Easing rules around spectrum use, streamlining rules for satellite license applications and satellite export control reform efforts will likely remain the top satellite-related priorities at the FCC and from a broader administration perspective under a Barack Obama presidential term, industry executives said. The agenda for satellite proceedings isn’t expected to change if FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski leaves his post, as some think he will next year, they said. Genachowski said Friday he has no plans to leave (CD Nov 13 p3).

BALTIMORE -- State regulators faced the ramifications of AT&T’s recent petition on a transition to Internet Protocol infrastructure and its $14 billion rural investment at their November meeting. NARUC discussed the implications of IP in multiple panels in initial days. AT&T promoted transition planning as Verizon defended its migration of customers off copper. State officials and regulators worried about consumer protections and reliability, and had many questions about what the future would mean for them. The focus centered on AT&T’s announcement and Verizon’s migration of customers, both of which seek to move consumers off traditional networks.

BALTIMORE -- State regulators are confronting an increasingly tortured relationship with the FCC, creating a task force to address it Monday at the NARUC meeting. It consists of seven commissioners and is already official and active. Meanwhile, two NARUC resolutions directly address the fractured FCC relationship, as was expected (CD Nov 2 p12), and NARUC adopted both resolutions as policy Tuesday after they advanced through the telecom subcommittee and committee. One urges FCC referral to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service as well as to the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations on major decisions, and another addresses a pending Supreme Court case on the Chevron doctrine, looking at the risk of federal overreach of authority.

Doubt about the proposed FirstNet architecture’s reliability is widespread, the final round of comments to NTIA show. The agency had requested information about a September proposal of the architecture, with comments due Friday. Several state entities expressed concerns about appropriate hardening and requested the early deployment of pilots. The last round of comments also reveal concern about the FirstNet devices, the FirstNet law’s constitutionality and the question of who should access the eventual network.

The FCC gave ILECs a “five year competitive head start” when it gave them an exclusive five-year right to Phase I Connect America Fund funds for broadband deployment, and an exclusive right of first refusal to obtain CAF funds in Phase II, CLECs and other challengers argued in briefs filed last week. They're challenging the FCC’s USF/intercarrier compensation order in the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The commission’s “disparate treatment” of ILECs and CLECs in distribution of USF support violates its own “competitive neutrality” principle that support mechanisms “neither unfairly advantage nor disadvantage one provider over another,” they said.

Suddenlink will field the TiVo Mini in Q1 as means to expand whole home DVR service, CEO Jerald Kent said Friday on an earnings call. TiVo officials weren’t available for comment, but Suddenlink would be among the first cable operators to offer the product, which originally was to be available this fall.

The FCC mass-media agenda may be light in 2013, compared with work on USF and spectrum issues that will take up much of the eighth floor’s and many bureaus’ and offices’ attention, commission and industry officials predicted in interviews last week. They said Media Bureau staff may find the new year sharpens their focus on spectrum, with Chairman Julius Genachowski hoping to finish an order for the voluntary incentive auction by the end of next year. He would need rules for how to change the channels of stations that don’t agree to sell all or some of their frequencies.

Advocates championed broadband and community networks Thursday and Friday in Danville, Va. Attendees from industry, city and state government and academia were at the Danville Economic Development Conference on municipal broadband, hosted by Broadband Communities Magazine and municipal telecom attorney Jim Baller, conference chairman and a vocal force pushing for these interests.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau Friday approved three requests seeking a waiver of the FCC’s Jan. 1 VHF/UHF narrowbanding deadline. The FCC has said repeatedly it will carefully review all waiver applications from the thousands of licensees that face the deadline to move their operations to a channel bandwidth of no more than 12.5 kHz, or equivalent efficiency and that licensees that don’t comply face penalties from the Enforcement Bureau (CD Sept 28 p3).

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Friday defended the agency’s decision last year to kill the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. His remarks came on CNBC’s Squawk Box, a Wall Street-oriented morning news show. Genachowski insisted he has made no decision to leave the agency, following Barack Obama’s election to a second term as president. He also said the FCC has to consider what new regulation may be needed in light of Sandy and other recent storms that have led to widespread communications outages.