The FCC confirmed that expanded-basic video prices continued to increase, in a report Tuesday detailing a survey of charges in 2008 by cable operators, city-owned video providers and telco-TV such as Verizon’s pay-TV service but not AT&T’s U-verse. That year, the average monthly bill for expanded-basic service rose 5.9 percent to $52.37, compared with a 0.1 percent rise in inflation. Over a 14-year period ended Jan. 1, 2009, cable rates rose 134 percent, while the consumer price index that measures inflation gained 39 percent. But bills rose 18 percent to 71 cents a channel during that period, for a 1.2 percent average annual increase. Industry officials and an economist whose group sometimes opposes regulation pointed out some of the report’s shortfalls, while a nonprofit group that’s concerned with rate increases said the survey supports its fears.

Antitrust law can better protect competition on the Internet than “heavy-handed, top-down” FCC regulations, said House Judiciary Internet Subcommittee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. At a hearing Tuesday of the subcommittee, Goodlatte supported updating antitrust laws with specific provisions on the Internet. The FCC didn’t testify but took shots from all corners on their controversial net neutrality order.

Issues of third-party access to smart grid data continue to be vigorously debated, despite broad agreement from regulators and stakeholders on best practices and guidelines, panelists said at the NARUC meeting Tuesday. Issues for which consensus is proving hard to achieve include how consumers should authorize third-party access and how utility liability should be limited when utilities are required to disclose data to authorized third parties, said Doug Michael, a senior adviser with Department of Energy. Another challenge is establishing the applicable complaint procedures once third-party access has been authorized, and the specific data that utilities should be required to disclose to authorized third-parties, he said.

The time may finally be right for an overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and of intercarrier compensation, said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. He’s hopeful a “method” will be found to turn things like the rulemaking notice, approved by commissioners at last week’s monthly meeting, into “momentum” for making fixes to update the rules for the broadband age, he told us in a Q-and-A after his FCBA luncheon speech. “I think we've teed up an item that really raises all the issues,” he said, saying the regulator should hold stakeholder hearings on the issue. Copps used the speech to defend public broadcasting against Republican legislators’ efforts to cut funding and to urge the FCC and Chairman Julius Genachowski to do more to promote media diversity.

GENEVA -- Operators, manufacturers, and other satellite proponents are pressing a range of offensive and defensive positions in WRC-12 preparatory meetings through Feb. 25, according to a presentation and interviews with executives. Significant bridging of gaps remains on possible regulatory action to spur safe operation of unmanned aerial systems in un-segregated airspace and the coordination mechanism for certain mobile satellite service networks.

The Chinese vendor Huawei has ambitions in U.S. cloud-computing services that haven’t publicly drawn the security objections repeatedly raised against its network business at the highest levels of government. The company is forging ahead with U.S. business efforts despite repeated political and governmental setbacks to its network-equipment efforts in the market (CD Feb 14 p7). In the latest blow, the federal interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reportedly has recommended as expected that Huawei be required to unwind the acquisition it completed last year of high-technology company 3Leaf, but the Chinese company is waiting to see what President Obama decides. We couldn’t reach a company representative for comment Tuesday.

House Republicans will try to use the Continuing Resolution to stop the FCC from acting on its net neutrality order. In a speech Tuesday, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he filed an amendment prohibiting the FCC from spending any money to implement the rule. Also at the NARUC meeting, Walden said he’s considering legislation to overhaul FCC process. He questioned the White House’s FY 2012 budget estimate for money that could be raised by voluntary incentive spectrum auctions.

AT&T and NCTA joined to slam arguments by Level 3 that the Internet backbone provider’s dispute over network traffic peering with Comcast is an issue of net neutrality. In a rare joint filing late Monday by the telco and the cable association, which are often at odds on other issues, they said Level 3 is trying to upend commission precedent predating December’s net neutrality order that peering isn’t subject to regulation. “As the Commission’s approach to Internet policy has evolved over the last eighteen months -- from a proposed rulemaking on net neutrality, to an inquiry on reclassification, to a net neutrality order -- it has consistently emphasized at each step along the way that it has no intention of regulating the highly competitive market for Internet peering and other Internet backbone services."

The White House estimated that it can raise nearly $28 billion from spectrum sales, including voluntary incentive auctions of broadcasters’ spectrum, but the budget it released Monday gives little detail on how it arrived at the figure. President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget proposed legislation providing authority for voluntary incentive auctions and estimated that spectrum auctions, “along with other measures to enable more efficient spectrum management,” will produce $27.8 billion over the next 10 years. The budget will face scrutiny particularly from House Republicans, who want to spend about $100 billion less in fiscal 2011 than Obama, said a telecom lobbyist.

The elimination of public broadcasting support is provided for in a House Republican continuing resolution that proposes the largest spending cuts in history. The House Appropriations Committee introduced the resolution as a plan for cutting spending by over $100 billion from President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 request. Action on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will have little effect on budget-cutting but great implications for the industry, some public broadcasting supporters said.