When a casual session with reporters following his appearance at the NBA Tech Summit turned to a la carte pricing and set-top box limitations, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin offered his usual example of what’s wrong: cable. But when he was reminded–OK, by me, since I have a DirecTV TiVo that’s functionally crippled–that cable isn’t alone when it comes to limiting services and access on set-tops or alone on programming prices, Martin insisted, “I’m not picking on cable. … Cable is the easiest analogy. You’re absolutely right; the same rules apply. Generically, our term is MVPD—multichannel video provider. It’s not just cable, it’s also satellite or telephone companies, whoever’s providing your multichannel video services. All these rules should be the same for all of them. … These are the rules that apply to everyone.” He also talked about the 700-MHz auction, bandwidth management, a la carte, competition and Sirius-XM.

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Bidding slowed in the government’s auction of wireless spectrum Tuesday. By the fifth bidding round of the day, there were only 87 new bids, adding $6 million to the total. The total bid now totals $18.9 billion, up from $18.8 billion yesterday.

The calm was in contrast to the auction Monday, when a second bidder emerged for the C block, the block of licenses that would allow nationwide wireless service. No new bids in the C block were placed Tuesday.

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When analog television broadcasting goes dark in the United States on Feb. 17, 2009, and the huge analog transmitters of more than 1,600 broadcast stations are turned off, what will happen to those radio frequencies formerly used for analog TV? Well, for UHF channels 60 to 69, the future will be decided starting this week, as the Federal Communications Commission begins to auction that reclaimed bandwidth, bringing at least $10 billion into the treasury from auction winners and possibly allowing a dramatic expansion of wireless spectrum for cellular voice and data communication. Or maybe not, since it is just as likely these frequencies will be bought by incumbent wireless providers who may choose to simply let the channels go unused so as not to threaten their existing businesses.

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