A draft order upholding an earlier FCC decision is a step along a path for new low-power FM stations because the translators dealt with in the current item are limited for each applicant, commission officials said. The order is likely to be approved without much eighth-floor controversy and outside a commission meeting, an official said. It upholds an earlier order limiting to 10 the number of applications from any entity that will be granted in Auction No. 83, several commission and industry officials said.

The complexity and scope of a referral of some jurisdictional separations issues to the Federal-State Joint Board justify a continued freeze on separations, the FCC said in a rulemaking notice. The commission is seeking comment about extending the freeze a year, through June 2011. Comments are due 14 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register, replies seven days later. This is the third time that the commission has extended the freeze. This is “another area where the FCC has failed to act in a timely fashion,” said the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates.

The Rural Utilities Service announced its final Broadband Initiatives Program award Tuesday for the first funding round, the day after second round applications were due. NTIA has yet to finish making first round grant announcements, though the final deadline for second round Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program applications was Friday.

Municipal broadband, stimulus funding and Google’s fiber projects are among alternatives some cities are looking at as Verizon backs away from further FiOS expansion and concentrates on completing current commitments, experts told us. Cities probably won’t make quick decisions to pursue their own fiber buildouts, but Verizon’s pause in seeking new franchises will prompt them to raise the possibility again, said lawyers who represent cities in these matters. Baltimore and Boston are among the major cities likely to consider the idea, they said.

A renowned eastern university is working to use the Internet and Silicon Valley’s location in earthquake country to unite crowd-sourced and corporate emergency information and response with those of government agencies in new ways, said Steven Ray, a participant in the efforts. The Valley campus of Carnegie Mellon University played host to public officials, technologists, executives of high-tech startups and representatives of humanitarian nonprofits at the Disaster Management Initiative Workshop last week and then at an intensive Crisis Camp over the weekend. The university’s partners in the work include the NASA Ames Research Center, which shares Moffett Field with the university branch and others; Clearwire, whose WiMAX network includes access for developers in the area; and the Wireless Communications Alliance, including its emergency Communications Leadership & Innovation Center, known as eCLIC.

The FCC may not be able to turn the National Broadband Plan into action as fast as the report to Congress envisions, former FCC Chairman Michael Powell warned in an interview. Congress may never act on some recommendations, and it could revise others, said Powell, who co-chairs the industry advocacy group Broadband for America. The FCC’s part depends on completing long and “messy” rulemaking proceedings “that may or may not come out the way that is envisioned,” he said. Powell also sought a targeted revamp of the Telecom Act.

The emergence of cloud computing and ubiquitous mobile devices has complicated the federal statute covering law-enforcement access to electronic communications, written when e-mail was a new technology, a coalition of Internet companies, privacy groups and think tanks said Tuesday. They are pushing for revision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act at a time when the Obama administration is defending a government right of access without warrants to information about cellphone locations (CD Feb 16 p11). Those pressing for change have allies in the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. But they don’t expect legislation to move this year.

Ericsson won $1.8 billion in contracts to provide equipment to two of China’s largest operators, China Mobile and China Unicom, the manufacturer said Monday. The manufacturer still is likely to see growth in China slow down this year after the three major Chinese operators cut their investments in 3G, analysts said.

ComScore broadband test results understate the speeds offered by ISPs, the NCTA said in a letter to the chief of the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. The association said it sent the letter in response to assumptions about retail broadband speed disclosures in the National Broadband Plan that relied on comScore figures. “The comScore data cited in the plan suffers from a variety of problems and should not serve as the basis for concluding that there is such a significant gap between maximum speeds and ‘actual’ speeds,” NCTA Vice President Neal Goldberg wrote Joel Gurin, the chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.

Changing the Wiretap Act to ban video surveillance could cause more problems than it solves, a former federal prosecutor said Monday at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Crime Subcommittee in Philadelphia. Chairman Arlen Specter, D-Pa., the only lawmaker at the hearing, said he will introduce a bill to expand to still pictures and video the legal protection given oral communications, according to media reports. We couldn’t reach his office for comment. Several civil-liberties groups also said they will propose Tuesday changes in the underlying Electronic Communications Privacy Act.