Two draft items to be voted on at the FCC’s April 21 meeting would take different approaches to making it easier for pay-TV subscribers to use devices not supplied directly from those companies to get video, Web and other content, numerous commission and industry officials said. A CableCARD rulemaking notice for all cable operators, with a partial exemption for small systems, deals with ways subscribers can use CableCARDs with plug-and-play devices, the officials said. An inquiry on all-video devices would have cable, satellite and telco-TV providers offer small, inexpensive devices so subscribers could connect to their networks using third-party gear, they said. The devices would contain the proprietary information to connect to the network of a particular provider, they said.

Verizon’s FiOS set-tops are 3D-ready, and the telco plans to offer service through its fiber network later this year. But getting 3D programming from competitors that develop and distribute content remains an issue, Verizon said, saying “integrated operators should not withhold programming options from the marketplace."

The FCC’s April 21 meeting will start the agency on the long road to implementing the National Broadband Plan. The FCC will take up items touching on the future of the Universal Service Fund, data roaming, an area discussed by the plan, and two media items on network-gateways and CableCARD rules, also in the plan (CD April 1 p4), officials said. Dozens of other plan-related items await commissioner attention. Industry and FCC officials expect an active year as the agency moves forward on implementing the plan.

With retransmission consent established for many network-affiliated TV stations, some industry officials agree fee-collecting stations arguably have a financial disincentive to invest in their terrestrial signal because they would want as many viewers as possible on pay-TV platforms that pay them monthly fees. Over-the-air viewers generate no similar fees and an unreliable over-the-air signal could drive them to pay-TV. But stations have political and other financial incentives to provide high-quality DTV signals to homes in their markets, executives said. “They are definitely getting a significant fee from their retrans agreements, but it’s not the majority of their income,” said President Richard Schneider of Antennas Direct. “They still very much want to service their over-the-air viewers as well and they're not at all interested in sabotaging it."

A Global NAPS petition for a declaratory ruling regarding tariff treatment of VoIP traffic drew comments mostly supporting denial, but others, like the Voice on the Net Coalition, want the petition granted. Global asked the FCC to clarify that state commissions can’t subject VoIP traffic to intrastate tariffs, and that if a carrier’s traffic is nomadic VoIP, the remainder of its traffic should be treated as interstate. Large and rural-size carriers and several telecom associations opposed Global’s claims that carriers forwarding VoIP traffic shouldn’t be subject to interstate or intrastate access charges.

Prospects for passage of legislation requiring terrestrial radio stations to pay a royalty to performers for the music they broadcast seem little changed after the administration backed it (CD April 2 p10), said six broadcast industry officials we surveyed. Music label representatives said they're hopeful that the Performance Royalty Act (H-848 and S-379) will pass this Congress or that their industry and broadcasters will agree on a framework for royalties. Discussions have taken place between industry representatives, said people from both businesses. The Commerce Department Thursday offered “strong” support for performance royalties and said the Office of Management and Budget didn’t object to that view as reflecting the administration of President Barack Obama’s “program."

Government intervention is a potential answer and not impediment to the U.S. effort to create a more vibrant wireless market with faster speeds, Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, said on a Friday panel sponsored by his group and Slate magazine. Tim Wu, professor of law at Columbia University and chairman of Free Press, said carriers have a natural interest in being a monopoly, and history suggests there’s a move back to a period of consolidation and monopoly control in wireless markets. The event was about “Why Your Cellphone is So Terrible."

A Thursday rally by CWA members at FCC headquarters in Washington protesting Frontier’s proposed acquisition of landlines from Verizon drew sharp words from a Frontier spokesman. The CWA said about 200 members, accompanied by supporters affiliated with the IBEW and the AFL-CIO, demonstrated. “This deal will pad the pockets of Wall Street executives while only deepening the digital divide,” CWA District 2 Vice President Ron Collins told rally participants. Afterwards, the union said, CWA President Larry Cohen, Collins and others met with Commissioner Michael Copps, FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus and other agency officials. Responding to the event, a Frontier spokesman evoked Ronald Reagan’s retort to Jimmy Carter during a 1980 presidential campaign debate.

Observers questioned the cybersecurity and privacy recommendations in the National Broadband Plan, in a panel discussion at George Washington University Law School late Thursday. The plan calls for a larger cybersecurity role for the FCC, but that might be a reach for the commission, said Jim Harper, the Cato Institute’s director of information policy studies. Just because the FCC handles communications, that doesn’t mean it knows cybersecurity well, he said.

South Africa shouldn’t regulate Internet Protocol TV services, commentators told the country’s telecom regulator late last month. Although IPTV hasn’t taken off in there, there’s “considerable interest from stakeholders,” the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa said in a discussion paper. After reviewing how the EU, U.S., U.K., France, South Korea, India and Canada handle IPTV rules, ICASA said it will focus on content issues. Respondents urged it to stay out of content regulation.