Work on FCC implementation of 2010 legislation to temper the volume of all broadcast and pay-TV ads (CD Aug 3 p8) is picking up steam. Career officials at the Media Bureau and other offices have spent significant time in recent weeks working on CALM Act rules. The staffers are in the final stages of drafting an order, expected to circulate this month, that would require TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors to help ensure that the sound level of all ads they carry don’t significantly exceed that of the programming they appear within.

Clearwire is pushing for a new agreement with Sprint by month’s end, in advance of a $236.9 million interest payment on its debt due Dec. 1, analysts said Tuesday at the Wells Fargo investor conference in New York. Clearwire CEO Erik Prusch declined to comment on the timing for completing an agreement with Sprint, but discussions appear to have warmed since Sprint said in early October that it would make its own 4G network and stop selling phones that would work with Clearwire’s, analysts said. Since then, Clearwire and Sprint have signed a memorandum of understanding on technical specs for LTE, agreeing to work together on an “eco-system” and site selection, Prusch said.

The Coalition to Save Our GPS said the FCC should permanently bar LightSquared from using the upper 10 MHz of its spectrum for wireless broadband. The coalition said even if LightSquared gets FCC clearance to use the lower 10 MHz for broadband, the upper 10 MHz should be off limits. LightSquared fired back, saying the coalition is only revisiting old arguments. The upper 10 MHz band is part of the spectrum identified for wireless by the FCC last year in its National Broadband Plan.

The FCC is looking to revive some media ownership rules approved during Kevin Martin’s chairmanship, while ending a bar on one company holding radio and TV stations in the same market. A rulemaking notice that circulated Friday afternoon for the quadrennial review (CD Nov 7 p19) proposes to reinstate some cross-ownership rules approved 3-2 in 2007.

Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn urged critics of the recent Universal Service Fund changes not to take their claims to court. “Instead, I ask that we work together to complete and perfect these reform efforts,” Clyburn told an audience Tuesday in Boston for a broadband conference. “By doing so, we can ensure that the transition of the fund from voice to broadband opens the door for every citizen to become a part of our digital economy. When that occurs, the decade-long struggle to achieve these reforms will have been well worth the effort.”

Democratic support appears thin in the Senate for a joint resolution of disapproval to void the FCC’s net neutrality rules from December. But with debate set to start Wednesday and a vote Thursday, many on the SJ Res 6 supporters’ hit list are keeping mum on how they will vote. Assuming all 47 Republicans unite behind the resolution, four Democratic votes are needed to pass it. The White House on Tuesday threatened a veto if it’s passed.

The Recording Academy, sponsor of the Grammy Awards, asked the FCC to allow the sale of non-commercial broadcasting stations only to entities that plan to offer local programming to the original area of license. In an ex parte filing, the organization also requested a review into ownership and control of non-commercial broadcast stations as part of the FCC’s review of media ownership rules. While the issue of local programming is important to public broadcasting and the FCC adopted proposals to ensure that programming serves the needs of local communities, some broadcast policy experts said RA’s request could be seen as asking the commission to interfere with a station’s programming decisions.

A coming review of satellite export control changes by the U.S. departments of Defense and State is the necessary next step before legislation on the same issue makes headway, said industry and government officials. While HR-3288, introduced by House Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Howard Berman, D-Calif. last week (CD Nov 3 p13), created a vehicle for such a change, the final Section 1248 report will be a necessary step, they said. The bill would give the Executive Office of the President back the authority to remove commercial satellites and components from a munitions list closely regulated by the State Department.

Univision’s Los Angeles and Miami TV stations will participate in the Mobile Content Venture’s (MCV) Dyle mobile DTV service next year, Univision and MCV said Tuesday. “Univision in L.A. and Miami are not only going to be upgrading their stations to broadcast in mobile, they'll be encrypting the mobile signal in the format that’s compatible with the application we're developing,” said MCV co-General Manager Salil Dalvi said. He’s also senior vice president of mobile platform development at NBCUniversal Digital Distribution.

Space technology such as GPS is increasingly important in people’s daily lives and the space industry is one of Europe’s “great success stories,” said Jacqueline Foster, vice president of the European Parliament Sky & Space Intergroup, Tuesday at a Brussels conference on EU space policy. Despite Europe’s financial woes, EU lawmakers support a “robust space program,” she said. Satellite-enabled communications can play a key role in delivering very high-speed broadband and other goals of the digital agenda, but the industry must be taken more seriously in policy decisions, a representative from the commercial sector said.