now online, posted by a researcher for a nonprofit that seeks such disclosure. That’s before the FCC moves to make all TV broadcasters put most of the files now in studios on the commission’s website. After several years of on-again, off-again work, the New America Foundation is making public documents it copied at radio and TV stations in some of the U.S.’s largest markets and some smaller cities. The files are “geomapped” with stations’ locations, so visitors to the site (http://xrl.us/bmwmv5) can see if an outlet in their area has its file available, said Media Policy Fellow Tom Glaisyer of NAF’s Open Technology Initiative. “If the FCC adopts the rules they're considering, this is what it could look like."

FCC plans to consider a rulemaking notice (CD March 1 p9) this month on flexible terrestrial use of 2 GHz mobile satellite service spectrum seem to complicate Dish Network’s plans for using that spectrum, said analysts. While there is disagreement over the actual impact to Dish, it may give the company some more regulatory certainty in terms of FCC expectations, they said. Dish is seeking FCC approval to take over 2 GHz licenses from DBSD and TerreStar and use the spectrum for terrestrial service through waivers of MSS rules.

The White House offered a scathing criticism of an alternative cybersecurity bill introduced Thursday by a group of Republican senators. Meanwhile, AT&T and USTelecom hailed the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information, and Technology (SECURE IT) Act, which competes directly with the Senate Cybersecurity Act (S-2105). The SECURE IT Act is sponsored by GOP Sens. John McCain or Arizona; Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas; Chuck Grassley of Iowa; Saxby Chambliss of Georgia; Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Dan Coats of Indiana; Ron Johnson of Wisconsin; and Richard Burr of North Carolina.

A Georgia bill would rapidly eliminate the state’s $16 million Universal Access Fund (UAF), which funds rural phone companies and is financed by larger telecom companies like AT&T. HB-855 (http://xrl.us/bmwmgc) is being considered in the House. It would ignore the 20-year phase out of the UAF passed in 2010 and instead eliminate it by 2015. If the bill were passed, the UAF would be reduced to $6 million in 2013, to $3 million in 2014 and be eliminated in 2015.

Rural Utilities Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein defended the pace of broadband stimulus projects and the failure of Open Range Communications, at a budget hearing Thursday of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture. The White House’s FY 2013 budget proposal provides “adequate” broadband funding for rural areas, Adelstein said. RUS is studying the impact of the recent Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation overhaul, he said.