Communications Security, Reliability & Interoperability Council (CSRIC) Working Group 4 will be able to report at CSRIC’s meeting Wednesday that it has made “substantial progress” on its work to use the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework for communications sector needs, said Working Group 4 Co-Chair Robert Mayer in an interview.

AT&T’s comment in the Communications Act Section 706 notice of inquiry that wholesale obligations could deter it from making broadband investments is an “absurd argument,” Comptel said in a reply filed in docket 14-126 at Friday’s deadline. AT&T argued in Sept. 4 comments (http://bit.ly/1Af6UAO) that legacy regulations, like the wholesale obligations in sections 251 and 271, “may require carriers to maintain legacy TDM-based networks even after their IP networks are in place.” The claim that the obligations deter broadband investment “has never been proven,” Comptel said. The commission found in the IP transitions order that in the 15 years before deregulation in 2001, “the industry experienced ‘a torrent of new investment deployed over 200,000 miles of trenches and approximately 18 million miles of fiber -- enough fiber to circle the equator 750 times,'” Comptel said. AT&T’s claim of being required to maintain two networks “is nonsense,” Comptel said, because “the same physical infrastructure that has supported TDM-based services over the decades supports IP-based services.” The commission failed to provide “adequate support” for its proposal to increase the broadband download speed threshold to 10 Mbps, AT&T said in its reply made available Monday. The proposed increase “is not based on a reasonable analysis of how customers’ actually use broadband services,” said AT&T, which also criticized Public Knowledge and Netflix’s backing of a 25 Mbps benchmark. Public Knowledge’s comments were “based on a hypothetical average household that watches three HD movies simultaneously while using other basic device and online services,” while Netflix’s was “based on streaming super and ultra HD content,” AT&T said. There is no evidence “latency prevents consumers from using the applications listed in section 706, and thus there is no basis for the Commission to include it in evaluating broadband,” AT&T said. Replies filed Friday hadn’t been posted on the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System by our deadline. But major wireline players which filed initial comments -- including Fiber to the Home Council Americas, NCTA, Netflix, NTCA, Public Knowledge, TechFreedom and USTelecom -- told us they did not file replies. Some industry observers said the absence of filings in a proceeding that asked questions on topics such as increasing the broadband speed benchmark (CD Aug 6 p5). There’s a sense that the commission intends to move ahead regardless of the comments, said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka, a view shared by some others. That telecom attorneys are “completely overwhelmed by the absurdly intense series of deadlines the Commission has imposed” played a role, Szoka and others said. Spokespeople and attorneys for some of the groups said a sense the commission plans to move ahead with its proposal, including raising the broadband speed benchmark, was not a factor in why they did not file. They were too busy meeting a spate of deadlines on such other proceedings as on net neutrality and E-rate modernization, and felt their initial comments expressed their viewpoint, the sources said.

USTelecom hires Lynn Follansbee, leaving FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Policy Division, as vice president-law and policy … Cox Communications moves Senior Vice President-Northeast John Wolfe to that job in southwest region, succeeding Steve Rizley, retiring.

Industry officials urged Congress to reconsider many elements of USF support policy, despite lauding the broad principles that have guided it. House Communications Subcommittee Republicans issued a white paper last month (http://1.usa.gov/1pmX66c) asking several questions about USF, seeking responses by Friday. It was the fifth white paper the subcommittee issued as part of efforts to overhaul the Communications Act, an initiative announced in December. Initial responses, which the committee has not posted online but were shared with us, were on what parties considered necessary changes to the USF contribution mechanism.

The FCC “overstepped its authority” and “implemented a rule inconsistent with existing law” when it doubled the record-retention requirement in a July E-rate order (CD July 14 p1), USTelecom said in a petition for reconsideration filed Thursday and made available to us. The rule will “adversely” affect the program, the filing said. The agency had no comment. Despite an agency assertion otherwise, the rule is not necessary to comply with the False Claims Act, USTelecom said. That law “is designed to ferret out fraudulent claims by government contractors, not to increase the recordkeeping expense of government contractors,” said USTelecom. The act has a 10-year statute of limitations, the association said, but “a statute of limitations period by which a claim must be brought and a recordkeeping period during which records must be maintained serve fundamentally different purposes -- purposes that the Order conflates.” The 10-year requirement exceeds the requirement in other federal programs, many of which require record retention of five years or less, USTelecom said. The costs of maintaining and storing records for 10 years “is significant and would “greatly outweigh any purported benefit from having available records during the entire time that a person could theoretically assert a False Claims Act claim,” said the association.

Calls by education and library groups, and FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in a speech Wednesday, to increase E-rate funding are running into opposition from telcos, in comments filed in the E-rate modernization Further NPRM. The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and USTelecom said they worry expanding E-rate could cut into other USF programs like the Connect America Fund.

Hours of debate on net neutrality rules at two FCC workshops Tuesday quickly veered into the issue of paid prioritization, a subsidiary issue the commission has committed to examine as it develops broader rules. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler opened the workshops, saying he hoped they would “put a fine point” on the more than 3 million net neutrality comments filed.

Some major Communications Act Title II opponents highlighted proposals by AT&T and Comcast in replies filed before Monday night’s net neutrality comments deadline. Section 706 proponents were pushing the idea that the FCC could consider alternatives that don’t involve resorting to Title II.

Policymakers “should be wary of those calling for significant changes to the regulatory environment and the imposition of telephone-style regulation on broadband service providers,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick wrote in a blog post (http://bit.ly/Zije8b) Thursday. Broadband providers invested $75 billion in 2013, up by almost 10 percent over the prior year, McCormick wrote. “When so much is going so well ... policymakers should be careful to avoid the harm that could result from injecting unnecessary uncertainty and negative pressures into the broadband investment equation,” he wrote.

Broadcasters declared victory as Senate Commerce Committee leaders removed the controversial Local Choice proposal from their Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization draft, circulated Friday. But advocates for Local Choice, which would overhaul retransmission consent rules to stop TV blackouts, hope it will come back to life in 2015, as does Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.