The telecom industry’s transition to an all-Internet Protocol infrastructure will almost certainly require updated regulations, said industry officials and observers we interviewed. But they don’t agree on how to get there. AT&T’s proposal Wednesday that the FCC start a proceeding on the transition from TDM to IP networks (CD Nov 8 p11) raises issues of agency jurisdiction under Section 214 of the Telecom Act, regulatory disruptions and competitive carrier concern of what will happen if they can’t get access to incumbents’ infrastructure, they said.

The chairman of the FCC, regardless of who won Tuesday’s election, would have had to act on some big telecom issues, from pending follow ups to USF orders to preparing for an incentive auction of broadcast spectrum, government and industry officials said. The difference likely will come on merger policy and on what other issues the next chairman decides to target, as well as the issues Julius Genachowski takes on in his remaining time as chairman, with a Democratic FCC more likely to impose regulation on at least a few fronts.

The gavel grab is on for House Commerce Committee Republicans seeking to elevate their position in various subcommittees, according to Capitol Hill aides. The chairman’s seat at one and possibly two other influential subcommittees could be vacant at the end of the 112th Congress, and competition among ambitious Republican members is heating up. The Republican Steering Committee (RSC) will begin meetings next week to determine who will take any vacant subcommittee leadership seats, said one outgoing Republican Congressman. The process will take weeks and subcommittee leadership positions probably won’t be finalized until mid-December, he said.

T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS believe some losses in Q3 resulted from their anticipated merger. T-Mobile said Thursday that the deal drove it into a net loss in Q3, while MetroPCS said it was losing prepaid customers to T-Mobile. No. 4 national carrier T-Mobile saw a net gain of 365,000 prepaid customers during Q3, which came at the expense of MetroPCS, MetroPCS Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter said Thursday during an investor conference. T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom inked a deal in October to join MetroPCS with T-Mobile. The deal would give MetroPCS shareholders $1.5 billion in cash and 26 percent ownership of the combined carrier (CD Oct 4 p1). T-Mobile blamed its overall net loss of $7.8 billion for the quarter on the merger, saying Thursday in an earnings report that the figure included an $8.1 billion “goodwill” non-cash impairment charge related to the deal (http://xrl.us/bnyoqp). The carrier posted a $332 million net profit a year ago.

AT&T will no longer block use of the FaceTime video calling application on its network for at least some of its customers who haven’t subscribed to its “Mobile Share” data plan, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Jim Cicconi said Thursday on the company’s blog. Public interest groups who had raised net neutrality questions about AT&T’s blocking of the application (CD Sept 19 p1) hailed the decision but said it doesn’t go far enough.

Carriers’ capital expenditures may be a boon for small firms and those owned by women, minorities and other disadvantaged groups, the heads of PCIA and USTelecom said Thursday. Building more towers and adding other equipment to meet subscribers’ demand for data applications gives such firms an opportunity, speakers at a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council event said. CEOs Walter McCormick of USTelecom and Jonathan Adelstein of PCIA cited AT&T’s plan disclosed Wednesday to spend $14 billion on wireless and wireline broadband capacity (CD Nov 8 p11).

State regulators will confront the telecom industry’s transformative change to Internet Protocol-based infrastructure at NARUC’s Baltimore meeting, which starts this weekend. They'll be reviewing two new research papers on the topic, as consumers increasingly turn away from the public switched telephone network of switched circuits. The first report questions how broadband voice service quality can be maintained and measured. The second takes a strong look at telecom reliability during natural disasters and the significance of backup power. Both reports from NARUC’s National Regulatory Research Institute have an eye toward the new technology.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is planning to restart a markup of amendments to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), possibly as soon as next week, Capitol Hill and industry officials said. At a panel in San Francisco late Wednesday, Jim Dempsey, vice president-public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the committee will take up the amendments next week. But a spokeswoman for the committee said it’s planning to finish marking up an ECPA amendment bill, but hasn’t set a schedule for the coming work period. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee has no plans to take up ECPA amendments in the lame duck session, a House aide said. Leahy put a September markup on hold after law enforcement agencies raised concerns (CD Oct 26 p5).

Nine data companies’ responses were inadequate to questions about their business practices, said a joint statement Thursday from Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, co-chairs of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, and other lawmakers. “The data brokers’ responses offer only a glimpse of the practices of an industry that has operated in the shadows for years,” the lawmakers said. They want more information about “how they analyze personal information to categorize and rate consumers.” The legislators said they'll “continue our efforts to learn more about this industry and will push for whatever steps are necessary to make sure Americans know how this industry operates and are granted control over their own information” (http://xrl.us/bnyohp).

The FCC Wireless Bureau will likely avoid forcing Dish Network to move its uplink up by 5 MHz to get a waiver to use spectrum for a terrestrial service, agency and industry officials said. The bureau could lean toward placing power limitations at the bottom of Dish’s uplink frequency, the officials said. The FCC plans to make a decision this year on a rulemaking that proposes to allow Dish access to AWS-4 spectrum to build a terrestrial network, they said. Earlier this year, it seemed likely that the bureau would recommend a vote on the forthcoming draft order to make Dish move its uplink up, which the company said would have caused so much interference from adjacent, higher-frequency operations that it would drastically reduce the use of the upper 5 MHz. Now, it seems the bureau instead will ask FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to circulate an order that doesn’t require the move but does mandate lower emissions, agency and industry officials told us.