The storm known as Isaac evolved into a category-1 hurricane early Wednesday and continued its assault. States of emergency were declared in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. But by 3 p.m. EDT the storm weakened back into a tropical storm, but still with “life-threatening hazards,” the National Hurricane Center said. Isaac has left many power outages in its wake and plenty of communications frenzy, but little clear picture of how telecom has been affected.

The Office of Management and Budget updated the spectrum parts of Circular A-11, to put more focus on spectrum decisions and the cost of spectrum. The circular provides the rules by which all agencies are expected to abide when they are making procurement decisions. The circular in part nudges federal agencies toward more sharing, consistent with the recent spectrum report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (http://xrl.us/bnnni2), government officials said this week.

The Republican party presented its plans for a new era of telecom policy in its recently ratified 2012 platform (http://xrl.us/bnnmv3). The GOP emphasized the need to repeal the FCC’s net neutrality order, protect global Internet freedom, expand rural broadband access, increase the private sector’s access to spectrum, oppose any attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision on political advertising, and reverse the Justice Department’s decision on Internet gambling, in its long list of 2012 priorities.

CenturyLink shouldn’t avoid New Mexico regulations, said multiple speakers on behalf of the New Mexico attorney general and the U.S. Department of Defense. They submitted extensive testimony released this week on CenturyLink’s September 2011 petition before the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. “The Commission should no longer handicap CenturyLink QC as a competitor in the marketplace,” company Regulatory Operations Director Robert Brigham said in May (http://xrl.us/bnnihz). The petition argues that CenturyLink faces effective competition and should be deregulated.

Apple wants a ban on the sale of eight Samsung mobile phones within the U.S., the company said in a filing Monday in the U.S. District Court, San Jose. Apple is seeking a ban on seven phones in Samsung’s Galaxy line, plus Samsung’s Droid Charge, according to the filing, which followed a federal jury’s decision Friday that Samsung infringed on multiple Apple iPhone design and utility patents. The jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages, though that award is not official until U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh renders a final decision on the case at a hearing Sept. 20. Samsung is likely to appeal (CD Aug 28 p6).

Recent news reports suggesting that the FCC may levy a new “tax” on Internet service are sparking a wave of negative reaction from both free market-oriented and public interest groups. Free Press has had longstanding concerns. On Tuesday, the free-market Heartland Institute joined in. But it remains unclear at this point how much support there is at the FCC for contribution reform or a move to broaden the program to place a fee on retail Internet access service.

U.S. negotiators should emphasize quality over speed when working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) analyst Stephen Ezell said during a teleconference about its new report on the TPP (http://xrl.us/bnnig6). The report says U.S. TPP negotiators should work on decreasing market barriers and increasing intellectual property rights protections among TPP participants. “It’s more important to get the TPP done right than to get it done right away,” Ezell said during the teleconference, saying the terms of the TPP will be seen as a “gold standard” across the world and in the future.

Samsung Electronics vowed to fight on in its legal battle with Apple over allegations of intellectual property violations, saying the company “will continue to do our utmost until our arguments have been accepted” (http://xrl.us/bnnd6h). A jury for the U.S. District Court of Northern California said late Friday that Samsung infringed on multiple Apple design and utility patents related to Apple’s iPhone products, awarding Apple more than $1 billion in damages. The jury did not find for any of the claims Samsung made in a countersuit, in which the company sought $421 million in damages, according to court documents.

A federal appeals court deferred to the Copyright Office’s and lower court’s interpretations of the compulsory license that lets cable operators carry broadcast TV programming without clearing all the rights from individual content owners. The Copyright Office has said consistently that the license does not apply to online video distributors. But ivi.tv had asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a temporary injunction a federal district judge in New York City imposed last year (CD Feb 23/11 p5) that blocked the service after reaching a similar conclusion. Ivi CEO Todd Weaver said in an email that the company is weighing all its options but declined to comment on whether it would appeal the 2nd Circuit’s ruling. “This is not the final chapter to this story,” he said.

Windstream’s request for a waiver of certain Connect America Fund Phase I rules got broad support from ILECs, but others questioned what they said were attempts to expand the limited Phase I funding beyond its intended scope, when broader Phase II funding is on its way. Wireless carriers questioned the numbers, and said the money would be better spent on wireless buildout. Windstream, which only accepted one percent of the commission’s $60 million offer, sought a waiver of the requirement to connect to one unserved location for each $775 received, and a waiver to let it use funds to deploy second-mile fiber (July 25 p3).