Wireless carriers are taking steps to make their phones more usable by the blind, deaf-blind and persons with low vision without prescriptive regulatory mandates, CTIA said in comments filed at the FCC in response to a request for comments by the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. TIA, AT&T and Sprint Nextel also highlighted the progress of mobile operators in developing phones for customers with vision problems.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- AT&T stressed “mobility, mobility, mobility” and Sprint machine-to-machine (M2M) technology at a conference Thursday. A parade of executives of telcos from around the world explained to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and other would-be partners at the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley’s Carrier Connections conference what innovations they crave and how to work with the companies.

ViaSat is overhauling its WildBlue satellite-based broadband service, shifting focus to wholesale from retail as it prepares for the launch of a new satellite in 2011, Chief Operating Officer Richard Baldridge told us at the Kaufman Brothers investor conference in New York. Since it bought WildBlue last year for $568 million, ViaSat has maintained WildBlue’s 425,000 subscribers clustered largely around metro markets in the Northeast and Southeast U.S., Baldridge said.

A House bill that would overhaul the Universal Service Fund was supposed to have been marked up Thursday, but instead was slated for another round of hearings after Republicans raised concerns to some of the cost containment measures, Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., told us. Terry said House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, asked for another round of hearings because “there had been some major changes."

TIA is turning to active messaging with key Washington players to fend off the FCC’s broadband reclassification proposal. Board members had multiple meetings with members of the Congress and the FCC this week, they said in a media briefing Thursday. TIA, representing equipment vendors and suppliers, is hopeful that Congress can come up with a solution this year, President Grant Seiffert told us.

The TV white spaces will play a key role in communications once devices are made available, most likely next year, said speakers at a New America Foundation panel Wednesday. The discussion comes with several fine points in the FCC’s white spaces order, scheduled for a vote at the Sept. 23 commission meeting, still potentially in play. The order finalizes the proceeding, after the FCC approved the use of the white spaces for accessing the Internet in November 2008. The agency is expected to cut off further lobbying when it releases the sunshine agenda on next week’s meeting Thursday.

The federal government should “dissolve the FCC and go away,” Liberty Media Chairman John Malone said Wednesday at a Bank of America conference in California when asked what the commission should do about regulating broadband service. He said the U.S. political system is “for all practical purposes broken,” and he blamed the FCC for endowing the country with what he called the world’s worst cellular system. “The problem is, you can’t separate politics from the regulatory environment and it always becomes a short-term misallocation of assets,” he said. On broadband regulations, “I would much prefer the FCC stay out if it and allow competitive forces to evolve,” Malone said. “The cable industry is now back to where the only thing it has to worry about is regulation."

"Controlling the electromagnetic spectrum [EMS] is essential to winning wars and protecting our service members,” said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. Better spectrum policy is critical to national security, economy and U.S. competitiveness, said other panelists at a Center for Strategic & International Studies conference Wednesday.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law approved Wednesday the Cell Tax Fairness Act, HR-1521, by voice vote, with only one objection, from a member concerned about the effect on local and state government. The measure would place a five-year moratorium on new state and local taxes and fees imposed only on wireless services.

Senate negotiators are looking to a lame duck session instead of September to pass an omnibus cybersecurity bill, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., told us Wednesday. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is undecided about attaching cyber measures to the fiscal 2011 Defense Department appropriations bill, said an analyst, though Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., is considering it.