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Commerce Department officials released a report Tuesday on a band of government airwaves long coveted by wireless carriers saying that while it would be possible to switch the block to commercial use, it could cost $18 billion and take a decade. Instead of moving federal agencies off of the airwaves and auctioning them off to wireless carriers, Commerce officials instead proposed that commercial and government users share them.

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“It’s critical that this previously unused spectrum be put to good use,” Randall Milch, executive vice president of Verizon Communications, said during a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Consumers in some markets could begin experiencing capacity problems by 2013 if Verizon doesn’t acquire more airwaves soon, he said.

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Congressional negotiators were still hammering out details, but the legislation would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to auction off TV-station airwaves to wireless companies for next-generation phones and gadgets. A portion of the auction proceeds would help cover the cost of extending jobless benefits, which is also part of the payroll-tax legislation.

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Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, was among the most significant shifts. He said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that the bill is “simply not ready for prime time.”

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The Federal Communications Commission signed off on the deal Thursday on a 3-1 vote, with minor conditions, FCC officials said. The approval means that AT&T and Qualcomm could close the deal by the end of the year.

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Preliminary data from recent government and industry tests of LightSquared’s network suggest that the start-up hasn’t solved concerns that its network would knock out a large number of personal or military GPS devices, the report said, according to the aide.

LightSquared, a startup funded largely by hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, wants to build a national wireless broadband network and offer wholesale Internet access to companies including Leap Wireless International Inc. and Best Buy Co.

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The decision to release the analysis — which came despite AT&T’s objections — marked the latest blow to the deal, which is on life support after a lawsuit by the Justice Department and criticism from the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC said last week it wanted to call a trial-like hearing to review the deal. AT&T responded by pulling its application at the FCC and the agency, after some discussion over the weekend, agreed Tuesday to let the withdrawal go through.

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At a hearing, the committee debated the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would give the U.S. attorney general new authority to shut down U.S. financial support to “rogue” foreign websites that sell pirated movies, music or other counterfeit goods. The Justice Department could ask for a court order to compel U.S. search engines and other sites to block domain names or search results.

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Ahead of a House hearing Wednesday, nine tech companies sent a letter Tuesday to congressional leaders saying the legislation would “expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities.”

The bill would let the U.S. attorney general seek court orders requiring U.S. Internet sites and search engines to take reasonable measures to block access to other websites carrying pirated material. That could compel them to block domain names and search results featuring those sites.

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In a unanimous vote, the Federal Communications Commission’s commissioners approved a remake of the federal Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service in rural America and to low-income Americans. The agency will shift the fund’s $8 billion from funding phone service to high-speed broadband service over the next few years.

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Wireless carriers have agreed to send warnings to consumers in danger of exceeding their monthly subscriber minutes or data plans under a deal with the Federal Communications Commission. The companies will provide the alerts to consumers within 12 to 18 months, FCC officials said.

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It was a significant victory for opponents of net neutrality rules because the court has been skeptical of the FCC’s authority to enforce such rules in the past.

“The FCC stands ready to defend its open Internet order in any court of appeals,” an FCC spokesman said Thursday.

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On Wednesday public interest group Free Press filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission rules in a Boston-based federal appeals court, saying they didn’t protect wireless Internet users enough.

In the complaint, the group argued the FCC acted arbitrarily when it decided to “adopt one set of rules for broadband access via mobile platforms and a different set of rules for broadband access via fixed platforms.”

The rules take effect November 20.

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A November deadline is approaching for federal regulators to finish their interference tests, raising the stakes for a project already confronting financial hurdles and political resistance.

Amid complaints by GPS users, company officials say they realize the bar will be high for the start-up to show its network won’t disrupt other traffic.

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The Justice Department, which filed suit Wednesday in federal court to block the acquisition, and the FCC are separate agencies with different standards for assessing mergers. But the two worked together as the Justice Department prepared its suit, and the FCC has never approved a deal that the Justice Department rejected, according to FCC officials.

“It’s a DOJ decision, but there was a lot of input from [FCC Chairman Julius] Genachowski’s team,” an FCC official said Thursday of the ruling.

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The Federal Communications Commission found for the second straight year that the wireless phone market has grown more concentrated over the years.

The FCC stayed neutral on whether the industry is competitive. Before 2010, the FCC found that the wireless phone market was “effectively competitive” for several years.

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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Monday the agency would begin considering a proposal to “explore new ways to empower consumers and protect Americans against cramming and mystery fees.”

Cramming is a term used to describe a phone company’s inclusion of an unauthorized or misleading charge in monthly bills. FCC officials offered an example of a Saint Louis woman who was charged for long-distance service for more than two years even though she hadn’t signed up for it.

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The concerns were expressed in a letter released Thursday by Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas) and Rep. Edward Markey (D., Mass) after the lawmakers asked the four main U.S. wireless carriers to explain their policies for collecting and storing location data.

The carriers–AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA–said they seek subscribers’ consent before tracking their location, but said they can’t control how applications developed by third parties use location information that the carriers don’t provide.

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But Facebook is still trying to find a path to Washington, where the company has only a fledgling lobbying operation, even though it finds its privacy policies under increasing scrutiny and is trying to navigate a politically sensitive expansion into China.

In seven years, Facebook has risen from a tiny start-up to an Internet power with a potential market value estimated at more than $50 billion. Now an online forum with more than 600 million users, Facebook faces growing pressure from lawmakers and regulators concerned about the way it uses personal information shared by its users.

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Will the proposed AT&T purchase of T-Mobile pass regulatory muster? The ‘digits’ panel looks at lawmakers’ feelings and how consumers will fare.

The former Baby Bell, which built itself up through a decade of acquisitions into the country’s largest telecommunications company, was planning to buy T-Mobile USA, a deal that would test its skilled regulatory team in Washington.

The combination would bring together the second and fourth largest U.S. wireless operators by revenue, creating a giant in an already concentrated market. People familiar with the matter said AT&T executives, fearing a leak could build regulatory opposition even before the two sides agreed on a deal, kept the number of banks involved strictly limited for weeks. It leaned on J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. alone to provide a $20 billion loan.

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Republicans are targeting the “net neutrality” rules, which would bar Internet providers from blocking or slowing Internet traffic and services, as well as new regulations in such areas as health care and the environment, as unnecessary and overly burdensome on industry.

“Why would you put the government in charge of the Internet?” asked Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, defended the new rules during the hearing, saying the FCC “did the right thing” and that it is “pro-job and pro-investment” for the U.S. economy.

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At issue is a condition proposed by the Federal Communications Commission that would require Comcast to offer NBC programming to any online video service that has reached a similar deal for content from at least one of NBC’s competitors, such as Walt Disney Co. or News Corp.

Lobbyists for both Disney and News Corp., along with Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes, have been voicing their concerns this week with the FCC, worried that such conditions could undermine their own efforts to profit from the nascent online video industry. News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

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AT&T dropped off about 127 dozen cupcakes throughout the agency, according to a delivery list acquired by Public Knowledge, a digital-rights public interest group that’s been heavily lobbying on the net neutrality issue this week.

That’s roughly $3,700 worth of cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake, a gourmet cupcake store.

“We’re pro-open Internet and pro-cupcake,” and FCC spokeswoman said.

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The agency tweaked its so-called “CableCard” rules to make it easier for consumer electronics makers to make cable-ready TVs and other devices and for consumers to install them.

Cable-ready TVs and set-top boxes have been around for years, but consumers haven’t been able to use them to see some cable programming (like On-Demand movies) because of some technical protections cable companies installed to prevent piracy. The FCC changed its rules slightly to make it easier for consumer electronics makers to produce devices that access all cable channels.

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