The FCC restarted its 180-day clock on review of Comcast’s agreement to buy control of NBC Universal after the companies on Tuesday submitted economic studies requested by commission staff. In pausing the clock at 29 days elapsed last month (CD April 19 p1), the Media Bureau said it would restart after the studies, on the stated benefits of the deal and its impact on online video competition, were filed. A bureau public notice Wednesday afternoon set new deadlines for opposition to the deal and other comments.

Most of those who've expressed a view believe it’s a bad idea to allow outside parties to see data on local telephone competition and broadband connections that carriers must file using Form 477, Verizon and Verizon Wireless said in a joint filing at the commission. But Free Press said it’s asking only that the data be available to parties that sign confidentiality agreements. Outside groups could provide important insights if allowed to analyze the information, it said.

SES said it’s considering several different in-orbit maneuvers to mitigate interference on subsidiary SES World Skies’ AMC-11 satellite from the nearby Intelsat Galaxy 15 satellite that’s unresponsive and continuing to transmit while slowly drifting outside its slot (CD April 9 p10). The amount of interference created by the proximity of the two C-band payloads is hard to estimate, but the company is considering a number of movements that should keep interference at a minimum as Galaxy 15 passes through AMC-11’s orbital spot at 129 degrees west, said a company spokesman.

National ad sales at TV stations rebounded from the deep lows of the recent recession during the first quarter and seem to be continuing this quarter, TV executives told investors this week. “It’s a broad, healthy market with people feeling there’s going to be more competition for market share and awareness that if you want to try to be in the game and build a brand, you've got to market it,” Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey of News Corp. said late Tuesday.

Qwest’s Q1 profit fell 81 percent year-over-year to $38 million, but CenturyTel, which has agreed to buy that company for $22.4 billion, said quarterly earnings tripled to $252.6 million. The companies continued to lose landline customers.

Internet technologies will take center stage as a U.S.-led program to tie together international military communications in Asia and the Pacific is extended to enabling data-sharing and to cooperation with technology companies and private, U.N. and relief organizations, organizers said. Military organizations of 22 foreign countries are scheduled to take part Aug. 16-27 in the fourth edition of an exercise called Pacific Endeavor, to be held at Singapore’s Changi Command and Control Centre.

Conservation and industry groups filed an agreement at the FCC Wednesday calling for the development of interim standards for the Antenna Structure Registration (ASR) program. The agreement came after six months of negotiations and offers recommendations on the types of towers for which an ASR is required, based on the height of a proposed tower or the specifications of a replacement tower, the groups said in a news release. The memorandum of understanding also asks the FCC to adopt a preferred lighting scheme for changes to existing towers.

Similarities between WiMAX and Long Term Evolution (LTE) would make migration from WiMAX to LTE or even convergence of the 4G technologies possible, Clearwire Chief Technology Officer John Saw said in an interview. The WiMAX operator is set to launch in many new markets this year.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski knows how to cement the commission’s authority over broadband without reclassifying it under Title II of the Communications Act, a senior commission official said late Wednesday in an e-mail sent to reporters by an agency spokeswoman. He won’t say what it is until Thursday, the spokeswoman told us. The e-mail came a few hours after Democratic Commerce Committee leaders urged the FCC to consider “all viable options,” including reclassifying broadband, in the wake of the Comcast decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

"We now have seen how satellite radio performs in what was this terrible recession,” and the experience “bodes very, very well for our future,” Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin said Tuesday on a quarterly earnings call. “What we found is that consumers love our product. They stuck with us in spite of the 10 percent unemployment."