State and consumer advocates pushed the FCC to adopt tough anti-cramming rules, but industry said that even if problems exist they can be fixed without regulations. Comments came pouring into docket 11-116 Monday and Tuesday.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A State Department official denounced an Internet code of conduct proposed in the U.N. General Assembly by China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan last month. Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said Tuesday the system would replace the historical “multi-stakeholder governance” of the Internet with a “system dominated by centralized government control.” At the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, he defended the U.S. government’s emphasis on intellectual property protection, “sometimes seen as in conflict with Internet freedom.”

A district judge appeared skeptical that Sprint Nextel had made a plausible argument that an AT&T/T-Mobile combination would harm competition, in oral argument Monday at the U.S. District Court in Washington. Sprint Nextel and C Spire had asked the court to deny an AT&T motion to exclude the two competitors from the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department against the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. Sprint and C Spire each filed antitrust complaints against the deal. Sprint and C Spire also argued for their separate motion that would give the competitors access to information learned in discovery in the government’s case against AT&T.

TV stations in markets where local stations have agreed to share resources often air the same news programming, a study of local news in eight markets found. “The obvious and unambiguous result was a reduction in the number of separate news voices in the market,” said the study by University of Delaware Professor Danilo Yanich. The stations shared resources including anchors, scripts, video, graphics and reporters, said the study filed with the FCC Monday (http://xrl.us/bmgxdy).

SAN DIEGO -- Spectrum constraints, connectivity beyond traditional consumer electronics devices, the cloud, emerging input interfaces and battery life were among the topics in the Five Technologies to Watch session that opened the CEA Industry Forum Monday. Jason Oxman, CEA senior vice president-industry affairs, spoke of the “looming spectrum crisis” due to consumer demand for wireless broadcast services and reiterated CEA’s position that there needs to be more spectrum allocated for wireless consumer devices. “We're not quite at a crisis point,” said Roger Cheng, senior writer for CNET, “but we're heading toward a spectrum crunch,” he said, citing consumers’ increased usage as they use wireless devices for listening to music, watching movies and playing games.

The FCC seems likely to stick with a notice of inquiry, rather than a rulemaking, in the draft item on TV station programming, political advertising and other disclosure (CD Oct 14 p7) that’s set for a vote at Thursday’s meeting, agency and industry officials told us. They said it seems unlikely for now that the commission will change course before the gathering and make the draft Media Bureau notice of inquiry on programming into a notice of proposed rulemaking. Some nonprofit groups had sought an NPRM, contending an NOI isn’t necessary because the enhanced disclosure proceeding began 11 years ago, while broadcasters have said an NOI is the right way to go (CD Oct 21 p13). And some at the commission still want an NPRM, agency officials said.

A subpoena to force LightSquared and the FCC to turn over communications about the company isn’t preferable for Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, though there are several ways to do so, his spokeswoman said. Grassley is unlikely to get help from the committee’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in accessing the communications, said a former aide to that committee. Grassley could partner with House Republicans to force the FCC’s or LightSquared’s hands in providing the information, said the ex-aide.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed a new plan to support small business cybersecurity efforts, during a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday. The Small Business Cyber Planner is a free online tool to help U.S. small businesses increase their cybersecurity awareness and protections, and will be available on the FCC website in “a few weeks,” Genachowski said. The Department of Homeland Security endorsed the plan and encouraged small business owners to implement strong cybersecurity policies.

Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas said the wireless industry must keep up pressure on the government to make the 1755-1780 MHz band available for wireless broadband. Unless the U.S. makes that band and other spectrum available, the country faces a “stop sign” that will halt the wireless growth the public has come to expect, he said in an interview.

AT&T accused Comcast of hypocrisy. The cable company had asked the FCC to eliminate special access rules, so competitive telcos can charge the same access rates as incumbents’ plain old telephone service terminations use, as long the CLEC provides a phone number from the number portability database. “The implication of this proposal is that as long as a CLEC provides the telephone number, it’s safe to conclude that the CLEC provides a service equivalent to all of the other functions -- and the associated costs -- included in access charges,” AT&T Vice President Hank Hultquist said on his company’s website Friday.