Most ISPs are holding steady in the FCC’s third wireline broadband speed report (http://fcc.us/YkWygE). Industry representatives were generally pleased with the results, with the test showing ISPs continuing to meet or exceed advertised speeds even though consumers are migrating to ever faster speed tiers. Frontier Communications got a shout out as the most improved, increasing 13 percentage points from the last reporting period for peak download speeds. But some questioned a specific reporting methodology they said makes AT&T look like it’s not meeting its advertised speed.

CableLabs, with member CEOs seeking faster development, should be “bold” in the technological ideas it explores and helps brings to fruition, CEO Phil McKinney said. McKinney, who took over from Paul Liao in June, said his mantra is pursuing “BHAGs": Bold, hairy, audacious goals. “Two or three of those BHAGs” can “really lift the entire industry,” he said in a videotaped interview on C-SPAN that was to have been shown this weekend. Cable BHAGs include the transition to all-Internet Protocol networks, an “explosion of devices” and making network technology “transform” to be “open to” such as range of devices, he said.

There’s a “very urgent” need to address cybersecurity issues, “but it is also a long-term problem,” said White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel during an event Friday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We didn’t get here overnight, and we're not going to get ourselves out of this situation overnight either,” he said. President Barack Obama signed an executive order on cybersecurity Feb. 12, which he said would help “strengthen our cyberdefenses by increasing information sharing, and developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy.” The order, among other things, directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology to lead an effort in conjunction with other federal agencies and industry stakeholders to develop a Cybersecurity Framework of voluntary best practices and other standards that could be used to strengthen the cybersecurity defenses of critical infrastructure (CD Feb 14 p1).

The state of Iowa is looking to sell or lease its fiber network. The government released a detailed request for proposals this month for the sale or lease of thousands of miles of the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), a request that the Legislature called for two years ago. Bids are due April 30, and it wants to “conduct the sale or lease process in a manner which will lead to execution of definitive agreements with the successful offeror to be submitted to the Governor’s Office for guidance no later than June 11, 2013,” according to the accompanying RFP memo (http://xrl.us/bog75d). The bill creating the Iowa network passed nearly a quarter century ago in 1989.

MPAA is a part of the conversation within the Obama administration on questions about gun violence, said Chairman Chris Dodd. “I care about it deeply,” he said Friday during a luncheon speech at the National Press Club in Washington (http://bit.ly/YwiWTg). Over the years, the MPAA content ratings system has evolved, he said: There are more descriptors involved and “a lot of the technology has changed.” The content platforms “provide so many more places where visual entertainment can be seen,” he said. “We're working to provide the assistance and support we can in that area.” It’s an important issue and “we're going to be working with the administration and others to find out the ways that we can be supportive,” he said.

Broadcasters again told the FCC to limit licensees’ ownership reporting requirements on FCC Form 323. The NAB said (http://bit.ly/ZfGVvY) the FCC should not require licensees to report ownership of those who hold nonattributable interests. If the commission moves ahead with requiring such reporting, it should let nonattributable owners use special-use FCC Registration Numbers (FRNs) rather than traditional FRNs, it said. Broadcasters in docket 07-294 said they are concerned that standard FRNs require individuals to submit their Social Security numbers to the FCC. In joint comments, Beasley, CBS and Emmis said the information collection requirements proposed in a December rulemaking notice would deter investments in broadcasting (http://bit.ly/VldzIZ).

BRUSSELS -- More sophisticated devices, more use of mobile applications and increased network speeds are expected to be the main drivers for commercial services over the next 10 years, executives working on a European Commission (EC) study said. Executives differed over the impact of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Wi-Fi for network offloading and small cells may be integrated in the future, an Ericsson executive said. The study focuses on the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. with an extrapolation of results to the 27 countries in the EU.

DirecTV’s 2012 fourth-quarter revenue increased 8 percent to $8.05 billion, compared to the same period in 2011. The strength of DirecTV and the Sky Brasil premium brand continues to drive consumer demand, market share gains and top-line growth, said CEO Mike White. The full-year growth of the Latin America and U.S. markets “soared to all-time highs,” he said Thursday during a webcast. DirecTV had its largest annual net subscriber gain in history, at 3.8 million net customers added in 2012, he said. “We're exiting 2012 with over 35 million households throughout the Americas."

Discovery Communications has yet to give pay-TV distributors so-called “TV Everywhere” rights and has similarly turned down their offers to license the pay-TV programmer’s shows to Netflix-like subscription-VOD (SVOD) platforms, CEO David Zaslav told analysts Thursday. Though the company reached some carriage agreements in 2012, they did not include TV Everywhere rights, he said. “We could not determine what the right value was,” he said. “It was amicable but we agreed to in this case to table it.” Discovery has been among the few major programmers that doesn’t stream full-length shows online (CD Aug 15 p3).

As USTelecom waits for the FCC to act on the more controversial elements of its petition for forbearance from legacy dominant carrier regulations, the industry has been engaging in soul-searching about which 20th-century regulations should be brought into a modern world. A USTelecom event Thursday morning (http://bit.ly/WrdL8I) set out to determine “the point” of voice regulation. Panelists agreed the government has a role in ensuring 911 calls go through, but differed on how far the government should go in mandating reliability in general.