The beta version of FCC’s new website is almost impossible to use and emphasizes style over substance, said numerous posts in a comments section posted by the commission. Industry lawyers and other users told us they continue to click a button on the agency’s new homepage to get to the old one, because they find the new site difficult to navigate. The beta was unveiled in April (CD April 6 p9) but lacks all documents that are on what’s now the old homepage.

TORONTO -- Several big Canadian media and telecom players took the gloves off last week in a public feud over the need for vertical integration limits. With the Canadian Radio-TV and Telecom Commission (CRTC) slated to open public hearings on the contentious vertical integration issue June 20, executives from Bell Canada, Rogers, Telus, MTS Allstream, Globalive and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) debated the issue at the Canadian Telecom Summit. While companies like Bell Canada, which recently bought the TV assets of CTV/GlobeMedia, back limited or no restrictions on media integration, such others as Telus and MTS Allstream argued for tougher government rules.

The House Commerce Committee is content to let the FCC take a first run at the Universal Service Fund overhaul, a committee spokeswoman told us Friday. “We are waiting to see what the FCC decides to do before we make a decision on whether legislation is necessary,” the spokeswoman said. Congress’ tacit approval of the FCC’s reform schedule had been expected (CD Feb 8 p1) but Friday’s statement comes amidst a blitz by rural telcos trying to get the Hill to intervene in the USF proceedings (CD May 25 p8). On the Senate side, Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. has said D-block legislation is his “highest priority” (CD Feb 17 p4).

CTIA strongly opposed an FCC proposal that wireless carriers pay Interstate Telecommunications Service Provider (ITSP) fees for the first time. The opposition came in comments responding to a May notice of proposed rulemaking on changes to the commission’s regulatory fees regime. PCIA said a proposed 20 percent fee increase on Private Land Mobile Radio Service (PLMRS) licenses would be unfairly burdensome. USTelecom said the FCC needs to make fundamental changes to its formula for calculating ITSP fees, which go well beyond anything proposed in the NPRM. For FY 2011, Congress has mandated that the FCC collect $335,794,000 through regulatory fees to cover its cost of operations.

The White House is waiting for the FCC and most other independent agencies to submit plans on which of their existing rules should be streamlined, reduced, improved or eliminated, an Office of Management and Budget official said at a hearing Friday of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. A January executive order by President Barack Obama required executive agencies to submit “lookback” plans, and encouraged independent agencies do the same. This fall, the Oversight Subcommittee will consider legislation forcing independent agencies to comply, said Chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.

LightSquared is considering initially only using the lower part of its L-band spectrum to help allay concerns over its interference with nearby GPS spectrum, satellite industry executives said. The GPS industry may be opposed to such a compromise, though, because even service at that level could impede important GPS operations, the executives said. LightSquared, along with the U.S. GPS Industry Council, is conducting tests looking at the potential for interference between LightSquared’s planned terrestrial service and GPS operations. The final report on that testing is due to the FCC June 15. LightSquared has access to 1525-1559 MHz in the L-band.

A new PBS emergency alert system pilot project using mobile DTV capability could be a model for a next-generation warning system, public broadcasting executives said in interviews. Over the next year, the system will be tested and evaluated with participation from WGBH-TV Boston, Alabama Public TV and Vegas PBS, said John McCoskey, PBS chief technology officer. The system requires devices that are common alerting protocol (CAP)-compliant and will use text, images and video to issue messages, he said. The project is part of a partnership with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and LG Zenith, both of which are helping fund the project, said McCoskey.

The FCC has denied an emergency motion from utility companies to stay parts of its April pole attachments order (CD May 27 p10). The way is now set for a request for an injunction from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, utility lawyers told us. American Electric Power Service, Duke Energy, Entergy Services, Florida Power & Light, Florida Public Utilities, Oncor Electric Delivery, Progress Energy, Southern and Tampa Electric did not meet “any of the four prongs” required to demonstrate the need for a stay, Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett wrote in an order released late Wednesday. The four elements, similar to the standard set for a court injunction, require a petitioner to demonstrate that it’s likely to prevail on the merits, that it “will suffer irreparable harm,” that “other interested parties will not be harmed if the stay is granted” and that “the public interest” favors a stay, Gillett said.

A program carriage proceeding may be in play at the FCC, with career staffers and commissioners likely to consider changes to an order and further rulemaking notice (CD May 17 p7) before they're voted on, agency and industry officials said. They said it’s unclear whether the Media Bureau and office of Chairman Julius Genachowski will end up making all, or even some of the changes many multichannel video programming distributors seek. Genachowski and some of the other FCC members seem likely to consider making changes, agency and industry officials said. Much of what will end up in play will be based on what changes Genachowski and the General Counsel’s office seek, if any, after reviewing cable, DBS and telco-TV concerns, commission officials said.

Pay-TV networks’ plans to distribute video online seem more aggressive outside the U.S., where executives said at an investor conference they're seeking to preserve the status quo and work with incumbent distributors. At the Nomura Media Summit in New York Thursday, executives from Discovery Communications, HBO and Viacom discussed their approaches to online video in the U.S. and elsewhere. HBO has the rights to distribute its network on its HBO GO smartphone and tablet product directly to consumers if it wanted to, CEO Bill Nelson said. If tablet PC penetration increases globally as projected, “we are going to move swiftly and aggressively to take advantage of that, either from a wholesale standpoint, or if the devices allow, in a direct to consumer product.” Nelson noted it could be years before that happens.