The General Service Administration seeks to address federal agencies’ slowness in transitioning to Networx, the largest government telecom program, said Karl Krumbholz, director of the network service program. The delay has frustrated vendors like Level 3. Federal agencies’ $1.2 billion in annual telecom spending should have been moved to the $68 billion Networx program by June 2010 from the former FTS2001 contract. Instead, they have spent $290 million on “bridge” and “crossover” contracts since the GSA named the primary Networx contractors in 2007 to maintain services during the transition process.

Broadcasters may be limited in the amount of leverage they can apply on Capitol Hill to stop the FCC’s quest to auction TV channels in a way the industry contends will harm almost all stations (CD July 26 p4), some executives said Wednesday. They told us it will be challenging for broadcasters, or any industry, to successfully exert much influence over how legislators deal with the debt ceiling and deficit reduction before Tuesday’s deadline to raise the cap. Spectrum is likely to be part of any long-term solution to cut the U.S. deficit and to let the country issue more IOUs, executives said: If there’s a short-term solution, which right now seems more likely than a longer-term plan, spectrum may not be part of the immediate fix. That would give TV stations more time to get the interference and other protections they seek.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Smaller cable companies are succeeding with strategies to dissuade customers from using enormous amounts of data and to upsell to more expensive service tiers those determined to continue, executives said Wednesday. The approach requires heavy investments in planning and in technology or labor, they said, but it avoids the customer backlash and harmful publicity that some larger providers have bought themselves with data caps and service cutoffs. “Little Windjammer is able to come up with a creative solution and big Comcast can’t,” Kyle Johnson, the product-strategies director of IBBS, said after hearing sharply contrasting stories about the operators. IBBS provides technology-support to cable companies.

More video device manufacturers could introduce retail digital cable-ready products if the FCC crafts a broad waiver in response to TiVo’s petition to be let out of requirements to include an analog tuner in such devices, said comments filed in response to TiVo’s request. TiVo sought the waiver so it can sell a version of its TiVo Premiere Elite box at retail in addition to leasing it through MVPDs (CD June 9 p12).

Congress should reallocate the 700 MHz D-block to public safety as part of a debt limit agreement next week, said Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. He spoke Wednesday at a committee hearing on emergency communications, as Congress continued to wrangle over reducing the deficit and raising the debt ceiling. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., proposed giving public safety $7 billion and the D-block in a debt proposal earlier this week (CD July 27 p2). The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the Reid plan would cost much less than the Senate Commerce Committee’s proposed Spectrum Act (S-911).

The Federal Aviation Administration voiced uncertainty in a July 12 document over how well LightSquared’s revised rollout plans would mitigate potential interference with some GPS services used by civil aircraft. The FAA responded to questions from the Executive Office of the President’s Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee’s National Coordination Office. Under LightSquared’s new plan, it would begin terrestrial broadband service only in the lower part of the L-band to help reduce interference problems with GPS devices. LightSquared still needs approval from the FCC on the plan and the agency is now reviewing the LightSquared proposal and has requested public comment.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Smaller cable operators were reassured that they'll withstand the onslaught of Netflix and over-the-top video. The words of comfort came late Tuesday from Chairman Mark Cuban of cable programmer HDNet, whose personal fortune came from Internet broadcasting. “Netflix replaces going to Blockbuster and buying the stack of DVDs that you had, because it’s primarily library stuff,” he said in a keynote at the American Cable Association’s and the National Cable Television Cooperative’s Independent Show. Cuban added “It kind of loses its cachet over time.” He said Netflix will remain complementary to cable service, because it won’t be “able to offer new content” that can compete directly with conventional pay TV.

Phone companies aren’t the only industry group divided by potential Universal Service Fund change proposals. With a group convened by USTelecom poised to give the FCC on Friday a plan to make USF pay for broadband (CD July 26 p1), large and small cable operators also have different views on that framework. Just as major phone companies like AT&T and Verizon are expected to back the plan, with some mid-size telcos also joining in, the biggest U.S. cable operators also may support many if not all parts of the plan. As with small telcos that are net recipients of USF money and intercarrier compensation funds, cable operators that get such money also may back few if any aspects of the framework. That’s according to interviews with cable executives Tuesday.

Spectrum legislation to authorize voluntary FCC incentive auctions for broadcast spectrum appears to have become inextricably enmeshed with the debate over raising the debt ceiling. With no clear path in sight for compromise between President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress, industry and government officials said Tuesday it’s unclear whether the debt reconciliation will emerge as the key lever for getting the commission the auction authority it seeks as part of the National Broadband Plan. Broadcasters said a debt limit amendment unveiled late Monday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., could hurt the industry.

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom released a highly redacted version of a revised economic analysis of their proposed merger, offering regulators a detailed analysis of synergies they say would result from the deal in 15 markets. Merger opponents were quick to criticize the revised model. Disclosure of the revised model led the Wireless Bureau last week to temporarily halt the 180-day shot clock on its review of the deal.