The FCC isn’t disrupting an online video distributor (OVD) arbitration condition for OVDs to get programming from Comcast and its NBCUniversal when an Internet video company already has deals from other broadcast, cable or film content owners, a Media Bureau spokeswoman confirmed. Ex-bureau Chief Monica Desai, who met Thursday with current Chief Bill Lake and other bureau staffers, reported they told her that last week’s public notice (CD March 14 p14) on the Comcast/NBCUniversal deal condition won’t interrupt ongoing arbitration. Six of the biggest U.S. programmers and Desai’s client -- Project Concord Inc., which has sought arbitration -- had objected to the change Comcast and NBCUniversal sought.

The cable industry it will start deploying this year digital set-top boxes with a “light sleep” mode that will offer energy savings of 20 percent or more. The energy savings evaluation was made by CableLabs’ Energy Lab. As part of an energy conservation initiative announced in November (CD Nov 21 p6), the six largest cable companies, with 85 percent of U.S. cable subscribers, committed to deploying a “light sleep” mode for new set-tops beginning in September. Light sleep is a low-power condition that allows essential activities in the box to continue while energy use associated with other tasks, such as channel tuning and video display, is stopped when the box isn’t in use. Monday’s announcement by CableLabs follows efforts under way at the Department of Energy to set mandatory power use limits for set-tops.

The FCC should rethink the spectrum parts of the National Broadband Plan in light of the experience of the last two years, said Blair Levin, manager of the plan, and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell last week in separate interviews. Friday marked the two-year anniversary of the formal release of the plan, at the FCC’s March 2010 meeting.

With Canoe having shifted its focus away from pursuing interactive TV applications and ad technology (CD Feb 23 p8), other interactive TV application developers and technology vendors say cable distributors will still have a role in growth of interactive TV. Without Canoe, a joint venture of the major cable operators, coordinating efforts among its members, companies that want to reach cable subscribers with interactive TV products will often have to cut individual deals with various distributors.

TV stations didn’t back down from their political ad file proposal, envisioning putting online some but not all information in that part of the public inspection file now kept on paper at broadcaster studios. Lawyers for the 11 owners of 200-plus stations that made an alternative proposal to what’s in a rulemaking notice answered Media Bureau staffers’ questions last week on whether they'd amend the plan. The broadcasters are willing to provide some additional information than what they proposed last month, though not as much as nonprofit groups that seek more disclosure want or as much as the rulemaking sought (CD March 2 p7).

The Supreme Court’s Jones privacy decision is rippling through electronic communications well beyond the GPS tracking it involved, less than two months after the ruling came down, legal experts said. The decision was “very cautious” but “very important,” leaving the court “potentially poised to change 40 years” of law on Americans’ privacy in relation to the government, law Professor Stephen Henderson of the University of Oklahoma said on an American Bar Association webcast. The court decided Jones “on the narrowest possible ground, but they certainly left the door open in the years to come” for litigation to decide profound questions concerning technologies besides GPS, said moderator William Baker of Wiley Rein.

The FCC’s proposal to block LightSquared’s ability to provide terrestrial service would violate the company’s constitutional rights, LightSquared said in an FCC filing Friday. The agency has said it plans to rescind the waiver and suspend the company’s underlying ancillary terrestrial component. Sprint Nextel also said Friday it will terminate its network sharing agreement with LightSquared.

The White House plans to apply its new privacy guidelines to the mobile applications environment, said Danny Weitzner, policy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, during an event Friday hosted by the Consumer Federation of America. Weitzner said he hopes the administration’s Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights will encourage new codes of conduct in developing markets like the mobile space.

Clear federal/state jurisdiction on communications services is key for ensuring service quality and reliability, speakers said during a conference call organized by the National Regulatory Research Institute Thursday. They cited increasing product choice, consolidation and competition as well as reduced traditional state regulation and oversight as four key trends that have reshaped the telecom industry in recent years.

Prepaid phone card companies, without an association since the International Prepaid Communications Association folded in late 2005, are forming the American PrePaid Phonecall Association (APPPA) and recruiting members, said Executive Director Gene Retske. The group, which has 12 founding members, claims to already represent the majority of the U.S. prepaid calling market. It has established standards for all U.S. prepaid phone call providers who want to join, the association said Thursday.