STANFORD, Calif. -- An FCC media-ownership workshop on new technologies became a platform for executives to lobby against taking spectrum away from broadcasters and the exclusion of low-power stations from must-carry requirements, as well as for dropping cross-ownership restrictions. “The time for repeal of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules is long overdue,” because of the hardships and diminished roles of older outlets resulting from the rise of the Web and other digital technologies, Los Angeles Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein said in prepared testimony at Stanford University.

Tech and advertising groups prefer the Senate financial overhaul bill passed late Thursday to the House version, they said Friday. The groups have voiced concerns about the FTC expansion envisioned by the House bill, among other things (CD May 5 p6). But so far, few Capitol Hill legislators have commented directly on the tech community’s concerns.

CE makers are seeking a blanket waiver to exempt mobile DTV devices from FCC Part 15 requirements that all TV devices include analog and legacy ATSC DTV tuners. Dell and LG filed a joint petition, seeking a waiver for battery-operated mobile devices. Separately, Hauppauge Computer Works sought a broader waiver to cover any “television receivers capable of mobile use by consumers” that has a mobile DTV receiver. Comments on both requests, which the commission will consider together, are due June 4 under an accelerated process. Replies are due June 11.

The FCC approved the 4.8 million-line transfer from Frontier to Verizon. The transaction, approved Friday, will bring “broadband to millions of consumers and small businesses and anchor institutions in 14 states,” the commission said in a news release. Frontier’s voluntary commitments include offering new broadband deployment with actual speeds of at least 1 Mbps upstream and providing the FCC with data on its deployment progress “at an unprecedented level of detail,” the commission said.

Cable operators large and small largely are unified on many issues that affect the industry, some of them high profile, that are pending before the FCC, our survey of executives found. Retransmission consent deals, where pay-TV operators contend broadcasters force them to pay unfair carriage fees, are the latest example of a unified message across operators of all sizes (CD May 20 p4) and the NCTA, representing big operators and programmers, and the small-operator lobbying group American Cable Association (ACA). Concern about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s plan to reclassify broadband transport under parts of Title II and a desire to use cheap HD set-top boxes with integrated navigation and security features are shared by many cable system owners.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed “third way” regulation of broadband is already having a “dampening effect” on investment in telecommunications equipment, former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth said Friday during a webinar sponsored by TIA. The FCC is expected to vote on a notice of inquiry and notice of proposed forbearance on the reclassification proposal at its June 17 meeting.

Intel is “putting all our energy” into “working with Google on enabling” Sony and Logitech TV products based on the Android operating system (CED May 21 p5) to be sold at retail this year, Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager for Intel’s Digital Home Group, said in a phone briefing Friday. But he said, “We are also very deeply engaged with many other major CE OEMs, so you could expect there to be many additional CE products -- TVs, set-top boxes, media players -- hitting the retail shelves in spring of 2011.” He declined to name other OEMs, citing “very strict confidentiality” deals, but said Intel is “definitely putting a huge amount of energy to scale this out very, very rapidly."

FCC Republicans objected strongly Thursday to an order approving the agency’s latest version of its annual wireless competition report, which unlike previous reports does not find that the U.S. wireless market is competitive. Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker “concurred” with the order, rather than approving it without reservations. The report reflects the state of the industry based on 2008 data.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz stressed planned further efforts for consumer protection, in testimony to a Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services hearing on the commission’s fiscal 2011 budget. The FTC will take “a very close look” at Google’s Street View vehicles having collected “payload data” from German Wi-Fi networks, he said Thursday.

The FCC voted to revise rules in the wireless communications service band, making 25 MHz of spectrum available for mobile broadband use by WCS licensees more than a decade after the agency first took up the issue. The commission on Thursday also implemented new construction benchmarks for licensees in the band, meant to increase the speed of the service’s deployment. The FCC cited the order as the first step in the National Broadband Plan goal of freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum over 10 years for wireless broadband services. Previous rules for the spectrum limited its use to fixed services.