The House GOP authors of spectrum legislation hope to negotiate the payroll tax cut extension with the Senate, but that could be tough because senators have largely returned to their states for a month-long break. After voting Tuesday to move to conference, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, named as conferees House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich. However, at our deadline, Senate and House Democrats still had not agreed to participate. Members of the Senate have already left for the holidays, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., refused Tuesday to call back his members. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also said she would not appoint conferees.

CompTel and its allies have cleared another procedural hurdle in their battle to get the FCC moving on special access reform (CD Dec 8 p6), after the D.C. federal appeals court set a briefing schedule in the case. In an order dated and released late Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set deadlines for briefs in CompTel’s petition: CompTel and its co-petitioners will have until Jan. 13 to file their brief; the FCC’s response must be filed by Jan. 27, intervenors in the case have until Feb. 3, and the petitioners have until Feb. 10 to file a reply.

Broadcasters told the FCC they support a proposal to let HD Radio stations increase their power levels on one of their two sidebands. NPR and iBiquity each submitted studies to the commission showing that increasing sideband power asymmetrically would let HD operators boost power without increasing interference to nearby stations (CD Nov 2 p6). Letting stations take that step will help them “provide enhanced digital coverage that is not achievable while stations are constrained to operate with equal level digital sidebands,” the NAB said (http://xrl.us/bmmhnp). Meanwhile, iBiquity submitted a lengthy lab test report supporting the proposal (http://xrl.us/bmmhp3), prompting “a daily listener of the broadcast radio service” who previously fought a 2010 order letting HD Radio station increase their power to request an extension to the pleading cycle deadlines.

European Commission plans to force down high data roaming prices won cautious support from some EU lawmakers, telecom industry members and a consumer group, at a Tuesday hearing before the European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy Committee. But others, including the EC’s own advisory panel, the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) providers, said the plan is too complex and lacks ambition, and that lackluster competition in the roaming market should be attacked by other means.

AT&T pulled the plug on its proposed buy of T-Mobile on Monday. AT&T said in a statement that, after “a thorough review of options it has agreed with Deutsche Telekom … to end its bid to acquire T-Mobile.” The announcement brings to an end the fight over AT&T’s dramatic announcement in March that it would buy one of the remaining three national carriers. The topic has dominated industry discussions since. AT&T did not comment on the size of the break up fee it ultimately will have to pay DT.

Verizon Wireless asked the FCC to approve its buy of 122 AWS licenses from cable consortium SpectrumCo, a $3.6 billion deal unveiled Dec. 2 (CD Dec 5 p5). Verizon’s filing makes a case for why approval would be in the public interest. But some critics have emerged who hope the FCC will block the deal as a step away from a competitive wireless market.

The FCC should impose a time limit on negotiations over roaming agreements between carriers, said MetroPCS and other small carriers in a filing at the FCC. AT&T, however, said the FCC has already explained why a requested 60-day shot clock is not necessary.

Congress seems likely to eventually pass incentive auction authority for mobile satellite service S-band spectrum, though the issue may be moot once Dish Network takes control of the spectrum, said industry executives. While there are several pieces of legislation in Congress which differ between authorizing general incentive auction authority or specifying MSS spectrum, either way would have the effect of giving the FCC the ability to auction the spectrum, they said.

The fate of spectrum legislation remained in flux Monday as members of Congress continued to squabble over an extension of the payroll tax cut. Lobbyists consider the payroll bill the “last train out of town” this year for spectrum legislation. Spectrum reform was nearly left behind when the Senate agreed late Friday on a bipartisan basis to a two-month rather than year-long deal (CD Special Bulletin Dec. 17). But in a surprise move, House Republicans vowed to pull back the measure and lobbyists now view a two-month extension as dead in the water.

The FCC’s newly reconstituted Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council approved a report Friday on next-generation 911 standards development. The report was the first to be approved by the new CSRIC and had to be completed within a tight eight-week timeframe. The report was still being finalized and was not released by CSRIC Friday.