Low-power TV broadcasters told the FCC that it shouldn’t mandate their switch to digital broadcasting before it completes plans for the TV band. The commission should wait until the National Broadband Plan is implemented before setting a deadline for a digital LPTV transition, Venture Technologies Group, which owns 33 LPTV stations, said in comments filed with the FCC last week. “The question now facing LPTV operators is whether channels will be available after the Broadband Plan is implemented,” the company said. “Until LPTV licensees … can be assured they will have channels on which to operate … it is ‘irrational and arbitrary’ to establish a deadline” for a digital conversion.

T-Mobile asked the FCC not to grant any additional waivers to state and local jurisdictions to make early use of 700 MHz public safety spectrum before it addresses “lingering uncertainties” about the spectrum, including the future of the 700 MHz D-block. Other commenters asked the commission to proceed with care because of potential future interoperability concerns if it grants the waivers. On Dec. 2, the Public Safety Bureau sought comment on three additional waiver requests beyond the 21 already granted: by Miami-Dade County, Fla., Indianapolis and Marion County, Ind., and West Virginia.

The posting of about 3,000 pages of documents in the FCC net neutrality docket, days before a vote on an order set for Tuesday, is unusual and not a good practice for any agency, said administrative law professors and former commissioners not involved in the policy debate. The Wireline Bureau posted about 2,000 pages Dec. 10 (CD Dec 11 p1) and 1,000 more Tuesday (CD Dec 15 p8). The documents contain information that was publicly available, but not all of it had been filed in docket 09-191.

FCC approval of net neutrality rules at Tuesday’s meeting is not a done deal, commission officials acknowledged this week. There remains a “distinct possibility” that the order could “blow up,” a source said. Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., a member of the Commerce Committee, asked the FCC commissioners to cancel their scheduled vote and respond to his office by noon Friday. In an unusual step, Rogers had the letter hand-delivered to each commissioner’s office Thursday.

Terrestrial TV may be quite different in two decades, industry executives and others said Thursday. Experts split over whether over-the-air TV will be around at all. In a panel on broadcasting and retransmission consent deals held on Capitol Hill by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation said “broadcasting will be completely off the air in a decade or two.” Broadcast representatives, including an NAB official, disagreed.

A failed attempt to start arbitration proceedings in retransmission consent negotiations between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Time Warner Cable resulted in both parties pointing fingers and blaming the other for the lack of progress. TWC “effectively refused” to submit to binding arbitration with Sinclair except under onerous conditions, Sinclair said in a press release Thursday. Limitations on the kind of evidence allowed into the arbitration, and restricting the scope to just the stations Sinclair owns that are affiliated with the major 4 broadcast networks were among the conditions, Sinclair said. But TWC said it was Sinclair that ultimately balked at arbitration. “We told Sinclair we would arbitrate, and then yesterday Sinclair declined our consent to arbitrate,” a spokeswoman said. TWC doesn’t believe its customers should have to pay anything for carriage of Sinclair’s CW MyNetworkTV affiliates, and has offered those stations must-carry status on its cable systems, she said.

A New York State supreme court judge pushed for a settlement and set an April trial date in Cablevision’s $2.5 billion breach of contract suit against Dish Network stemming from the failed Voom HD satellite service. Judge Richard Lowe on Wednesday asked Cablevision and Dish to discuss a possible settlement, but set April 6 as the start of a four-week trial if an agreement isn’t reached.

The Commerce Department proposed adoption of fair information practice principles amounting to a “Privacy Bill of Rights” for online consumers, setting up a privacy policy office in the department, and reviewing the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in light of cloud computing, it announced Thursday.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s plans to add net neutrality rules under the agency’s existing Title I authority comes as a relief to satellite broadband companies, said an industry executive. Under the Title I approach, satellite broadband would not be subject to Universal Service Fund contributions, as could have been the case had the agency gone forward with Title II reclassification, said Steven Doiron, director of regulatory affairs at Hughes Network Systems. Although the details of Genachowski’s plan haven’t been released, the FCC’s efforts aren’t expected to have major impact on satellite broadband providers’ businesses otherwise, said executives.

Public interest groups are turning up the heat on the FCC to strengthen net neutrality rules regarding wireless and a few other areas, in an order circulated by Chairman Julius Genachowski Nov. 30 for a vote Tuesday. The key question, commission and industry officials said Wednesday, is whether Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn will prevail on Genachowski to make changes to make the rules tougher, though doing so could blow up industry support for the rules.