Infringements on labor rights pervade Honduran industry, in violation of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen said on Oct. 15, after a trip to Honduras with a Democratic congressman and other union leaders. The trip focused on U.S. immigration policy and the poor Honduran economy, but Cohen stressed the need for the Labor Department to act on an AFL-CIO complaint on the labor rights violations, which include the murder of lawyers and weakened bargaining rights.

AT&T and DirecTV said responses filed in the FCC proceeding on AT&T’s purchase of DirecTV confirm that the transaction is in the public interest. Opponents’ efforts to show countervailing harm to consumers are “unpersuasive” and “transparent attempts to advance parochial agendas,” the companies said in a joint opposition to petitions to deny the deal in docket 14-90. There can be no legitimate concern with the programming matters raised by some opponents, they said. There's no question “that the combined firm will not have sufficient size to exercise monopsony power in content acquisition,” they said. Because the applicants own very little content, “there is no reason to apply program-access requirements beyond those already contained in the Communications Act.” No party seriously disputes that the deal will enable the combined company to reduce the cost of acquiring content, which is the largest and most critical variable cost for multichannel video programming distributors, they said.

FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly urged the FCC to act to curtail the number of calls to 911 from cellphones that are no longer in service, but under agency rules must still be capable of calling 911. The FCC raised the issue in a 2013 notice of inquiry (http://bit.ly/1nmd1CE), five years after public safety groups asked the FCC to change its rules, citing the huge number of fraudulent calls to 911 from users who can’t be traced. In a Tuesday blog post (http://fcc.us/1sSQZbA), O’Rielly said public safety groups asked that the phones no longer be allowed to call 911, when they responded to the NOI. But the FCC has taken no further action, he said. O’Rielly said public safety officials have repeatedly brought the issue to his attention. “Public safety officials have told me that some consumers are inadvertently dialing 911, while others are intentionally prank calling 911,” he wrote. “Whether inadvertent or intentional, the Commission needs to review its existing rules to ensure that they do not enable unwanted 911 calls to emergency personnel.” Pocket or “butt-dialing” 911 has also emerged as a big issue, O’Rielly said. “While the full scope of the problem is not known, my visits to the New York City and Anchorage Public Service Answering Points suggest that roughly 70 percent of 911 calls are made by wireless devices and 50 percent or more are the result of pocket dialing,” he said.

Several major education technology players signed a student data protection pledge, revealed Tuesday. The industry groups behind the pledge -- the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) -- said it is a key step in providing clarity and trust in the largely unregulated world of education technology for K-12 students. Privacy advocate Electronic Privacy Information Center told us the commitments in the pledge were a good first step, but EPIC has some concerns about what it sees as ambiguities, and the pledge is no replacement for broad federal student data privacy legislation.

USTelecom petitioned the FCC to give ILECs a break on various legacy rules so they can concentrate on the buildout of fiber and modern communications networks. The Monday petition has a list of rules for which it seeks commission forbearance.

USTelecom petitioned the FCC to give ILECs a break on various legacy rules so they can concentrate on the buildout of fiber and modern communications networks. The Monday petition has a list of rules for which it seeks commission forbearance.

GRAPEVINE, Texas -- After leading the audience at Comptel’s conference in a chant of “competition, competition, competition,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Monday the “IP transition is not an excuse to limit competition.” He said the agency is exploring some actions, praised by Comptel and Public Knowledge, including the elimination of anti-competitive special access provisions, possibly making copper available to competitors when it’s being retired, and vowing that the commission will “step in” if the industry can’t voluntarily find a way to assure VoIP interconnection.

Since House Republicans said in December they plan to overhaul the 1996 Telecom Act, there has been limited Commerce Committee leadership outreach to House Democrats and committee Republicans, said lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers. Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., hasn’t yet sought out his Democratic counterpart. Republicans said the minimal outreach is by design, with substantial dialogue expected to kick off soon.

Since House Republicans said in December they plan to overhaul the 1996 Telecom Act, there has been limited Commerce Committee leadership outreach to House Democrats and committee Republicans, said lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers. Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., hasn’t yet sought out his Democratic counterpart. Republicans said the minimal outreach is by design, with substantial dialogue expected to kick off soon.

A draft rulemaking notice on broadening the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor to include certain types of over-the-top video hasn’t been shared with most eighth-floor commissioners’ offices and won’t necessarily go on circulation, an FCC official and officials in several eighth-floor offices told us Tuesday. The eighth-floor officials said they had received no information about the draft NPRM. Calling the item “a proposal going around” is “a bit of an overstatement,” Chairman Tom Wheeler said at a news conference after Tuesday’s FCC meeting. “I'm not ready to plant the flag,” he said.