Gig.U: The University Community Next Generation Innovation Project, will issue a request for information (RFI) in the next 45 days to identify companies interested in providing next-generation networks and services, it said in an open letter Thursday. The idea is for Gig.U member research universities to become potential “testbeds” and customers of the most innovative ultra high speed network technologies. The initiative may attract interest from incumbent local exchange carriers like Windstream and CenturyLink, company officials told us.

USTelecom and Sprint Nextel separately asked the FCC Wireline Bureau to clarify that carriers shouldn’t have to reimburse the Universal Service Administrative Co. when Rural Health Care (RHC) applicants don’t comply with USAC audit procedures. AT&T asked the commission to reverse a decision by USAC that the service provider must foot the bill when one of its customers violates a USAC rule. The amount of money in question in the case appealed by AT&T is small: $1,860. The industry commenters said the issue presented is much larger.

Upcoming rules on video descriptions likely will upset either industry or advocates for the blind. Agency officials said some FCC members are eying changes to a draft order, which hasn’t yet been modified. The order brings back a requirement that TV stations and multichannel video programming providers pass through at least 50 hours a quarter of audio descriptions of scenes lacking dialog (CD Aug 12 p4). Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps are among those considering moving to earlier in 2012 the proposed October 2012 date for compliance, agency officials said. That goes against what cable programmers and operators and broadcasters want. Advocates for those who can’t see well, meanwhile, said they're upset with the current version of the Media Bureau order.

Data security legislation seems likely to move sooner through the House Commerce Committee than other privacy legislation, House lawmakers and aides said. But state preemption and other dicey issues could trip up a federal measure to protect consumers in data breaches, other lobbyists said. The Safe Data Act (HR-2577) by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., is slated to receive a markup this September in the House Commerce Committee, House officials said. Other privacy bills have stalled and it’s unclear when they will receive committee votes.

A windfall awaits TV stations in presidential battleground states and those whose communities have contested congressional races because of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and related developments, say political operatives and researchers. Last year’s decision struck down restrictions on donations by corporations, including nonprofits not required to report their funding sources. It has “opened up the floodgates” of independent spending in campaigns, said President Bill Hillsman of North Woods Advertising, an ad agency and political communications firm that works for independent and liberal candidates. An executive of a political TV ad agency said ripples from the opinion will have “a major effect” in the 2012 campaign. “It’s pretty much entirely new money,” he said. But a broadcaster disputed that.

Many stimulus broadband projects are still waiting for environmental review, though construction has been under way throughout the country, Rural Utilities Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein said Wednesday during the Broadband Talk Radio show Gigabit Nation. Meanwhile, the agency is considering more outreach efforts to minority projects for potential grant and loan opportunities, he said.

The cable industry has more questions than answers on what Google-Motorola Mobility means for tens of millions of Motorola set-top boxes used by North American TV subscribers. Cable executives said their companies were caught off guard by Monday’s $12.5 billion agreement (CD Aug 16 p1) for Google to buy Motorola Mobility. There’s some hope among operators and their suppliers that the deal could lead to a wider array of new products that subscribers can use at home, interviews this week found. With Google seeming more focused on Motorola Mobility’s thousands of patents and the cellphone business, executives and analysts said set-tops may now be more of an afterthought for the combining companies.

A technology wish list from Huawei shows how the North American operation of the huge Chinese vendor is pressing ahead in sensitive network businesses in the face of persistent resistance from the U.S. administration and Congress in the name of national security (CD Feb 16 p10). A description of needs that the company prepared for a Silicon Valley “speed dating” event with developers from around the country and beyond offers a road map of Huawei’s activity and ambitions in this region, said Rory Moore, the CEO of CommNexus, the matchmaker for the event, which runs Monday to Wednesday. The list includes desired data mining, location-services and security technologies.

Verizon and Google disagreed sharply on whether the FCC should give tw telecom the declaratory ruling it asked for. Tw seeks a ruling that VoIP is a telecom service under Title II, giving the company the right “to establish direct IP-to-IP interconnections.” Google, as well as NCTA and a number of cable operators, supported the company’s arguments. Verizon and USTelecom said any such ruling would be premature.

A second cable operator may get an FCC waiver to encrypt all channels. RCN now wants (CD Aug 16 p13) to follow Cablevision’s lead and be able to turn on and off service remotely, cutting down on signal theft and the expense and pollution of sending out technicians. Commission approval of RCN’s new request seems likely, and there will probably be less opposition to the move expressed than Cablevision faced in 2009, industry lawyers and an analyst said in interviews Tuesday. They said the regulator seems unlikely to start a rulemaking to examine whether it’s worth keeping a ban on operators encrypting channels in the basic tier. RCN wants out of that ban in Chicago and New York, where it’s gone all-digital.