The House and Senate Commerce Committees are working largely behind the scenes on the LightSquared matter rather than in a public forum, despite the increasingly political nature, including claims of undue political influence. The approach likely reflects a willingness to let the FCC, in its role as the expert agency, sort out the spectrum interference issue, said observers. Other committees, including the House Science Committee and House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, haven’t been reluctant to criticize the FCC for its handling of the issue.

Three thousand TV stations that aren’t full service upped their lobbying in Washington this week. Translator and low-power TV station executives said they want those outlets to be held harmless in any voluntary incentive auction the FCC may hold to shift broadcast spectrum to wireless broadband. They want rules changed so LPTV and translator stations can offer broadband themselves, as a secondary service to TV. There haven’t been concrete results yet from the stepped-up lobbying, which also includes the FCC, though some aides to legislators were open to parts of the proposal. The CTIA, which has attacked the efforts in the past, again criticized them. And the low-power proponents said they may not get much of what they want.

Cable advocates have taken their fight against the right-of-first-refusal provisions in America’s Broadband Connectivity plan to Capitol Hill, hoping to keep Congress from supporting the incumbent-backed plan, NCTA Executive Vice President James Assey told us Wednesday. President Michael Powell and Comcast/NBC Universal Washington President Kyle McSlarrow have been pressing their cases on the Hill. The goal is to keep legislators from signing incumbent-circulated letters to the FCC supporting the ABC plan, he said.

Verizon is making progress on labor negotiations with unions representing 45,000 wireline workers, and expects a proposal before Oct. 1, CEO Lowell McAdam said during a Goldman Sachs investor conference Wednesday. The unions have committed to deliver a proposal before Oct. 1, and recent dialogues were encouraging, he said. Verizon seeks to improve margins in its traditional wireline business through a new labor contract, restructuring its business services and continuing to cut costs, he said. The company wants a labor contact that helps improve efficiency, he said.

Cloud computing shows potential but there remain security and infrastructure concerns, House members said at a hearing Wednesday of the House Science Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation. Broadband buildout and spectrum will be critical to maintaining U.S. leadership on cloud systems, a Microsoft official said. Later, at a Hill briefing hosted by TechAmerica, Congressional High-Tech Caucus Co-Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., announced a task force to work on policies promoting advancement of cloud technologies.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is on track to start building its Kansas City fiber network in a month or two, an executive said Wednesday. The biggest surprise in the Google Fiber for Communities program has been difficulty negotiating pole attachments for a company that doesn’t consider itself to fall under the Communications Act regulatory titles for telcos and cable providers that the FCC has given the right to attach, Rick Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel, told us after speaking at the NATOA conference.

GENEVA -- Dealing with telecom fraud and misuse of numbering resources and spurring transmission of certain international calling party numbers dominated developing country proposals for an ITU Council group meeting later this month on preparations for the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). The group is preparing draft proposals for new ITU resolutions, recommendations and opinions and a final report for consideration by the ITU Council and the conference, the ITU website said. The treaty conference on revision or the possible abrogation of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR) is scheduled for next autumn.

The FCC and small and mid-sized wireless carriers are headed to court in November in a case that examines whether the agency acted improperly in a December order that redirected high-cost Universal Service Fund money to a fund that will pay for broadband buildout (CD Jan 4 p2). The carriers challenging the order complain that while the reserved funds may ultimately be used for broadband, the commission does not place them under one of the four existing USF programs. Oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is scheduled for Nov. 15 in Rural Cellular Association v. FCC.

A top U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) expert on migratory birds sharply criticized the FCC for downplaying the risks communications towers pose to birds. The comments came in a draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) released by the commission. The FCC found that while communications tower collisions kill millions of birds each year, that must be weighed against the overall U.S. bird population, estimated at 10 billion birds (CD Aug 30 p5). The FCC is examining its tower siting rules in response to a February 2008 remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (CD Feb 20/08 p2). The FCC, which is taking written comments, held a public hearing Wednesday.

The FCC proposed that captions be as good online as shown on TV. The proposal came in a rulemaking notice implementing Internet Protocol captions under the 21st Century Communications Video and Accessibility Act. The commission took industry concerns into account in not proposing the quality be better, it said in a notice released Monday night. It asked, as expected (CD Sept 9 p7), about adopting recommendations from an FCC panel on the act, proposing to require industry to set deadlines to caption various types of IP programming along the lines of what the Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee sought.