None of the charges lobbed at AT&T by opponents of its buy of T-Mobile are surprising or beyond what the company expected before announcing the deal in March, AT&T General Counsel Wayne Watts said Tuesday. Watts met with reporters the day after the final filing deadline in the AT&T/T-Mobile merger docket. The carrier answered critics more formally June 10 in a filing at the commission (CD June 13 p1).

The FCC issued an interim order that it says will help prevent Lifeline subscribers from receiving multiple subsidies. The order has been ready since last month but was stalled by Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps, who fought over the notice provisions (CD June 14 p2). As expected, the order automatically cancels extra Lifeline subscriptions and divides customers up amongst eligible telecommunications carriers (ETC) in the various states. The new allotment system will take immediate effect in Tennessee and Florida, the two states with the most pronounced Lifeline problems. As staff reviews the process, more states will be subject to the de-enrollment/allotment rules over the next several months, an FCC official said.

Following the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s ruling earlier this month (CD June 12 p4) in Cablevision v. FCC upholding much of a 2010 program access order, AT&T and Verizon asked the commission to act quickly on their pending complaints over access to Madison Square Garden Network’s HD feeds. “In light of the court’s ruling in Cablevision, there are only two issues remaining in this proceeding,” counsel for AT&T wrote in a Monday letter. “Whether defendants have rebutted the presumption that their selective withholding of MSG HD and MSG+ HD has the purpose or effect of hindering competition; and … whether a ruling in favor of AT&T would violate the First Amendment in this case.” Those issues have been fully briefed and the commission should act soon to resolve the complaint, it said.

The uses of federal funds by public radio stations vary and not all stations keep proper documentation that itemizes grant funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a Government Accountability Office report said. The report on public radio’s federal funding stemmed from different requests from Texas Republican Reps. Joe Barton and Michael Burgess, Republican Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Cliff Stearns of Florida and Doug Lamborn of Colorado. Barton and Burgess’s letter seeking the information last year (CD Nov 19 p9) said it was out of concern that “the use of appropriated taxpayer dollars for the production of content could inappropriately involve the government in the promulgation of particular viewpoints and the silencing of others, especially since many taxpayers may not share the editorial views of NPR."

NTIA, set to publish the second round of broadband data in August, understands there’s been interest in collecting broadband pricing data, said Anne Neville, program director of State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program. The reality is pricing often changes frequently so there’s no easy apple-to-apple comparison, she told the Broadband Breakfast Club on Tuesday. Combined with the cost of reviewing and publishing data, she said data collecting, maintaining and validating is expensive. NTIA hasn’t received any proposal to collect pricing data, she noted. If any third party has an idea of how to “marry data with pricing,” they can do so, Neville said.

Proposed FCC “reform” legislation may “undermine” the Administrative Procedure Act and the Communications Act, Democrats on the House Commerce Committee said in a minority memo circulated Tuesday. Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., circulated a draft bill Friday (CD June 21 p7) to let three or more commissioners meet privately, set shot clocks on agency actions and require the FCC to provide greater justification for new regulations and transaction conditions. The subcommittee has a hearing Wednesday on the draft.

The record developed by the FCC makes clear that SMS is an information service and carriers should not have to pay into the Universal Service Fund based on SMS revenue, CTIA said in reply comments. The Wireline Bureau asked for comments on the topic, in response to an April 26 letter from the Universal Service Administrative Co. seeking guidance on the reporting of text messaging revenues for purposes of the USF.

The satellite business continued its revenue growth streak in 2010, largely on the back of satellite services, the industry’s largest sector, the Satellite Industry Association said. At the end of Q3 -- the most recent data available -- industry employment had fallen 2.7 percent since the end of 2009, SIA said in its annual study. It was done by Futron Corp. using surveys of 80 companies, 40 of which are SIA members, and publicly available data and research, and is at http://xrl.us/bks9s8.

The New York Senate passed legislation that would prevent state regulation of VoIP services. The bill, introduced by GOP Sen. George Maziarz, might not be going anywhere because the state Assembly session ended Monday, his legislative aide told us. Maziarz is working with the Assembly to try to pass the bill in potential extended session, the aide said. S-5769 passed Monday.

NAB will release a study Tuesday that claims local TV and Radio stations affect about $1.17 trillion of the United States’ $14.66 trillion gross domestic product. The analysis, by Woods & Poole Economics, with help from BIA/Kelsey, looks at broadcasters’ cumulative effect on GDP and on the economies of each of the 50 states. Stations contribute almost $60 billion directly to GDP; the rest of the $1.17 trillion comes from broadcasting’s effects on other industries through the money its workers spend, and its “stimulative effect” on the economy through the ads it sells, the study said. The ads placed on local stations are “estimated to stimulate more than $986 billion in economic activity and support 1.38 million jobs,” the study said.