Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission seeks comment on an update of a “concept paper” proposing how the state should restructure its universal service fund, the commission said Thursday. The extensive document, submitted Wednesday by the Washington Independent Telecommunications Association, reflects revisions to a July proposal and goes into significant detail in recommendations. The commission tentatively set Oct. 4 for a third workshop on the document and related matters. Comments are due Sept. 17.

September is expected to be busy for public safety issues in Washington, but time and funding concerns are working against passing any legislation this year, said public safety and telecom industry officials. Legislation to set up a $70 million NTIA grant competition for public safety communications devices (CD July 30 p5) may have a better shot than bills involving the D-block, they said. The House and Senate have introduced nearly identical bills, HR-5907 and S-3731, sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and neither has generated opposition.

The repositioning of Mobile Marketing Association disclosed Thursday is to create more commercial opportunities; better educate brands, agencies and consumers; offer better guidelines, standards and measurement; and better represent the industry before regulators and legislators, said Chief Marketing Officer Paul Berney. The group doesn’t have a position on net neutrality, but supports network openness, he said in an interview.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to circulate an order late Thursday for the Sept. 23 meeting that finalizes rules for the use of the TV white spaces to surf the Internet. In one key change, agency officials said, the order is expected to eliminate the requirement that the devices have the capacity to sense whether TV broadcasts are using a channel. Instead, the order would permit devices to rely on a national database containing information on which channels are occupied in a given area. The commission released the tentative agenda for the meeting, but the order had not circulated at our deadline.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said Thursday he’s not pleased with continuing delay on a net neutrality order, after the Wireline and Wireless bureaus posed a new series of questions on net neutrality (CD Sept 2 p1). But some industry, Hill and FCC officials said Wednesday’s public notice left the agency room to begin regulating wireline before the fall Congressional elections. Meanwhile, the outlook on industry talks conducted by the Information Technology Industry Council remains unclear.

Alaska launched its first statewide broadband availability map, announced Commissioner Susan Bell of the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development in a webcast by Connect Alaska late Wednesday. The web-based map, funded by an economic stimulus grant, could be key to better broadband access and adoption, Connected Nation officials said.

Increased interest on retransmission consent among legislators of both parties and from many parts of the U.S. is demonstrated in a spate of recent letter-writing by members of Congress on the subject to the FCC, some broadcast and cable executives agreed. At least 49 members of Congress have written the FCC, some multiple times, on the subject of contracts between TV stations and subscription-video providers, often cable operators, our research found. The 33 Democrats and 16 Republicans represent 19 states. Two letter writers each sit on the Senate and House Commerce committees.

A proposal identified as combining cybersecurity bills introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., would give the president broad emergency powers over critical infrastructure in the event of a cyber emergency and make the Department of Homeland Security the lead civilian agency setting cybersecurity regulations for private industry. The 81-page proposal we obtained from an industry lobbyist is titled “HSGAC/Commerce Combined Draft” and labeled “Staff Draft-for discussion purposes only” and “Last revised 8/2/10, 4:15 p.m.” It would make the private sector “responsible for enhancing security of the nation’s most critical systems while the government ensures effective oversight and compliance,” said a summary provided with the draft. None of the Senate offices we contacted would comment on the proposal.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Pay-TV distributors should play up the technology included in set-top boxes in their marketing so consumers assign some value to the devices, Dish Chief Marketing Officer Ira Bahr said at a conference Thursday. Calling the set-top the “worst category name in the history of consumer electronics products,” Bahr said most consumers assign no value to the devices, and react harshly to fees associated with them. “We, ourselves and as an industry, have failed to create any distinction between what is a box feature and what is a service feature,” he said. “We're introducing a lot of features and people are yawning.” Pay-TV’s esteem among consumers has fallen when compared to coveted product along the lines of Apple’s iPhone to something little different from a power company, he said: “Many of these problems would be ameliorated if we could get to a place where people ascribe some value” to the box.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Space debris in low earth orbit will make satellite operations there increasingly difficult, possibly requiring some sort of device to catch the floating “dead bodies” and bring them back to Earth, said Wade Pulliam, a Tactical Technology Office program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The huge number of maneuvers to avoid conjunctions will continue to increase dramatically if launch schedules and compliance continue at the status quo, he told a American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference. Those maneuvers can reduce the lives of LEO satellites, he said. As a result, he said there are two options for the LEO satellites: Operators will need to increase the accuracy of maneuvers, making movements only when truly necessary to extend satellite life, or remove the space debris.