News Corp.’s withdrawn bid for British Sky Broadcasting leaves the would-be acquirer with a large amount of cash on hand, potentially clearing the way for other media purchases, said industry executives. Another try at the U.S. satellite TV market seems unlikely, but a content acquisition is possible, they said. News Corp. said Wednesday it won’t bid for the 61 percent of BSkyB it doesn’t own, as controversy over phone hacking by a News Corp.-owned newspaper continues to heat up in the U.K.

The Senate Commerce Committee is considering a statutory ban on all third-party charges on landline phone bills, Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said at a committee hearing Wednesday. The committee released a study on cramming, the practice of billing customers -- often on behalf of third parties -- for products or services they either didn’t order or don’t want. Each third-party charge costs consumers between $10 and $30, and most are unauthorized, Rockefeller said. Telcos place $2 billion in third-party charges on customers’ landline bills every year, the committee said in its report.

Executives from six private sector groups touted the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act as a critical means to combat “job killing” Internet theft. The comments came at a Capitol Hill briefing Wednesday hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy. General Counsel Rick Cotton of NBCUniversal rejected the idea that the bill would “break the Internet” and said website blocking already occurs and should be used against sites dedicated to IP theft. He acknowledged that the bill lacks sufficient language to prevent the growth of cyberlockers and websites that stream infringing content.

Radio stations are making efficient use of spectrum, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday as the agency approved a rulemaking on low-power and translator stations in the FM band. The number of listeners of terrestrial broadcast radio has been rising, and the spectrum is used “efficiently,” he said. The rulemaking notice eying a tiered system for the commission to leave space for future low-power FM (LPFM) stations when processing thousands of pending translator applications is “managing spectrum wisely,” Genachowski said. There are about 6,500 pending requests for translators from a 2003 filing window, Commissioner Robert McDowell said at the agency’s monthly meeting. He and other agency officials spoke of the longstanding tension between LPFM and translator stations for new channels.

Verizon Wireless, which opened its LTE Innovation Center in Waltham, Mass., Tuesday, is partnering with companies of all sizes to help create devices and solutions for LTE networks, executives said during a webcast. A sister Application Innovation Center will be opened next month in San Francisco, said David Small, chief technical officer.

The FCC approved further tweaks to location accuracy rules for wireless carriers, and also asked still more questions about the future of 911. Most significantly, the commission moved the industry another step toward a requirement that all carriers -- GSM and CMRS -- evaluate how well they do meeting location accuracy rules using handset-based testing. The agency approved a report and order, a second further notice of proposed rulemaking and an NPRM by a 4-0 vote Tuesday. None of the documents were posted by the FCC by our deadline.

FCC commissioners approved a “cramming” notice of proposed rulemaking 4-0 Tuesday. FCC officials confirmed that the notice asks questions about both wireless and wireline billing abuses (CD April 5 p1). As part of the NPRM, the FCC is pondering going so far as to require consumer bills to be sent by carriers in a particular format and using a specific font. Cramming is the practice of billing customers -- often on behalf of third parties -- for products or services they either didn’t order or don’t want.

Pending program carriage rules seem unlikely to be rewritten by career FCC staffers at the behest of Chairman Julius Genachowski after a court ruling in a media ownership case tossing out a regulation because adequate public notice wasn’t given about the potential for that rule, agency officials said Tuesday. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 decision last week in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC does have import for program carriage, the NCTA has said. Cable operators have contended previously that adequate notice wasn’t provided in a 2007 rulemaking.

The Wireless Communications Association asked the FCC to approve its petition seeking higher out-of-band-emission limits for mobile digital stations in the 2.5 GHz band to allow for the use of the wider channel bandwidths (http://xrl.us/bkzsuy). The WCA petition for rulemaking was supported by equipment makers and the Telecommunications Industry Association, who agreed the change could lead to more use of Educational Broadband Service (EBS) and Broadband Radio Service (BRS) spectrum.

The FCC is in the “home stretch” of its Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime overhaul, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday. Speaking after the commission’s monthly meeting, Genachowski said he didn’t “think it’s news” that the relevant orders won’t be ready in August, given his aides have said the same (CD June 16 p2). Genachowski said he’s confident that orders are coming soon. “The staff is working very hard,” he said at a news conference. “The stakeholders are working very hard.” It’s “very important” that USF is retooled for Internet service “in a way that tackles inefficiency” and “waste,” as well as closes “the rural-urban divide” and meets U.S. broadband goals, Genachowski said.