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.

If the FCC doesn’t impose net neutrality rules, Congress will step in, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., told an agency field hearing in Seattle Wednesday. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from the state, encouraged the regulator to approve rules proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in October. Genachowski welcomed comments from both and said the commission will move forward on the net neutrality proceeding despite the Comcast decision. All three spoke in taped remarks played at the beginning of the forum.

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.

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."

Technology trade group TechAmerica urged regulatory actions to help the high-tech industry get back on track, after its annual report found 245,600 high-tech jobs were cut in 2009. The recession-induced loss of high-tech jobs followed four years of steady growth in high-tech employment, said the report.

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.

Sprint Nextel lost a total of 75,000 wireless subscribers on a net basis in Q1 vs. a loss of 182,000 in the year-earlier period. The carrier said it had a loss of $865 million, up from $594 million a year earlier. Prepaid momentum is expected to pick up in the second half of the year, CEO Dan Hesse said on a conference call Wednesday, and he expects improving customer growth in both the prepaid and postpaid segments.

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.

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.