Data roaming is not just a competitive issue but also directly affects consumers, a group of wireless carriers pushing for a data roaming mandate said Thursday. During a press conference, executives with Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and other competitors to AT&T and Verizon Wireless called for action at the commission’s April 7 meeting on a data roaming order. It remains unclear when Chairman Julius Genachowski will ask for a vote on an order called for in the National Broadband Plan (CD March 9 p2).

FCC Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus said delivering the end product of the National Broadband Plan will take time. Speaking late Wednesday at an FCBA event on the first anniversary of the plan’s announcement, he focused on its success to date. FCC and industry panelists said compromise is needed to make the plan a success. Some said they're cautiously optimistic that the regulator and those it regulates will come together to make the plan work out well. Industry officials disagreed on ways to open up cable set-top boxes to retail competition to stimulate broadband adoption, and whether rules requiring what’s called AllVid are needed.

TORONTO -- As far as Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner is concerned, the future of media is all about digital rights management (DRM), not the ownership of devices, discs, and other physical assets. Speaking at the SCTE Canadian Summit this week, he argued that “physical media will disappear” by 2020 as “digital assets move to the cloud.” Rather than continue to buy new computer hard drives, Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, and other devices, or assemble sets of DVDs, CDs, tapes, and books, he said consumers will buy the rights to use digital media content.

Nexstar Broadcasting Chairman Perry Sook expects no movement, and certainly nothing “deleterious,” to broadcasters happening in the context of incentive spectrum auctions in 2011, he told investors during the company’s Q4 earnings teleconference Thursday. “In this budget climate, there would be a faction of Congress wholly uninterested in sharing any auction proceeds with broadcasters.” Indications from leaders on the Commerce committees are that Congress wants to move ahead with a spectrum inventory before taking up auction proposals, he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture revived its broadband loan program, with new interim rules that department officials said will eliminate the kind of waste cited by the USDA’s inspector general last month. Congress is still debating the budget and a federal government shutdown looms, but Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a conference call with reporters Thursday that “hundreds of millions of dollars” in unspent funds have been left over from the original broadband loan program that was first authorized in 2002. A government official told us that anywhere from $446 million to $700 million could be available. “Obviously we're keeping an eye on Congress relative to the flexibility they'll give us on the budget,” Vilsack told reporters.

Google TV missed the boat in first-generation products that launched in October by not understanding what the consumer wants, said panelists at the NexGen Entertainment Home Experience panel at the Digital Hollywood 2011 Media Summit in Manhattan Wednesday. The platform should come back strong in subsequent generations, assuming Google addresses issues that limited its appeal the first time out, panelists said. But Google’s stab at an undefined, fast-moving target shows how far the entertainment industry has to go in defining the home entertainment experience of the future.

Recent GPS industry efforts to drum up support and interest in the LightSquared proceeding aren’t expected to hurt the LightSquared working group process, said LightSquared’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs Jeff Carlisle in an interview. GPS interests announced Thursday they would form a new group to increase awareness of potential interference problems and a Trimble Navigation executive will take up the issue in Congressional testimony Friday (CD March 10 p7).

CenturyLink and Qwest promised that if their proposed deal is approved by the FCC, the new company will offer discount broadband with download speeds of at least 12 Mbps to 60 percent of their customers within seven years of the transaction being completed. The merged company will also phase out accepting federal support for local switching by 2014, forgo federal safety net additive payments and come up with a plan to freeze interstate common line support “on a per-line basis” by the beginning of 2012, CenturyLink and Qwest said. Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff has been working on an order approving the transaction for at least two weeks, FCC officials said. Qwest spokesman Tom McMahon said the letter is the product of meetings with “FCC staff and the chairman’s office over a number of days, and we believe they reflect what the FCC will find to be in the public interest.”

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Both houses of an ill-informed Congress this year probably will pass cybersecurity legislation that’s too burdensome for business, to overcompensate for inaction the past 10 years, said President Larry Clinton of the Internet Security Alliance. The organization includes Verizon, Symantec, VeriSign, SAIC and the National Association of Manufacturers.

NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow is going to work for Comcast, with the title of president of Comcast/NBC Universal in Washington, the cable association and the No. 1 U.S. cable operator confirmed Wednesday afternoon. Comcast is the biggest member of the NCTA. McSlarrow said in November that he was leaving the cable association, where he’s held the top job since 2005. Those close to him at the time had said he hoped to work as an executive in the cable industry, and some had speculated he'd go to Comcast.