Government must do more to remove barriers to deployment of broadband and digital services, said FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Wednesday at a Smart Cities Expo showcasing internet-connected technology and devices, according to his posted remarks. Pai recommended "five concrete steps," starting with aggressive FCC use of its statutory authority under Section 253 of the Communications Act to ensure local governments don't hold up broadband deployment, with Section 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act and Section 6409 of the Spectrum Act providing further mandates to remove infrastructure barriers. Second, he said the FCC needs "to take a fresh look at our pole attachment rates" and Congress needs to give the commission broader related authority. Third, to help cities and towns wanting more deployment and competition, he urged the FCC to create a Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee to draft a model code on "local franchising, zoning, permitting and rights-of-way regulations" that balances municipal interests and broadband needs. Fourth, the federal government should speed broadband deployment on federal lands, including through agency distribution of mapping information and "reasonable internal shot clocks for processing applications and negotiating leases," he said, seeking a hard one-year deadline on decisions no matter how many agencies are involved. Finally, "We must make 'dig once' a central tenet of our nation's transportation policy. ... Every road and highway construction project should include the installation of the conduit that can carry fiber optic cables," he said. "With these five steps, policymakers can do their part to ensure that next-generation broadband networks -- and the smart cities they support -- will become a reality."

Robert McDowell became the latest lawyer to leave Wiley Rein for another law firm. Cooley hired the former Republican FCC commissioner, he and the firms told us Wednesday. McDowell, who was a partner in Wiley's Telecom, Media & Technology practice, now is a partner at Cooley. With Michael Basile, McDowell is co-leader of Cooley's global communications practice, said McDowell. The two communications lawyers succeed practice head John Feore, who remains a partner at Cooley. Feore "wanted to pass the baton to the younger generation," said a Cooley spokeswoman. McDowell said "many" clients remain with him in his new practice, which the firm representative said has 15-20 lawyers in Washington and many more globally. The entire firm employs 900-some attorneys, said McDowell. The "energy, breadth and depth of the Cooley platform is simply irresistible and it’s a very exciting firm that is bringing a lot of new companies, disruptive new companies, to market," McDowell said. Cooley is a multinational firm with many practices including securities, capital formation and litigation, he said. Wiley has been a smaller law firm than Cooley, and more focused on communications, with a lobbying outfit that last month said it renamed itself Signal Group. During September, DLA Piper said it hired two well-known attorneys from Wiley who used to help run Wiley Rein practices in the communications area, others left the firm (see 1609290039), and it promoted David Gross and Kathleen Kirby to co-chairs of the Telecom, Media & Technology practice (see 1609070040). Wiley Rein looks "forward to continuing to maintain a personal and professional relationship with" McDowell, said Gross in a written statement. "The firm is strategically transforming and growing our preeminent Telecom, Media & Technology Practice, which remains the largest in the country.” Richard Wiley, a former Republican FCC chairman who is the firm's chairman emeritus, co-founded the firm in 1983. Like Basile, Feore came to Cooley when it bought Dow Lohnes almost three years ago (see report in the Oct. 16, 2013, issue). Cooley was founded in Silicon Valley in the 1920s.

The FCC Wednesday released the 219-page text of the broadband privacy order that it adopted by a 3-2 vote at its Oct. 27 meeting (see 1610270036).

Don’t count out a “cable surprise” disrupting CenturyLink’s $34 billion acquisition of Level 3, Raymond James financial advisers said Tuesday. The companies announced the deal Monday, and it’s expected to get regulatory OK (see 1610310033). “We still believe Comcast and/or Charter paying a similar price for Level 3 could be accretive to both providers and gets them a better platform to sell into medium and larger enterprises,” Raymond James analysts wrote investors. CenturyLink/Level 3 would provide big cost savings, said the analysts, estimating about $850 million of annual operating expenditure synergies and $125 million in capital expenditure savings. Level 3 has about $10 billion of net operating loss carryforwards that make the deal “much more attractive,” and the companies expect cash tax saving to be at least $650 million annually for the first four years after the transaction, they said. But Raymond James predicted softer business for the combined company in the early going. “As we have said with prior business services combinations, it is very likely the combined company growth rate will experience softness post-closing vs. on a standalone basis given the nature of combining two sales forces and changes,” the analysts said. Also, the transaction likely means less business for vendors like Infinera that today sell to both companies, they said in a separate note Monday.

Aides to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton apparently considered lauding federal regulators for blocking Comcast's attempted buy of Time Warner Cable last year in a Clinton opinion piece that ultimately appeared in Quartz Oct. 20, 2015. That’s according to new emails released by WikiLeaks Tuesday, the result of an apparent hack of campaign manager John Podesta’s email account that U.S. intelligence officials believe involves the Russian government. “Should we applaud the FCC and Justice blocking the Comcast-Time/Warner merger?” asked Clinton adviser Mandy Grunwald in an Oct. 19 email reviewing a draft of the piece. Traveling press secretary Nick Merrill responded within the hour, addressing Kristina Costa, the aide who first circulated the draft requesting edits: “As the boyfriend of an FCC staffer who helped block that merger, yes. Kristina, her name is Val if you could please compliment her by name.” A few minutes later, Clinton aide Michael Shapiro weighed in and referred to an exchange he and Clinton domestic policy adviser Sara Solow had with Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen, who has donated thousands of dollars to Clinton's bid: “I think we were trying to keep this as a diagnosis of what's wrong with capitalism systemically, rather than naming specific folks. Sara and I talked to David Cohen today to give a heads up -- and our sense was we'd get deeper into broadband concentration specifically once we do our technology innovation agenda, rather than to some extent previewing or preempting it here.” That Quartz piece last year detailed Clinton’s desire for robust antitrust enforcement and mentioned priorities such as retaining strong net neutrality rules, but no reference to Comcast/TWC was included in the final version. Gonring, Spahn President Andy Spahn emailed Podesta in February to give “a head’s up” of a Senate letter to federal regulators from signers including Clinton primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., “calling for higher scrutiny of the Charter-Time Warner deal,” acquisitions of TWC and Bright House Networks that ultimately cleared regulators. “It's not a surprising development, and we don't anticipate the letter getting much play, but it could come up on your end given Sanders' involvement,” Spahn told Podesta. “Please keep us in the loop if it becomes an issue for you. Happy to get you or someone on your team more information if need be.”

The FCC quadrennial review order and rules on media ownership were published in Tuesday's Federal Register, starting the clock for expected multiple appeals from both broadcasters and public interest groups (see 1610240049). The regulations establish TV joint sales agreement attribution rules, require disclosure of shared service agreements, and establish a definition of an eligible entity. Those seeking to challenge the rules in court have 10 days to file to be included in the lottery for venue, and 60 days to simply be involved in the case. The rules have an effective date of Dec.1, the FR notice said.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology formed a working group focused on semiconductors, said group co-chairmen John Holdren, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Paul Otellini, a former head of Intel, in a White House blog post Monday. “Semiconductors are essential to many aspects of modern life, from cellphones and automobiles to medical diagnostics to reconnaissance satellites and weapon systems,” they said. “Additional public and private investments in R&D are almost certain to be required if the past remarkable pace of improvements in price and performance of semiconductors and the benefits deriving therefrom are to continue -- R&D that looks to create new technologies that can leapfrog beyond the limits of today’s technology and explore entirely new computer architectures and their integration into systems well beyond the traditional computing sphere, including automotive and other mobile applications.” The group “will identify the core challenges facing the semiconductor industry at home and abroad and identify major opportunities for sustaining U.S. leadership” and “deliver a set of recommendations on initial actions the Federal government, industry, and academia could pursue to maintain U.S. leadership in this crucial domain,” the co-chairs said.

ICANN said it paid CEO Göran Marby $314,881 during FY 2016, including $196,154 in salary. Marby was an adviser from early April through late May, when he officially took over as a permanent replacement to former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé. ICANN's payments to Marby included $104,642 for moving and travel-related expenses, the organization said in a report. ICANN said it paid Chehadé $845,503 during the fiscal year, including $417,174 in salary and $208,814 for “at-risk pay.” ICANN board Chairman Steve Crocker and other board members received a total of $1.9 million in payments from the organization, including a combined $1.2 million in reimbursements of expenses related to the board's six face-to-face meetings during FY 2016. Crocker received $212,230 from ICANN, including $75,000 in salary. All other ICANN board members receive $45,000 salary per year.

Midsize telcos disputed the FCC's proposed 11 percent rate cut for legacy business data services, with CenturyLink saying the reduction would be unjustified and bigger than the commission projected. "Because the proposal under consideration contemplates that above-tariff contract charges would be reduced to the tariff rates before the 11% reduction takes effect, the total cuts will necessarily be greater than 11% -- and perhaps significantly greater -- with serious consequences for ILECs’ ability to recover costs and continue to invest in rural broadband," said a CenturyLink filing Friday in docket 16-143. The commission's "record clearly establishes the presence of strong BDS competition" and the agency "not only ignores the evidence, but declines to conduct any analysis of the BDS geographic market at all," said a release Monday from the Invest in Broadband for America coalition citing the filing (the coalition includes CenturyLink, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications, FairPoint Communications and Frontier Communications). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is planning a Nov. 17 vote on a BDS item that would subject ILEC legacy DS1 and DS3 services (with data speeds under 45 Mbps) to price-cap rate regulation and cuts, while adopting a lighter-touch approach for packetized Ethernet services (see 1610270054). The "draft BDS proposal would unduly affect mid-size ILECs, like Frontier, in ways that would be deeply harmful to investment in American broadband connectivity and jobs," said a Frontier filing on a meeting with Office of Strategic Planning Chief Paul de Sa. The telco urged the commission to "carefully consider the current state of market competition in how it implements any reform to existing grants of Phase II pricing flexibility, noting the particularly competitive nature of the transport market." The proposed 11 percent reduction "should be pro-rated" for certain ILECs such as Consolidated that haven't been regulated under price caps "for the entire period of efficiency gains the downward adjustment purports to address," said a Consolidated filing on meetings with aides to Wheeler and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, and with Wireline Bureau staffers. CenturyLink is buying Level 3 (see 1610310033).

Security researchers doing controlled research on consumer devices are temporarily exempt from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as long as they don't violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, starting Friday as authorized by the Librarian of Congress, wrote FTC Tech Policy Fellow Aaron Alva in a Friday blog post. Researchers previously couldn't investigate security vulnerabilities because DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent controls that prevent access to copyrighted material, he said. But the LOC has allowed exemptions from time to time for various technologies to take away any legal hurdle and protect conduct, he said. Alva said that in this case security researchers must act in good faith and meet a few requirements to be exempt, such as legally acquiring a device or software and doing research in a controlled setting to avoid harming the public. He said if the requirements are met then a researcher can test a connected toaster and gauge the risk from attack, but not steal a toaster, hack into it or set it on fire. "The exemption covers a broad array of consumer devices such as electric toothbrushes, home thermostats, connected appliances, cars, and smart TVs," as well as medical devices, he said, but it doesn't apply to "highly sensitive systems such as nuclear power plants and air traffic control systems."