The technology joint venture, marketing and strategic partnerships between Verizon Wireless and the SpectrumCo members will proceed immediately, while the companies pursue regulatory approval of their proposed $3.6 billion spectrum deal (CD Dec 5 p5), cable executives said Monday at a UBS conference in New York. “The commercial agreements … are very separate from the spectrum sale,” said Comcast Vice Chairman Michael Angelakis. “Those agreements are in place and the teams are meeting,” he said.

The Washington Independent Telecommunications Association, which represents small telcos in the state, alleged that competitive local exchange carrier PAETEC has been avoiding access charges. The group asked the state commission to stop PAETEC from its activities and revoke its authority to operate in the state. It’s uncertain what the FCC’s order on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation would do to state access charge disputes, said the group and PAETEC.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Sen. Al Franken D-Minn., and Consumer Watchdog are asking federal regulators to investigate whether mobile software firm Carrier IQ’s practices violate consumer privacy rights. And groups like the Center for Digital Democracy are calling for federal privacy legislation. The company came under fire after reports that its software, installed on many major carriers’ smartphones, collects and transmits potentially sensitive data about device users. Carriers using Carrier IQ claimed they solely use the service to improve and maintain network performance.

Core Communications appealed the FCC’s Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation order Friday. The USF/ICC appeal is apparently the first legal challenge to the commission’s USF overhaul (CD Oct 28 p1). But it will not be the last, telecom experts have predicted. It was filed in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. It’s a mere two pages.

A spectrum venture of three cable companies agreed to sell 122 AWS licenses to Verizon Wireless for $3.6 billion, the companies said Friday. SpectrumCo is a joint venture of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, and the licenses cover 259 million POPs. The consortium was the third-highest bidder in the AWS-1 auction, which ended in September 2006, behind only T-Mobile and Verizon. The deal likely faces pushback similar to that aimed at AT&T for its proposed buy of 700 MHz spectrum from Qualcomm, a smaller deal now stalled at the commission. (See story in this issue.)

Smaller TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors get a break from having to test the noise levels of ads that others insert into shows they carry. MVPDs with fewer than 400,000 subscribers and TV stations with annual sales below $14 million won’t need to regularly test the volume levels of all ads, and only monitor those they insert into programming. Bigger stations and systems would need to do testing to ensure programming from national cable channels or broadcast networks meets the Advanced TV Systems Committee’s A/85 recommended practice for keeping ads not much louder than the regular programming they appear within.

AT&T’s proposed buy of 700 MHz spectrum licenses from Qualcomm faces hurdles, and possibly got more complicated Friday with the announcement that Verizon Wireless agreed to buy 122 AWS licenses from SpectrumCo, the cable consortium. The AT&T/Qualcomm order is still in the commission’s electronic voting system. Chairman Julius Genachowski has voted for the item and Commissioner Robert McDowell is likely to as well. But Genachowski would still need another vote from Commissioners Michael Copps or Mignon Clyburn. It isn’t clear either is prepared to vote yes, FCC officials said.

Media consolidation has taken a toll on the quality of journalism, FCC officials and media professionals said. Technological advances have given people better access to information, but much of that information isn’t as in-depth and unique to various communities as it used to be, said FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps and other media professionals Thursday at a forum in Atlanta.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, may add spectrum auction authority to a larger spending package that’s to be voted on this week on the House floor, a Boehner spokesman told us Friday. Boehner is discussing using spectrum as a “pay-for” for a payroll tax extension, the yearly pay correction for doctors serving Medicare patients and other items in the package, the spokesman said. If the spectrum proposal goes straight to the floor, it would skip a vote by the full Commerce Committee that had also been expected for this week. The House Communications Subcommittee approved draft spectrum legislation on Thursday (CD Dec 2 p1) amid objections by Democrats.

The FCC will soon open a proceeding taking off from BART’s adoption of a policy for cutoffs of wireless service, a commission official said Friday. The Wireless and Public Safety bureaus and the general counsel have been involved in the issue and will continue to be, the official said in an interview. He wouldn’t specify the nature of the proceeding or when the notice might be issued. And he wouldn’t say whether it would wrap in the handling of petitions that have challenged a shutdown by BART in August, before it had a policy.