Progress toward a single European telecom market is “disappointing,” Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said Tuesday. The 15th annual European Commission report on the state of the electronic communications sector showed consumers and businesses are missing out on the benefits of a unified and competitive market because telecom rules are applied inconsistently, the EC said. There are also questions about the independence and effectiveness of some national regulators and major differences in wholesale and retail prices across Europe, it said.

West Virginia’s Public Service Commission should reconsider its approval of the deal between Frontier and Verizon, the commission’s Consumer Advocate Division said in a motion for reconsideration filed late Monday. Soon after West Virginia, the last state among eight whose approval was needed for closing, gave its assent, the FCC approved the 14-state transaction, which Frontier hopes to close by June 30 (CD May 21 p11). Consumer Advocate Division Director Byron Harris was vocal in opposing the transaction before the state regulator acted.

The FCC wants to know if consumers are satisfied with media they use, and how to measure that satisfaction. Those are among the more than 100 questions on online, print, radio and TV media asked in a notice of inquiry on the 2010 quadrennial review. It was released Tuesday afternoon, with questions largely along the lines of what had been anticipated (CD May 18 p4). Some questions about measuring the extent to which broadcasters serve their community raised the hackles of Commissioner Robert McDowell, who, like some industry and public interest officials (CD April 2 p1), suggested a rulemaking would have been possible without an inquiry.

Nearly a year after the analog TV cutoff, some consumers who made the switch to DTV with a government-subsidized converter box have complained their device suddenly stopped working. Reviews for some boxes still being sold online vary, with some buyers claiming certain brands of boxes broke down within six months of installation. Overall, more than 50 million boxes were sold during the switchover period, and they have worked well, a CEA spokeswoman said. “We've talked to manufacturers and tried to stay in the loop on this,” she said. “We're not getting the calls. These are not devices that were intended to be used for six months and tossed."

Congress will develop proposals to update the Communications Act, Democratic Commerce Committee leaders in both houses said Monday. The process will be headed by House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and their Senate counterparts Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and John Kerry, D-Mass. Telcos, broadcasters and Public Knowledge were among those who backed the effort at our deadline.

Many of the 122 questions total the FCC posed to Comcast and NBC Universal on their deal to combine broadcast, cable and online programming assets signal a keen interest by the agency and Chairman Julius Genachowski in Internet video, experts observing the review said. The queries, many with sub-questions, were released by the commission Friday afternoon (CD May 24 p13). They cover VOD, online video distribution, set-top boxes and Internet video that can be seen using the devices. Queries on carriage deals show an interest in program access, industry lawyers who reviewed the data requests said.

The president needs to order the departments involved to develop a national strategy for dealing with cyberattacks, Michael Chertoff, a former Homeland Security secretary, said at a Bipartisan Policy Center briefing Monday. The challenge was raised by the Cyber ShockWave exercise (CD Feb. 17 p4), said Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary for policy at Homeland Security. The plan should identify issues like authorities, capabilities, consequences and attributions, Chertoff said. And coordinating with other countries, especially those with advanced cybersecurity capabilities, is critical, he said.

Tribune and MGM expanded their distribution agreement for MGM’s This TV multicast network, the companies are expected to say Tuesday. The network, a 24/7 programming feed of old MGM-produced movies and TV shows, has been attracting a growing audience despite its lack of pay-TV carriage in some markets, said Jim Packer, co-president of MGM Worldwide TV.

The FCC’s wireless competition report cites a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) increase as a clear warning sign that the industry has grown less competitive. But the CTIA questions the commission’s reliance on the index as one of the key measures in the report, the first in years that didn’t find the industry competitive (CD May 21 p1). CTIA also questioned how the measure was calculated for the report.

STANFORD, Calif. -- The actions that made Microsoft the target of antitrust authorities internationally didn’t compare with some of the practices of dominant technology players today, said General Counsel Brad Smith. “One can only imagine the volcanic uproar if we had” run an app store in which the company “alone would control” the software accepted for distribution and from which applications that competed with offerings by the company had been excluded, he said late Friday at an antitrust symposium hosted by Stanford Law School and the American Bar Association.