The amount of regulatory activity at the FCC and the convergence of telecom and energy could mean a busier 2011 than 2010 in telecom for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said Tony Clark, the group’s recently elected president, in an interview. He forecast progress in revamping the Universal Service Fund and the Intercarrier Compensation regime. Meanwhile, smart grid will be a significant issue for state commissioners next year, said the North Dakota Public Service Commissioner.

As cable operators look to expand their business services efforts by pursuing larger commercial customers with up to 250 employees, they need to prepare themselves for a market vastly different than the one most of them have been used to, according to industry experts. Operators have had considerable success in reaching smaller businesses (CD Dec 28 p3).

The FCC’s new net neutrality rules are largely a non-issue for many satellite companies, said industry executives. Although some of the same issues affect satellite networks as impact terrestrial services, including limited spectrum and network management, most satellite companies don’t expect to discriminate among content based on its source, they said. While satellite broadband companies had some initial concerns over universal service fund implications of a Title II net neutrality push, which never came, they're largely unaffected as well (CD Dec 17 p5).

Negotiations among commissioner offices on the Comcast-NBC Universal order are unlikely to get started in earnest until next week, FCC sources said Monday. Advisers to the commissioners, many of whom are taking this week off, will likely use the next few days to start to delve into the main details of the order, which was circulated Thursday, but which runs several hundred pages, officials said.

The record shows a growing threat to the Internet if the FCC failed to impose net neutrality rules, according to the text of the order, which the commission released late last week. The FCC approved the order Dec. 21, over the strong dissents of Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker (CD Dec 22 p1), who questioned whether the Internet is at risk. In a series of footnotes, the order rebuts arguments made by the two Republicans in their dissents.

Thanks to impressive gains by the nation’s leading MSOs, the U.S. cable industry stands poised to produce at least $5 billion in commercial services revenue in 2010, up about 25 percent from approximately $4 billion in 2009.

The benefit of consideration of a Congressional Review Act resolution to nullify the FCC’s net neutrality order may be to rally opposition and send a broader signal to the commission, said a former congressional committee counsel. Incoming House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said last week they may attempt to rebuke the FCC by introducing resolutions of disapproval under the Act (CD Dec 22 p5). The procedure has advantages over other lines of attack, but the likelihood of a presidential veto makes it a difficult road, current and former Hill aides said in interviews.

A draft FCC order says Comcast-NBC Universal meets the commission’s public interest standards and applies some conditions, as had been expected (CD Dec 23 p3), senior agency officials said Thursday. That sets up the process for other commissioners to review the framework proposed by Chairman Julius Genachowski. After the difficult work on the net neutrality order approved at Tuesday’s meeting, and with holidays and the CES show forthcoming, it may be two weeks before eighth-floor officials have the time to dive into the details of the order, agency, industry and public interest officials said.

GENEVA -- The ITU Radio Regulations Board backed satellite frequency assignment and network cancellations and delays for certain networks administered by France, Russia, Tonga, Cyprus and India, earlier this month, according to the board’s report we obtained. The board told the Radiocommunication Bureau (BR) to keep an Iranian network on the books. Italy and Slovenia are moving toward partial resolution of interference troubles, the report said, and Cuba continued to report U.S. transmissions as harmful interference. Questions about possible discrepancies between reality and information in the master register persist concerning more than three dozen satellite networks, according to a separate report by the Radiocommunication Bureau director to the meeting.

GENEVA -- The Radio Regulations Board is putting the finishing touches on recommendations to the WRC-12 aimed at tightening the use of “reliable information” to improve maintenance of the ITU master register and world plans, according to a copy of a draft report by the board that we obtained. Radiocommunication Bureau consultations with administrations have resulted in a number of cancellations, suspensions and suppressed satellite frequency assignments, it said. The board reviewed some of the bureau’s actions under a routine procedure. Recommendations in the report may be revised next year. Satellite executives have said networks’ squatting on underused resources works against developing countries, established operators and direct-to-home services. Proposed stricter measures are aimed at aligning the master register more closely with reality.