The landmark order reforming the USF and intercarrier compensation system was a bastion of reasonableness, the FCC argued in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday. In two briefs totaling more than 130 pages -- one devoted to USF issues, the other to ICC issues -- the commission argued its 2011 USF/ICC order was lawful, necessary and well within the FCC’s authority. Challengers to the order are merely “seeking to preserve the status quo,” the FCC said, arguing the claims of overstepping jurisdiction and violating procedure are “baseless."

AT&T believes it can attract new customers -- and keep its existing ones -- because of its Mobile Share shared-data plans, as well as new opportunities in home automation and connected car services, said AT&T Mobility Chief Financial Officer Pete Ritcher Wednesday at a Deutsche Bank investor conference. More than two-thirds of the carrier’s smartphone subscribers -- 31.7 million -- are on tiered data plans like Mobile Share, he said. AT&T said 6.6 million subscribers were on Mobile Share plans as of Q4 (CD Jan 28 p19). Subscribers on Mobile Share plans will likely “buy bigger buckets” of data over time, Ritcher said. “As the usage grows on those devices … then we have an ability to build and sort of capitalize and grow our data revenues that are associated with that,” he said. AT&T hopes to increase revenue from each user on those plans as they begin to upgrade from smartphones using 3G technology to ones that utilize LTE, Ritcher said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated a draft order Wednesday proposing limited trials allowing VoIP providers direct access to numbers for set periods in a few unspecified markets, with regular reporting back to the commission, agency officials said. Genachowski also circulated an NPRM and an NOI further exploring questions about giving VoIP companies like Vonage direct access to numbers. All three items would have to be approved by commissioners.

Furloughs remain on the table at the FCC, though the agency’s Managing Director David Robbins is trying to avoid staff cuts, FCC officials told us as briefings continue at the agency. For FY 2013, the sequester would mean trimming the $341.9 million budget by about 5 percent, or $17 million, to $324.8 million. Questions about the sequester are expected to come up at the March 12 FCC oversight hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee, officials said.

Cybersecurity measures are needed from government agencies originating emergency alert system messages in a newer Web format, and from all participants in the EAS system, after last month’s unauthorized access sparked fake warnings, a Federal Emergency Management Agency official said. Manny Centeno from FEMA’s integrated public alert and warning system office showed participants in the agency’s webinar on IPAWS and that new format, Common Alerting Protocol, the FCC’s Feb. 13 “urgent advisory” to EAS participants. That warning on CAP was issued privately by commission staffers to associations that distributed them to EAS participants -- which include all radio and TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors (CD Feb 14 p8) . State and other officials involved in CAP recommended counterparts in other states start testing that format, and said shorter wireless emergency alerts on mobile devices won’t supplant EAS but complement it.

Progeny LMS CEO Gary Parsons said this week he is confident the FCC will be able to wade through objections to rolling out the company’s proposed 911 location service in the 900 MHz Multilateration Location and Monitoring Service band, but he is not certain when a decision might come from the agency. The proposal continues to be a lightning rod for criticism.

Margin pressures on set-top boxes, and the ability of cable customers to choose their own cable decoder boxes, could drive a new model for set-top distribution in homes, said Keith Kocho, Cisco director-strategy and business development, on a panel at Media Summit New York Tuesday. Within 12 months, Kocho said, the industry will see “something that resembles the handset subsidy model you see in mobility happen in the living room."

Several House and Senate lawmakers are introducing legislation aimed at permitting cellphone users to unlock their phones so they can be used on different networks, they said this week. Momentum to amend U.S. copyright law on cellphone unlocking surged after top telecom officials in the administration advocated this week for legislative fixes to give consumers greater control over their devices (CD March 5 p1).

Aventure Communications is an unlawful telecom scourge, telcos told Iowa state regulators this week in multiple filings. The company has faced scrutiny from the Iowa Utilities Board in the past, and now its opponents insist it’s violating past terms of the board’s orders and creating an ongoing problem. They point specifically to the need for appropriate intrastate high-volume access service rates and traffic pumping allegations, which Aventure attempted to downplay. Several stakeholders had failed to successfully negotiate a rate for what Aventure’s high-volume traffic should cost in 2011, prompting Aventure to initially complain to the board and inspiring several strong counterclaims. Stakeholders still debate what this rate should be. Aventure has operated since the fall of 2005 and is based in Sioux City, Iowa, according to its website.

Sky Angel opened another front this year in its carriage dispute with Discovery Communications. In January, the online video provider, which sells a video service under the FAVE-TV brand, sued Discovery in a federal court over breach of contract allegations. The same contract has been the subject of a nearly three-year program access proceeding at the FCC’s Media Bureau (CD July 16 p7). Sky Angel alleged that Discovery improperly terminated its carriage agreement with Sky Angel in January 2010, a move that Sky Angel claims has cost it more than $500,000 in lost subscriber revenue. It sued for more than $1 million in damages and “specific performance of the affiliation agreement” in U.S. District Court, Greenbelt, Md.