All VoIP calls look and feel like traditional phone calls and as a result, the FCC needs to protect the public by imposing 911 location-accuracy requirements on outgoing only VoIP calls, the Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials told the agency in comments on a July further notice of proposed rulemaking. But the VON Coalition said imposing the mandate on outgoing only services is a step too far. The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions said requirements should be based on the way a device is physically attached to the access network, not on the nature of the voice technology. ATIS said industry will need some time to develop technology needed for any mandate.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Comcast’s vision of delivering high-quality video services to multiple devices in the home, among them its new hybrid IP-QAM device in field trials, includes HTML5 as an application platform, said Senior Vice President Steve Reynolds. At the TVNext conference Tuesday, he said the emergence of idiosyncratic application platforms has been a step in the wrong direction.

To make networks safer from botnets and other malware, public-private partnerships and a minimal role for government are the best approaches, said officials from the FCC, Commerce Department and other agencies. Any framework for protecting and notifying end-users of an attack should be voluntary and comprised of input from multiple stakeholders, they said Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Recent efforts in Washington to reduce government spending have led to another barrier to a wide-scale use of hosting of government payloads on commercial satellites, panelists said Tuesday at the Hosted Payload Summit in Washington. While hosted payloads have long been touted as a cost-saving tool, some satellite operators have had trouble making that point because hosted payloads are considered “something separate” and extra, said Rich Pang, director of hosted payloads at SES Government Solutions. It’s common to hear from the government that there’s “no new money,” he said.

The Supreme Court is increasingly seen as likely to side with broadcasters and rule against the government by striking down the FCC’s censuring of broadcasts with fleeting expletives or brief nudity, industry lawyers specializing in the First Amendment said Tuesday. They said last term’s rulings in cases touching on violent videogames in Brown, access to data in IMS Health and allowing a funeral protest in Snyder all show a court generally inclined to side with First Amendment petitioners. Panelists spoke at an event at the MPAA that was organized by the Media Institute.

The FCC might not adopt any existing plan to revamp the Universal Service Fund in its entirety, state officials said at a webinar by the National Regulatory Research Institute Monday. Even if the commission is to adopt an order for the Oct. 27 meeting, it might not be a final order, said James Cawley, chair of the state member of the Federal/State USF Joint Board.

A House Communications Subcommittee markup of spectrum legislation appears likely to get pushed into next week, with no markup scheduled so far, public safety officials said during a press conference Monday. A markup was expected Tuesday or Wednesday (CD Sept 28 p13). The bill before the subcommittee does not allocate the 700 MHz D-block to public safety, a top goal of many public safety officials.

State regulators are taking their case against preemption in intercarrier compensation regime reform to the Hill, telecom lobbyists and a NARUC official told us Monday. The FCC is weighing reform proposals from incumbents that would preempt state rates and lower them to $0.0007 per minute -- the so-called “triple-zero” option -- within five years for price cap companies and eight years for rate-of-return companies. State officials, having endorsed the FCC’s reform process, are now meeting with legislators, hoping to stall preemption, said telecom lobbyists and NARUC Legislative Director Brian O'Hara.

CTIA said the FCC should shorten the collocation approval shot clock imposed on local communities and permit tower collocations by right. The assertion came in reply comments on the commission’s April acceleration of a broadband deployment notice of inquiry. CTIA said the FCC has plenty of authority under the Communications Act to impose additional siting rules on local governments. Major associations representing local governments disagreed.

NPR’s incoming CEO Gary Knell must work to bring it out of political turmoil and to expand the reach of its public radio network, industry executives told us. NPR needs a leader who can bring the entire organization, including its headquarters, the business arm and the network of stations, into what’s necessary for the future of public radio, said Caryn Mathes, general manager at WAMU(FM) Washington: “It’s a complex organization existing in a really challenging climate right now.” To address the “exploding technological climate,” the changing demographics of the public radio audience and efforts to defund public broadcasting, the CEO needs vision, courage and a backbone, she said.