Commissioner Robert McDowell cast a dissenting vote on the FCC’s Section 706 broadband competition report, released late Friday (CD May 23 p1). For a second year, the report found that broadband is not being “reasonably and timely” deployed. “Last year’s negative conclusion was unsettling considering that America had made impressive improvements in developing and deploying broadband infrastructure and services,” McDowell said. This year’s report contains the “same flawed analyses and conclusions” but with a “novel rationale” for its conclusions, he said. “This year’s report makes a surprising leap by arguing that Congress did not mean ‘physical’ deployment when referring to ‘deployment’ and ‘availability,'” he said. “Instead of looking to the plain statutory language to determine Congress’ intent, however, the Commission relies on legislative report language to argue that even if broadband is physically deployed to a particular area but is not affordable, it is not considered available under Section 706.” Through an “attempted re-interpretation” of Section 706(b) of the Communications Act, “the Commission appears to continue a trend towards more regulation and ever increasing authority over broadband and the Internet,” the Republican commissioner said. Greg Walden, R-Ore., chairman of the Communications Subcommittee, indicated in a statement Monday he agrees with McDowell’s concerns. “It’s difficult to understand how an objective look at the facts can lead the FCC to conclude that our progress on broadband is lacking,” Walden said. “It is one thing to recognize that some areas of the country -- typically rural -- are difficult to serve; it is quite another to say that broadband is not being reasonably and timely deployed to all Americans. The former only requires the FCC to consider reform of the Universal Service Fund; the latter is a claimed excuse to impose network neutrality and to further regulate the Internet."

For the second month in a row, the FCC won’t take on any high-profile issues at its monthly meeting. The agenda for the June 9 open meeting lists four items, none likely to excite much attention (CD May 23 p6). The May meeting’s agenda was similarly light (CD May 13 p 9).

Pay-TV interests ratcheted up criticism of terrestrial broadcasters Monday, in a fight over whether the FCC should change rules on retransmission consent deals. Terrestrial TV is archaic, a “needless expense” that’s “propped up” by outdated rules for a technology with a “brilliant run to obsolescence,” wrote an economist who often opposes regulation. The paper, heavy with historical reviews of regulation and technology, was paid for by pay-TV companies and others seeking retransmission-consent changes. In it, George Mason University Professor Thomas Hazlett backed reallocating TV stations’ frequencies for newer technologies like mobile broadband. The NAB, which along with its members has said retrans works, criticized the paper, while the CEA said it offered some good points on reallocating spectrum.

RLEC executives and rural and mid-size telco association leaders pressed their case for universal service reform with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski as the chairman toured a beef-packing plant in Nebraska, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association said in an ex parte notice released on the FCC website on Friday. The executives were from Diller Telephone and Great Plains Communications, NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, OPASTCO President John Rose and Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance President Genny Morelli, as well as leaders from the Nebraska Telecommunications Association and Iowa Telecommunications Association, the ex parte filing said. “During the tour, the Industry Representatives discussed the challenges and opportunities associated with deploying and operating broadband-capable, multi-use networks in rural America,” the ex parte notice said. “They also emphasized the importance to communities like Diller of ensuring that such network investments can be sustained, advanced and upgraded in the face of potential federal reforms to the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation framework.” The notice was posted on dockets 10-90, 09-51, 07-135, 05-337, 01-92, 96-45 and 03-109.

LOS ANGELES -- After years of being positioned in potential accessories, microdisplays are trying to crack the embedded cellphone market, powered by the arrival of direct green lasers, industry executives said at the Society for Information Display show.

DALLAS -- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is “confident” that her joint spectrum bill with Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., will get through both houses of Congress and be signed this year, she said in response to our question after a speech at the TIA convention. Hutchison said the bill has “changed enormously” since Rockefeller initially introduced it, making it more appealing to both parties.

DALLAS -- The prospect of wireless security regulation is “changing the basic incentives of many management structures,” said Sam Curry, RSA chief technology officer. RSA is the security division of storage hardware and data recovery firm EMC. But officials at the TIA convention said that may not be happening quickly enough as malware for Android operating systems, for example, proliferates with a compounded growth rate of 400 percent monthly. “Security is a dirty word at many companies,” Curry said. “The language of risk at the C-level and elsewhere is not always fully developed.” Chief financial officers see security as just a cost to be managed, said Phil Attfield, CEO of Sequitur Labs. He said they need to start seeing security as a “profit center."

OMAHA, Neb. -- The FCC shouldn’t fall for the “misperception” that satellite can’t provide effective voice and broadband service, WildBlue Vice President Lisa Scalpone said late Wednesday at a commission workshop on changing the Universal Service Fund to pay for Internet service. “We don’t want to be foreclosed,” she told federal and state regulators, including FCC members Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn. ViaSat, WildBlue’s parent, is scheduled to launch ViaSat-1 in July. Scalpone said that once that satellite is operational, WildBlue will go from download speeds of 2 Mbps to 12 Mbps. “At least let satellite perform in pilot programs,” she said. “We'll have the programs up and running."

OMAHA, Neb. -- Industry and public interest advocates have yet to devise a comprehensive proposal addressing all the problems of the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at a commission roundtable. “We want to see more from stakeholders in this program, and we want to see it quickly.” The chairman led a public forum on the pending overhaul late Wednesday at the University of Nebraska at Omaha to close a day-long set of discussions. He reiterated the four corners of his reform program: Moving to a broadband fund and phasing down intercarrier comp rates, (including intrastate revenues); “controlling costs and constraining the size of the fund;” “demanding accountability;” and “market-driven and incentive-based policies to maximize the impact of scarce program resources.”

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