The FCC Friday opened an investigation into the special-access terms and conditions of AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier and Verizon in the market for business data services. CLECs allege the terms and conditions "are unreasonable, anticompetitive, and lock up the vast majority of the demand for TDM-based business data services -- assertions that the ILECs have disputed," noted a Wireline Bureau order in docket 15-247 designating issues to be investigated.

USTelecom Senior Executive Vice President Alan Roth to retire, effective sometime next year ... OneWeb hires Matthew O’Connell, ex-consultant, as CEO ... Application Developers Alliance names Jake Ward permanent president, and also CEO, succeeding as planned Jon Potter, who stepped down in September ... Electronic Frontier Foundation hires Barak Weinstein, a former EFF legal secretary, as executive assistant ... AnyClip Media, content marketing platform for distributing branded video, hires Gil Becker, ex-myThings, as CEO, succeeding Oren Nauman ... Wilson Electronics hires Curtis Burkhart, ex-SureCall, as director-enterprise sales ... Twitter hires Omid Kordestani, ex-Google, as executive chairman.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework has bolstered efforts to protect critical infrastructure against cyberattacks, but there's much more to do, government and industry officials said Wednesday at a USTelecom forum. Department of Commerce officials said the NIST framework should be updated to incorporate lessons learned, and a former FCC and Department of Justice official said Congress needs to enact cybersecurity legislation to give industry liability protection and facilitate information sharing. A Commerce official also said the administration was working to adopt a new safe harbor for data transfers after a European court struck down the previous safe harbor arrangement (see 1510090023).

President Barack Obama appoints Raymond Dolan, Sonus Networks, to President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee ... Communications Engineering Inc. (CEI) promotes Michael Jones to vice president-sales and marketing ... North American Numbering Council appointees: Chair Betty Ann Kane, D.C. Public Service Commission; Marilyn Jones, FCC Wireline Bureau, designated federal officer; and members ATL Communications' Aelea Christofferson, AT&T's Henry Hultquist, Bandwidth.com's Greg Rogers, CenturyLink's Mary Retka, Comcast's Valerie Caldwell, the Competitive Carriers Association's Rebecca Murphy Thompson, Comptel's Alan Hill, Cox Communications' Jose Jimenez, CTIA's Matthew Gerst, 800 Response Information Services' David Greenhaus, Level 3 Communications' Scott Seab, with NARUC's Paul Kjellander (Idaho), Lynn Slaby (Ohio), Crystal Rhoades (Nebraska), Karen Charles (Massachusetts), Scott Rupp (Missouri), National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates' Helen Mickiewicz, NCTA's Jerome Candelaria, NTCA's Stephen Pastorkovich, SIP Forum's Richard Shockey, SMS/800's Gina Perini, Sprint Nextel's Rosemary Emmer, T-Mobile USA's Michele Thomas, USTelecom's Thomas Soroka, Verizon's Ann Berkowitz, Vonage's Brendan Kasper and XO Communications' Tiki Gaugler

Competify members urged the FCC to rein in Bell special-access rates and practices they say are anti-competitive. Speaking on a press call Thursday, representatives of Sprint, CLECs and others said they believe industry data collected by the commission will show many broadband business markets remain dominated by AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon special-access wholesale and retail services. The commission should prevent the Bells from using their leverage to extract inflated rates from rivals and business customers, including through “lock-up” contracts that thwart competitive responses, coalition members said.

The FCC net neutrality order violated broadband provider free-speech rights, argued Alamo Broadband and Daniel Berninger, who are among the petitioners challenging the order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “The FCC admits that broadband providers engage in and transmit speech, but contends the First Amendment does not protect these activities. That position is indefensible,” said Alamo, a small broadband provider, and Berninger, a network engineer, in their reply brief Monday in USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063.

CenturyLink became the latest ILEC entity to attack CLEC special access arguments about FCC discretion to regulate incumbent telco business market services. In a filing posted Monday in docket 05-25, CenturyLink said Birch Communications, BT Americas and Level 3 effectively had asserted the FCC has "virtually limitless authority to impose every conceivable type of wholesale regulation of ILEC business data services," including by reversing enterprise broadband forbearance relief, scrapping DS1 and DS3 pricing flexibility, reimposing price-cap regulations and reducing price-cap rates. The CLECs believe the FCC can "adopt whatever special access regulation it wants -- regardless of the evidence, or lack thereof -- as long as it mouths the necessary findings, based on its status as an expert agency," said CenturyLink. "In other words, the Joint CLECs suggest, the results of the special access data collection are secondary: the Commission can and should decide now (before even receiving public comment on the special access data) to impose utility-style regulation on ILEC special access and enterprise broadband services, knowing that it can later construct the justifications necessary to have that decision upheld by a reviewing court. The Commission should reject the Joint CLECs’ cynical arguments, which are both wrong and flatly inconsistent with the Commission’s stated intention of employing a data-driven review of its special access regulations." The CLEC proposals would lead to the FCC being reversed in court and "years of investment-choking regulatory uncertainty," CenturyLink said. USTelecom and AT&T previously made similar filings (see 1509250043 and 1509290036).

USTelecom and others argued the FCC was precluded from reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecom service (under the Communications Act) by the 1996 Telecom Act, in a reply brief to the U.S. Court for Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The D.C. Circuit is reviewing their petition challenging the agency net neutrality order (USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063). "At its core, the Order rests on the claim that Internet access is no different from voice telephone service and that the FCC therefore has authority to subject them both to Title II’s common-carriage requirements," said USTelecom, joined by the American Cable Association, AT&T, CenturyLink, CTIA, NCTA and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. "But Internet access, unlike voice telephony, necessarily 'offers' a 'comprehensive capability for manipulating information' -- namely, data stored on distant computers -- which is a classic information service exempt from common carriage under a long-settled regulatory regime," they said. "In 1996, Congress codified that regulatory regime and thereby precluded the FCC from regulating such services under Title II," their brief said, adding: "The FCC defends its upheaval of the regime with little more than a plea for deference, based on an aggressive misreading of Brand X," the Supreme Court's ruling deferring to the FCC's previous finding that cable broadband/modem service is a Title I information service. "But Brand X involved classification of a transmission link to Internet access functions, whereas the Order reclassifies Internet access service itself, which everyone in Brand X agreed is an information service. And, to avoid reclassifying many other Internet players as common carriers, the FCC has done something else the statute forbids: it classifies the same computer-processing and storage functions in opposite ways -- as 'telecommunications services' or 'information services' -- depending solely on whether they are provided by petitioners or third parties," the brief said.

Four rural telco groups made proposals for implementing parts of an FCC plan to give rate-of-return carriers the option of shifting to a new USF support mechanism based on a broadband cost model. The ITTA, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA submitted “consensus recommendations” for allocating an extra $200 million a year in Connect America Fund reserve money for RLECs opting into the model-based approach and for proposed broadband buildout milestones over a 10-year period, said an ITTA filing posted Friday in docket 10-90. ITTA, joined by USTelecom and WTA, updated a proposed broadband buildout methodology, in a separate filing Friday. And USTelecom Monday made another filing, on behalf of all four groups, asking the FCC questions about possible changes to legacy high-cost USF mechanisms for RLECs that don’t opt in to the model-based support.

The leaders of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship introduced the Small Business Broadband and Emerging Information Technology Enhancement Act Thursday. S-2116 “comes on the heels of the recent Broadband Opportunity Council report by modernizing SBA’s approach to broadband issues, connecting businesses with financing programs and advising on broadband acquisition by small businesses and startups,” said a summary of the legislation provided by a spokesman for committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. “The bill answers the call for agencies to address the push for broadband nationwide.” Shaheen is backing the 10-page bill with Chairman David Vitter, R-La. The Senate Committee on Small Business plans to mark up the legislation at 11 a.m. Wednesday in 428A Russell, Shaheen's spokesman told us. That markup session wasn't listed on the committee website by our deadline Friday. The legislation text explicitly mentions the FCC’s National Broadband Plan and the White House’s Broadband Opportunity Council recommendations. The bill would compel Small Business Administration training for small businesses “on how to maximize investment and external reach through broadband, while advising businesses lacking access on locating Wi-Fi access points and financing for broadband purchase,” and appoint a bureau staffer to be broadband coordinator working with the Broadband Opportunity Council, the summary said. “SBA will regularly report to the Congressional small business committees on the coordinator’s activities related to broadband and emerging technologies,” it said. “The SBA Office of Advocacy will collect data for a report on small business usage and ability to adopt broadband technology, in light of pricing and availability concerns.” Shaheen’s office cited support from the Competitive Carriers Association, Comptel, CompTIA, CTIA, NTCA, Public Knowledge and USTelecom. The office’s summary reports that an initial Congressional Budget Office estimate says there would be no effect on direct spending from this legislation. The bill has been referred to the committee run by Vitter and Shaheen.