Critics of expanded federal authority over private networks came up short with an effort to draw bright-line restrictions in the Cybersecurity Act (S-773), approved by the Senate Commerce Committee with several amendments at a short markup Wednesday. Sponsors emphasized that the bill would keep changing as it moved out of committee and indicated they disagreed with each other on core provisions, including what kind of regulations to apply to network and infrastructure owners. Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., called the bill “preemptive” to protect the country but “basic,” lacking many details despite having gone through four drafts.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., believes it’s time for Congress to update telecom laws to account for technological convergence, he told us Wednesday. The House Communications Subcommittee chairman said he intends to work on comprehensive reform in the next Congress starting in January that would address some of the concerns raised by Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke in a New Democrat Network keynote Wednesday. The company is “very much on target” when it says the time has come to overhaul the Telecommunications Act, Boucher said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in another interview that her bills on broadband information and early termination fees (ETFs) would answer Tauke’s call to better inform and empower consumers.

Initial items in the National Broadband Plan that may get FCC proceedings include recommendations that the agency take steps to make all cable, DBS and telco-TV providers offer gateway devices and that CableCARDs be easier to install, numerous agency and industry officials said. Commissioners may vote as soon as next month on two related and forthcoming items, they said. One would likely begin an inquiry on how to mandate all subscription-video systems be able to be accessed by a simple gateway device that could also get online content. Another would resolve some CableCARD problems.

The lawyer handling YouTube’s copyright defense against Viacom said Tuesday she’s confident of her position because the company is known to be responsible, and defendants like that win infringement lawsuits. “The pope uses it,” Catherine Lacavera, senior litigation counsel for YouTube’s owner, Google, said on an American Bar Association webcast. “The Queen uses it. The president uses it. It’s so different from a site that was designed solely for infringement. … I feel good about our case, and I think that comes through in our brief.”

LAS VEGAS -- While lead off speakers at the CTIA convention praised the FCC for proposing in the National Broadband Plan that 500 MHz of additional spectrum be allocated to wireless broadband over the next 10 years, the prospect that wireless carriers will face new net neutrality requirements also loomed large as the conference began Tuesday. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said imposing new regulation on carriers could chill investment at what otherwise is a time of record growth for the industry.

The National Broadband Plan sets the stage for increased broadband adoption, but hasn’t quelled the debate over Universal Service Fund, spectrum use and Title II reclassification, telecom officials said on panels Tuesday. The spectrum portion of the plan “really does push the ball forward to try to get more flexible use for spectrum,” said Gregory Rosston, deputy director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Spectrum is the “mother’s milk” of wireless, said Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke. The recommendations get the ball moving “in the development of additional spectrum resources for wireless. That’s a big positive for investment and innovation,” he said the event, held at the National Press Club.

TORONTO -- In a much-anticipated decision, the Canadian Radio-TV and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said the nation’s conventional TV networks can seek from cable operators and satellite-TV providers fees or other compensation for their signals. But the CRTC stopped short of imposing any fees or mandating “value for signal” negotiations between the parties, pending a judgment by the courts on the agency’s power to do so.

Allowing unlicensed wireless auxiliary devices on all TV band channels would run counter to the recommendations in the National Broadband Plan, AT&T said in reply comments to an FCC rulemaking. “The proposed rule would delay the implementation of the National Broadband Plan by requiring subsequent commercial broadband licensees to clear the broadcast spectrum of the very low-power auxiliary users this proposed rule would place there."

A Universal Service Fund revamp passed by Congress would do more than an FCC overhaul of the fund, and would leapfrog possible limits to the commission’s legal authority, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., at a National Journal event Tuesday on Capitol Hill. The National Broadband Plan suggests an overhaul that wouldn’t require legislation. A USF bill may be passable on a bipartisan basis, said Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. Both legislators reaffirmed support for the FCC plan, but Stearns said he has concerns about how the FCC sees its role in spurring the marketplace.

Services based on an all-IP network are where the traditional telco landline business is heading, carriers said in interviews. Rather than a stand-alone service, voice is becoming part of a converged communications offering, they said.