ORLANDO, Fla. -- Google’s recent acquisition of Nest and Savant Systems’ launch of a lower-priced Smart Series product are raising the profile of home automation, ProSource dealers said at the BrandSource conference.

The Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act should be permanently reauthorized and include major tweaks to the video marketplace, Dish and DirecTV told the Senate Commerce Committee leadership in a letter Monday. Democratic and Republican committee leadership had asked several questions of industry in February, requesting responses no later than Monday. These two companies asked for several changes to STELA, which expires at the end of 2014 unless it’s reauthorized. Congress should ban “joint sales agreements and other collusive methods used by broadcasters” and authorize the FCC “to impose baseball-style arbitration and a standstill so the programming stays up while the parties arbitrate their dispute; or, alternatively, permitting the importation of distant signals during retransmission consent disputes,” they said, also urging Congress to prevent broadcasters from blocking online content to broadcast subscribers of multichannel video programming distributors during disputes. Encourage broadcast programming to be unbundled at both wholesale and retail levels, they added. “Broadcasters abuse their retransmission consent rights during negotiations, using brinksmanship tactics and blackouts to extract ever-greater fees from MVPDs, with no end in sight,” Dish and DirecTV said in a 94-page response, much devoted to appendices. “Blackouts happen when companies like DIRECTV and DISH try to fight back and reject broadcasters’ unreasonable price demands, which often involve rate increases of several hundred percent. Retransmission consent fees raised $758 million for broadcasters in 2009. They hit $3.3 billion in 2013. They are expected to reach $7.6 billion in 2019.” They said retrans blackouts increased by a thousand percent since Congress had passed STELA, which they called “the perfect vehicle” for making video marketplace changes. Broadcasters have long argued for a clean reauthorization of STELA that doesn’t include such broad changes to the video marketplace. Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., had introduced the Consumer Choice in Online Video Act, S-1680, last fall, and the committee leadership asked whether its elements should be considered as part of STELA reauthorization. Dish and DirecTV noted “beneficial” provisions in the bill, but “several provisions appear to impose additional, unwarranted regulation on MVPDs,” the two companies said. “One such provision would prohibit many exclusive arrangements -- even those between distributors without market power and unaffiliated programmers.” STELA must pass through the Commerce and Judiciary committees in both chambers, and the House Communications Subcommittee leadership released its first draft of legislation earlier this month.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will recommend raising the USF contribution rate and sending more money to schools and libraries, if that’s necessary, he told a meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington Monday. “I will recommend this to my colleagues if warranted,” Wheeler said, according to prepared remarks (http://fcc.us/1qMDLLo) for the event, which was not open to the public. “But my colleagues and I can’t just pour more money into the program as it presently stands,” he said. “The first step in expansion is introspection."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will raise the USF contribution rate and send more money to schools and libraries, if that’s necessary, he told a meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington Monday. “I will recommend this to my colleagues if warranted,” Wheeler said, according to prepared remarks (http://fcc.us/1qMDLLo) for the event, which was not open to the public. “But my colleagues and I can’t just pour more money into the program as it presently stands,” he said. “The first step in expansion is introspection."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s use of delegated authority reached a high point of sorts last week when AT&T’s buy of Leap Wireless was approved by the Wireless and International bureaus, rather than by commissioner vote (CD March 14 p5), officials said. Commission Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel complained internally that they would have preferred a commission vote on that deal, which gave one of the two biggest wireless carriers control of an important prepaid service player, FCC officials told us. Republicans Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly have complained about other items being approved on delegated authority, agency officials said.

Government officials, lawyers, and privacy advocates will debate the legal and policy issues of the government’s Internet surveillance program during a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) all-day hearing Wednesday, said a PCLOB Thursday evening news release. General counsels from the FBI, NSA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence will start with the administration’s position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes Internet surveillance actions. Civil society group representatives -- American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer and Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program Counsel Rachel Levinson-Waldman -- will join law professors from Georgetown University Law School and Hofstra University to discuss Section 702’s legal issues. An international panel of lawyers, academics and researchers will conclude by weighing in on the transnational policy issues Section 702 raises. PCLOB is preparing a report that will focus on Internet surveillance, which it expects to release in a couple months (CD Jan 31 p15). The board’s previous report recommended eliminating the government’s phone metadata collection program, suggesting seeking that metadata from communications providers instead while imposing data retention mandates (CD Jan 24 p5).

House Commerce Committee Republican leaders are not happy with how the FCC is handling TV station sharing agreements, most recently singling out the Media Bureau public notice Wednesday that it would apply extra scrutiny to the approval of such sharing agreements (CD March 14 p9). “Coming on the heels of the House’s overwhelming bipartisan approval of the FCC Process Reform Act Monday evening, the FCC Media Bureau’s action not only flies in the face of reform, it reveals an alarming disregard for process,” said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., in a statement Thursday. “This effort raises questions about Chairman [Tom] Wheeler’s stated commitment to process reform. This end-run around the full commission is a step back for transparency and reform.” Walden inserted language into his draft legislation of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act that would prevent the FCC from making sharing agreements attributable until the agency completes its quadrennial review. “On the [joint sales agreements], the FCC needs to follow the law,” Walden told reporters following a subcommittee hearing Wednesday. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why they can’t follow the law and finish their quadrennial review.” The agency is “disrupting a marketplace dealing with an issue that really has to deal with ownership,” Walden added. “The quadrennial review is about ownership. What we're saying is, ‘Do your job, follow the law before you go out there and picking and choosing on the JSA issue that could have enormous disruption.'"

Government officials, lawyers, and privacy advocates will debate the legal and policy issues of the government’s Internet surveillance program during a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) all-day hearing Wednesday, said a PCLOB Thursday evening news release. General counsels from the FBI, NSA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence will start with the administration’s position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes Internet surveillance actions. Civil society group representatives -- American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer and Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program Counsel Rachel Levinson-Waldman -- will join law professors from Georgetown University Law School and Hofstra University to discuss Section 702’s legal issues. An international panel of lawyers, academics and researchers will conclude by weighing in on the transnational policy issues Section 702 raises. PCLOB is preparing a report that will focus on Internet surveillance, which it expects to release in a couple months (WID Jan 31 p7). The board’s previous report recommended eliminating the government’s phone metadata collection program, suggesting seeking that metadata from communications providers instead while imposing data retention mandates (WID Jan 24 p4).

A Media Bureau public notice Wednesday announcing that pending and future transactions that involve sharing arrangements and include right of first refusal purchasing options or loan guarantees will receive extra scrutiny (http://fcc.us/OoNg4k) is a message to broadcasters that such deals won’t be approved, several communications attorneys told us. The message comes from Chairman Tom Wheeler, who industry observers said is behind the PN, which was issued on delegated authority over the objections of two commissioners two weeks before the March 31 meeting at which a full rulemaking on the same topic is anticipated.

Until a few weeks ago, Alabama customers could go to the Public Service Commission if they had a complaint about their phone bill or service, regardless of the technology involved or if it were bundled, and the PSC would look into it. But a law (http://bit.ly/PucWgY) signed Feb. 25 strips the commission of that ability. Now, when customers call the commission, the PSC will tell them to call the phone company.