An online survey of people with disabilities done by the FCC’s Emergency Access Advisory Committee (EAAC) found that at least some of the respondents had experienced problems calling 911 because of their handicaps. A majority wants to be able to text 911, rather than have to make a voice call. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has repeatedly emphasized the importance of giving 911 call centers the capacity to receive texts as well as voice calls.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell likely will vote against part of a program carriage order if changes aren’t made to a draft that’s been approved by all his colleagues, agency and industry officials said last week. They said he continues to have concerns about the Media Bureau order to require cable operators to keep carrying independent networks while indies’ complaints against the companies are pending. The order circulated May 3 by Chairman Julius Genachowski and approved by him and the other two FCC Democrats would require standstill carriage. It would begin once the bureau finds an indie made a prima facie case that a distributor gave less favorable carriage to it than to an operator-affiliated channel (CD July 13 p3.)

Verizon’s Q2 profit came in at $1.6 billion versus a loss of $1.2 billion in the year-ago quarter. It added a total of 2.2 million subscribers, including 1.3 million postpaid customers, bringing the total connections to 106.03 million.

Invitations to serve on the FCC’s diversity committee will be made shortly, as work on the Universal Service Fund “soon” will culminate in a comprehensive order, Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus told minority and women communications entrepreneurs Friday. A day earlier, Commissioner Robert McDowell told the Minority Media and Telecom Council conference (CD July 22 p7) he worried about delays in changing USF to also fund broadband and in rejuvenating the Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age. Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff told the Federal State USF Joint Board last week that the order on USF and intercarrier compensation (ICC) will be ready for the October meeting, an FCC official told us.

The FCC’s decision over who has liability for Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations committed by a third party is expected to have a significant effect in the world of telemarketing and telemarketers’ contracts with retailers, observers said. The FCC was asked earlier this year by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Cincinnati, to weigh in on the law’s ambiguities for a case on who is ultimately responsible for TCPA violations by telemarketers hired by Dish Network. A lower court dismissed the original claims, but the plaintiff appealed (CD Jan 3 p5). The FCC isn’t tasked with reviewing the specifics of the case, only interpreting parts of the law the appeals court considered vague.

The FCC should waste no time in reinvigorating its diversity committee, especially since an appeals court recently sent back to the agency rules on the subject, Commissioner Robert McDowell said Thursday. Last month’s remand of a diversity order and media ownership rules from 2008 by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia shows why it’s timely for the Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age to become active once again, McDowell said. And “I think we have had some needless delays there of months or of a year” in getting the 3rd Circuit’s ruling, because the commission had sought to put Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC on hold, he told a Minority Media and Telecom Council conference. He had opposed that stay.

A closely watched FCC filing on reforming the Universal Service Fund to pay for broadband, which is backed by Comcast and others selling landline phone connections, will be ready as soon as next week. Verizon’s top executive in Washington predicted at a Minority Media and Telecom Council conference Thursday that the filing will be made next week and may be joined by the cable operator. Talks among many USF stakeholders led by USTelecom have been ongoing for some time, with the expectation of finishing the work this month or early next. Regardless of how wide support is for the USTelecom plan, the agency needs to soon approve an order on USF, Commissioner Robert McDowell told the conference. The USTelecom-led “framework” reached its conclusion in late June and has won favor with mid-sized telcos Windstream, CenturyLink and Frontier (CD July 6 p6).

The FCC asked whether it should again delay mandated compliance with FEMA’s Common Alerting Protocol for EAS (CD May 27 p4), and the answer from most parties was yes. Cable operators, phone companies and broadcasters all told the FCC to push back its Sept. 30 deadline by at least 6 months and some sought an extra year. But EAS equipment maker Sage Alerting Systems said the deadline shouldn’t be pushed back and that most of the broadcast industry is ready. “Another extension will simply delay orders until near the end of the new limit, much as the extension in November 2010 halted orders for a few months,” it said. The FCC should keep the deadline for making sure EAS participants have the equipment in place to receive CAP alerts, but give them another 90 days after FEMA starts distributing emergency messages to “actually begin receiving messages” from FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System servers, it said. That way they can learn how to use the equipment, it said.

AT&T, which reported Q2 profit of $3.6 billion, is confident its plan to buy T-Mobile will get receive regulatory approval in Q2 next year, executives said on the company’s earnings call Thursday. The looming departure of Justice Department’s antitrust chief Christine Varney and opposition by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., will have no material impact on the timing of the outcome, General Counsel Wayne Watts said.

Sprint Nextel’s fight with AT&T and T-Mobile over the GSM carriers’ proposed combination led to increased spending on lobbying for all three carriers in Q2, according to quarterly lobbying reports released this week. The fight over the extent to which LightSquared’s planned terrestrial system will disrupt GPS signals also continued to be a boon to the lobbying industry. Google, Facebook and other Internet companies continued to expand their Washington presence, while major telecom associations maintained spending consistent with 2010 levels.