Four members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction Friday asked President Barack Obama to instruct the Office of Management and Budget to identify more federal spectrum below 3 GHz that could be reallocated for wireless broadband. Special attention should be given to identifying “paired, internationally-harmonized spectrum ... in sufficient block sizes to support mobile broadband services within the next 10 years,” the letter said. The four ask Obama to respond by Oct. 14.

Sprint will begin a rapid national rollout of LTE on its 1900 MHz spectrum and launch its LTE markets by mid-2012, executives said during an investor briefing Friday. The company expects to complete its Network Vision, the carrier’s plan to consolidate multiple networks into one, by the end of 2013, two years sooner than originally scheduled, they said.

Sprint Nextel and C Spire asked the U.S. District Court in Washington to deny an AT&T motion to exclude them from the lawsuit the government filed against the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. Each previously filed an antitrust complaint against the merger. Judge Ellen Huvelle has indicated she will rule promptly on whether she will allow the two competitors to join the Department of Justice’s case following oral arguments later this month.

NCTA CEO Michael Powell sees signs from Universal Service Fund stakeholders that USF and intercarrier compensation can be reformed, as FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski seeks (CD Oct 7 p1). Industries with different proposals to use some of the USF to pay for broadband and to make changes to ICC generally understand they won’t get everything they want, he said in his first news conference. Powell said Capitol Hill is giving the commission room to work on the order that Genachowski wants voted on at the Oct. 27 meeting, and FCC members seem inclined to engage.

Some public broadcasting professionals are gauging whether federal funding for public broadcasting will be considered among budget cuts, with the creation of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. While the so-called super committee makes plans to eliminate $1.5 trillion of the nation’s deficit, some public broadcasters said the industry’s $440 million annual appropriation is likely too small to be considered. However, funding is still targeted, they said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski offered reassurance Thursday, in a speech at FCC headquarters as he prepared to circulate the FCC’s version of Universal Service Fund and intercarrier comp overhaul, most likely late Thursday evening. Genachowski’s speech was short on details on how his proposal differs from plans already before the commission, particularly the ABC plan. Instead, he reassured consumers they have nothing to fear and that the proposed reforms will, in the long run, drive down the size of their monthly phone bills.

The war of words on spectrum among broadcasters and carriers and their equipment vendors heated up ahead of a long-looming markup of legislation in the House Communications Subcommittee. The latest dispute between NAB, representing TV stations, and CEA, CTIA and member companies on the industry side is over a two-week old report by Citigroup on whether there’s a looming shortage of frequency for wireless broadband. Both sides continue to try to frame the report to illustrate their case of whether there’s a looming spectrum crunch, although stock analysts concluded after a study that carriers could more efficiently use the 538 MHz they already have by upgrading to LTE.

Sandvine expects ISPs to introduce new service tiers based on data gleaned from its network management tools, executives said during its Q3 earnings call Thursday. The new tools, which Sandvine calls the real-time entertainment dashboard and introduced in September, allow ISPs to monitor the over-the-top (OTT) services their subscribers are using and track how much revenue those services are generating on their networks. “Insights into how much revenue is being generated by these over-the-top applications alerts operators to new business opportunities and opens the door to novel marketing strategies,” CEO Dave Caputo said. The service tracks the types of codecs OTT entertainment services are using, the quality of the video and audio being provided to the user, the location of the user, the type of device used to consume the service and the revenue associated with the service, Sandvine said.

Open Range Communications filed for bankruptcy Thursday despite receiving the largest loan commitment under the Agriculture Department’s Rural Development Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program. The Rural Utilities Service approved a loan of $267 million for Open Range in March of 2008, under President George W. Bush appointee RUS Administrator Jim Andrew. Open Range owes RUS about $74 million in secured debt, said the company.

Calls to move toward a voluntary la carte broadcast and cable system, with pay-TV customers picking from more channel packages that are smaller in size and cheaper, are increasing. Programming costs have gone up for multichannel video programming distributors who face subscriber cancellations. MVPD executives told us they'll keep working with programmers to try to get them to agree to de-link carriage of TV stations to carriage of affiliated pay-TV channels, and to get cable-only programmers to give them better terms to package channels in smaller bundles. The CEO of a company with 32 stations that include affiliates of the Big Four broadcast networks said he’s open to a la carte. This time around in the debate on pricing, industry players are suggesting a move to a la carte, rather than the FCC doing the prodding, as it was last decade.