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.

Disagreements over the FTC’s role in enforcing the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) spilled into comments due Tuesday on AgeCheq’s verifiable parental consent (VPC) method application. In August, AgeCheq filed its VPC application, proposing a central location where parents can control their child’s access to numerous apps and websites (WID Aug 26 p1).

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., worries the FCC “is relegating broadcasting to the past, rather than working to give broadcasters a chance to compete in the modern content marketplace,” he planned to tell the Oregon Association of Broadcasters Friday, according to prepared remarks. Walden enumerated multiple issues of concern around “a number of its actions,” pointing to the agency’s “ban on joint sales agreements, changes to the UHF discount, and a persistent delay in processing those petitions for allocation changes from VHF to UHF filed prior to the Middle Class Tax Relief Act,” all of which are “troubling,” he said. He insisted that broadcasters that do not wish to relinquish spectrum in the broadcast TV incentive auction should be allowed to make that choice. “I intend to ensure that the Commission properly implements the provisions of the Act to preserve a vibrant post-auction broadcast environment,” Walden said. “That includes ensuring that broadcasters who wish to remain broadcasters can do so; ensuring that the FCC makes all reasonable efforts to maintain coverage areas; ensuring that the FCC coordinates with Mexico and Canada; ensuring that the FCC does not unnecessarily impact LPTV and translators; and, ensuring that the FCC raises enough money to compensate stations that return spectrum, to reimburse those that relocate, and to fund FirstNet.” Walden criticized the laws governing broadcasting as particularly old, and slammed the broadcast media ownership rules, saying he plans to take aim at the rules in a planned overhaul of the Communications Act: “It is our intent that the #CommActUpdate take a hard look at the current state of the market and have a serious conversation on how we can remove unnecessary government intrusion into broadcasting and let broadcasters compete in the 21st century.” Walden criticized FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for “having taken it upon himself to unilaterally ‘reform’ industries without regard for the consequences to consumers, to jobs and the economy, or to the innovation that has been the hallmark of the American communications industry” and referred to the FCC’s “seeming disregard for transparency and process.”

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., worries the FCC “is relegating broadcasting to the past, rather than working to give broadcasters a chance to compete in the modern content marketplace,” he planned to tell the Oregon Association of Broadcasters Friday, according to prepared remarks. Walden enumerated multiple issues of concern around “a number of its actions,” pointing to the agency’s “ban on joint sales agreements, changes to the UHF discount, and a persistent delay in processing those petitions for allocation changes from VHF to UHF filed prior to the Middle Class Tax Relief Act,” all of which are “troubling,” he said. He insisted that broadcasters that do not wish to relinquish spectrum in the broadcast TV incentive auction should be allowed to make that choice. “I intend to ensure that the Commission properly implements the provisions of the Act to preserve a vibrant post-auction broadcast environment,” Walden said. “That includes ensuring that broadcasters who wish to remain broadcasters can do so; ensuring that the FCC makes all reasonable efforts to maintain coverage areas; ensuring that the FCC coordinates with Mexico and Canada; ensuring that the FCC does not unnecessarily impact LPTV and translators; and, ensuring that the FCC raises enough money to compensate stations that return spectrum, to reimburse those that relocate, and to fund FirstNet.” Walden criticized the laws governing broadcasting as particularly old, and slammed the broadcast media ownership rules, saying he plans to take aim at the rules in a planned overhaul of the Communications Act: “It is our intent that the #CommActUpdate take a hard look at the current state of the market and have a serious conversation on how we can remove unnecessary government intrusion into broadcasting and let broadcasters compete in the 21st century.” Walden criticized FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for “having taken it upon himself to unilaterally ‘reform’ industries without regard for the consequences to consumers, to jobs and the economy, or to the innovation that has been the hallmark of the American communications industry” and referred to the FCC’s “seeming disregard for transparency and process.” The commission declined to comment.

The FCC’s first-of-its-kind auction may present complexities beyond the technical details for longtime telecom attorneys with clients that may sell broadcast-TV frequencies to the agency or wireless carriers that may be wanting to buy that relinquished spectrum for wireless broadband. Such firms representing multiple clients in the incentive auction, which government and industry officials have called extremely complex, may face challenges avoiding conflicts of interest, said wireless and broadcast attorneys in recent interviews. Firms that represent both wireless and broadcast clients -- such as Wilkinson Barker and Wiley Rein -- may not be able to do so in the auction, under local bar association ethics rules or possibly FCC anti-collusion rules, the attorneys said. Since the parties are buyer and seller on opposite sides, firms may not be able to act for both kinds of participants in the auction expected to raise many billions of dollars.

An FCC order on circulation would ease some of the record collection, retention and reporting rules approved in a 2013 rural call completion order (CD Oct 29 p2), said commission and industry officials in interviews Wednesday. The draft order likely will be approved, said an agency official. It would grant The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA) and USTelecom’s petition to reconsider the requirements for some intraLATA calls but reject Comptel’s petition to reconsider another aspect of the order, which tightens the definition of small carriers exempted from the requirements, said the officials.

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.

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 (WID Aug 6 p7). 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 the groups that did not file said a sense the commission plans to move ahead with its proposal, including raising the broadband speed benchmark, was not a factor. 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.

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.