STANFORD, Calif. -- The benchmarks for whether the National Broadband Plan is making enough progress the first year will be FCC action on universal service and intercarrier compensation, and the creation by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy of a task force of officials from throughout the government on matters such as health, energy and education as they relate to broadband, said Blair Levin, who headed work on the FCC’s plan. Last summer, the FCC’s broadband staff debated offering just three proposals, he said late Tuesday at Stanford Law School. Then it was inundated with about 2,300 recommendations in filings, Levin said. Research for the plan found state laws to be “huge impediments,” unintentionally, to applying broadband to health and education, he said.

The military is moving toward using long-term bandwidth contracts for satellite communications in place of annual leases, Bruce Bennett, the director of satellite communications at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) said at the Military Satellites Summit in Vienna, Va. DISA has wanted longer contracts for years, but the holders of congressional purse-strings have resisted. But “Congress is weakening,” as DISA and industry have increased lobbying for changes in the system, he said. Longer contracts are part of a major effort to modernize satellite communications networks and acquisition, Bennett said.

Florida’s House and Senate have until close of business Friday to agree on SB-1034 to overhaul the Public Service Commission. Sponsoring Sen. Mike Fasano (R), whose colleagues passed his version of the bill at the start of the session that’s about to end, sent the House a set of revisions to its rework of his original measure. Fasano’s amendments include replacing the House’s definitions of prohibited ex parte communications with his earlier language. “The concern is that the House language leaves open loopholes that Sen. Fasano meant to close,” a member of his staff told us.

Cable operators are again seeing broadband businesses grow at faster rates, after a few quarters of slowing growth, Comcast executives told investors Wednesday. The renewed growth, which they said was rare for a business line that’s been active for a decade, had to do with its DOCSIS 3.0 deployments and the growing popularity of online video and gaming. “We and other cable companies have started to re-accelerate our net adds,” said Chief Operating Officer Stephen Burke. “In each of the last two quarters our net adds alone were as much as the entire big RBOC footprint combined."

Comcast-NBC Universal still may face FCC field hearings even after the Media Bureau denied a request to pause review of the deal until holding the sessions (CD April 6 p10), agency and public interest officials said. Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps have expressed support for the idea, and colleagues may not object if the hearings are scheduled, they said. The commission hasn’t made a decision, they said.

The FCC’s proposed rule changes for the wireless communications band probably would fail legal challenge, and the commission should reject the proposal, Sirius XM told the commission in comments. The rules wouldn’t survive under the Administrative Procedure Act, and adopting them would violate Section 316 of the Communications Act because they improperly change Sirius XM’s licenses without individual hearing procedures, the company said. WCS spectrum should be reauctioned to avoid denying “the U.S. taxpayer the fair proceeds reflecting the true value of the spectrum,” since the changes would dramatically increase the spectrum’s worth, it said.

Cablevision’s Supreme Court challenge to federal must-carry rules, if successful, could lead Congress to react and create a new set of rules to preserve some elements of that system, lawyers said Tuesday at a Progress & Freedom Foundation panel on the topic. If successful, the challenge could have implications for the FCC’s plans to reallocate part of the TV band for wireless broadband, they said.

The FCC’s new Spectrum Task Force has a focused goal, to implement and update the National Broadband Plan, Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman said in an interview Tuesday. The task force may also spin off new ideas in keeping with the plan, for example on additional spectrum bands that could be targeted for reallocation for wireless broadband, she said. The commission unveiled the task force Monday (CD April 27 p10). The new task force differs from the Spectrum Policy Task Force, set up under former Chairman Michael Powell in 2002 to “assist the Commission in identifying and evaluating changes in spectrum policy that will increase the public benefits derived from the use of the radio spectrum.” Its report is at http://xrl.us/bhji9u.

Companies large and small, public interest groups and trade associations offered a divided FCC very different takes on whether proposed net neutrality rules would stifle or spur competition, in replies in the net neutrality proceeding. The biggest change from the first comment round, in January, is that many filers focused on the Comcast decision and the complicated question of whether the FCC has authority to proceed with new net neutrality rules or first would have to change the way broadband is classified to gain clear authority.

A Universal Service Fund revamp and additional public funding are needed to bring broadband to small businesses and encourage adoption, top government and broadband industry officials said Tuesday. At a hearing of the Senate Small Business Committee, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said high prices, sparse availability and low digital literacy are the largest barriers keeping broadband from small businesses. And NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling called continued funding in fiscal 2011 critical to ensuring a successful broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.