Four ex-chairmen want the FCC to extend the cable procurement rule to all commission-covered industries, said a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler filed by the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council Friday. Ex-Chairmen Julius Genachowski, Bill Kennard, Reed Hundt and Michael Copps endorse the MMTC-backed proposal, the letter said. “On the national stage, the extension of equal procurement opportunity to industries constituting one-sixth of the economy would be an enormous civil rights achievement during your Chairmanship.” The affected industries have “shown statesmanship” by not objecting to the proposal, the letter said. MMTC has been seeking to have a draft quadrennial review media ownership order extend a provision on cable operators making deals with minority-owned companies to all FCC-covered industries. In its current form, the draft order would extend the rules only to broadcasters (see 1607140069).

Comments are due Sept. 21 for the 18th FCC video competition report, with replies due Oct. 24, the agency said in a public notice Friday in docket 16-247. The report is to focus on the 2015 video market and look at video distributors in three categories -- TV stations, multichannel video programming distributors and online video distributors.

A top lobbyist for Incompas is shifting some aspects of his role for the association. Alan Hill, who was Incompas' senior vice president-government relations and strategic business development, will continue his legislative activities for Incompas under the banner of the J.A. Hill Group firm, which began lobbying on behalf of Incompas and BT Americas effective July 1. Those disclosure forms were posted earlier this week (see 1608010026). Hill, who has been with Incompas since 2011 and was previously legislative director for ex-Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., told us the effect should be seamless in terms of lobbying, and he began considering the shift after his wife, Joy Ditto, became president of the Utilities Telecom Council in April. His lobbying for Incompas will focus on broadband data services, privacy, video reform and general competition issues, the registration form said. He registered a website for the firm May 5 but told us it’s still not up and running yet. Hill “is now representing INCOMPAS as an independent consultant,” a group spokesman told us. “He remains the main point of contact for legislative matters for INCOMPAS.” Incompas removed Hill from its staffers listing on its website this week.

The Professional Services Council (PSC) asked the FCC to revise language in its recent declaratory ruling (see 1607060013) providing an exception to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for federal and federal contractor debt collection. The FCC, apparently by mistake, used language that would mean less relief than intended, PSC said. The council took issue with one phrase, the finding that the TCPA prohibitions don't include calls by "the federal government or agents acting within the scope of their agency under common-law principles of agency." The problem is “government contractors are routinely not considered to be agents of the government, and in many instances government contracts contain express language to this effect,” PSC said in the petition for reconsideration in docket 02-278. The FCC instead should provide relief for government contractors “acting on behalf of the federal government, in accordance with their contract's terms and the government's directives, without regard to whether a common-law agency relationship exists,” PSC said. Consumer groups, led by the National Consumer Law Center, asked for changes in the other direction, saying the ruling provides too much relief for government debt collectors (see 1607260039). The PSC represents companies in the government technology and professional services industry.

The FCC won't review Verizon’s proposed buy of Yahoo (see 1607250016), FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in the news conference after commissioners' meeting Thursday. “There aren’t any licenses that transfer.” The deal demonstrates the importance of the agency’s ISP privacy proceeding “and the questions that were raised in there as to what’s the appropriate use of network-generated information,” he said. Wheeler didn’t say when the FCC would consider a final privacy order. Some characterize the proposed rules as having a “chilling” effect on industry, Wheeler said: “Well, it certainly didn’t have an impact on this deal, it would appear.”

Dish Network might use some or all the $2.5 billion it hopes to raise in a convertible note offering in the broadcast incentive auction. The company said in a news release Wednesday that proceeds from its debt offering announced the previous day "are intended to be used for strategic transactions, which may include wireless and spectrum-related strategic transactions, and for other general corporate purposes." In a note to investors Tuesday, Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet said Dish's fundraising may point to its thinking it can buy spectrum in the 600 MHz auction below the spectrum's intrinsic value, with the longer-term goal of selling the company to an existing wireless company.

The USF carrier contribution factor could fall in Q4 from 17.9 percent to 16.9 percent of interstate and international telecom revenue, said industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg in an email update Tuesday. He said the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) projected USF demand for Q4 would be $2.08 billion, down $100 million from Q3. Demand in three USF mechanisms -- supporting Lifeline, high-cost and rural-healthcare telecom service -- is expected to increase, but demand for school and library fund (SLF) E-rate discounts is expected to decrease by $215 million in Q4 to $403 million, he said. "This dramatic reduction in demand for the SLF is driven by the FCC’s June 8, 2016, authorization to USAC to use $1.9 billion of unused funds from prior years to offset 2016 SLF demand, and USAC’s projection that only $3.6 billion will be needed to satisfy overall 2016 SLF demand, $300 million less than the overall cap of $3.9 billion." If projected Q4 long-distance telecom revenue holds steady, the contribution factor will drop to 16.9 percent, he said, but if the projected revenue continues its trend lower, the contribution factor likely will be higher than that. USAC's Q4 revenue projection is expected in late August, he said.

At least some telecom and media industry officials donated to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign, the latest Federal Election Commission filings show. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton captured attention from many leading company executives and establishment figures in the last year, attention that the Trump campaign still largely lacks (see 1606270078). Brandon Spencer, chief financial officer of Klas Telecom, donated $2,700 to Trump June 26, as did Alliant Tech CEO Richard Crawford June 23 and American Cyber President Gary Winkler May 27. SatCom Direct founder and CEO Jim Jensen donated $1,000 June 29, and OptiNet CEO Mitchell Wade gave $1,000 June 23. Pulse Electronics CEO Mark Twaalfhoven gave $1,000 in May and $2,000 in March, the same month that CenturyLink-owned Cognilytics Chief Data Officer Andrew Clyne donated $1,400 and M2M Spectrum Networks Chairwoman and owner Carole Downs gave $1,000. But some Republicans denounced Trump’s campaign. “I urge all Republicans to reject Donald Trump this November,” Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman said in a Facebook post Tuesday, announcing her backing for Clinton despite calling herself a “proud Republican.” The Trump campaign touted an uptick in its fundraising Wednesday.

CenturyLink and Frontier Communications voiced concern to FCC leadership that the agency's proposed framework for business data services wouldn't reflect how carriers negotiate in the BDS market, including for wireless backhaul. "Market conditions have shifted considerably since the FCC’s 2013 data set, which was not accurate and which is now three years old," said a joint filing posted Wednesday on company officials' meetings with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Ajit Pai, and various staffers. "We also explained that price regulation will distort and deter competition in the BDS market; prices set too low will preclude competitors from entering the market." They said wireline networks are critical to helping wireless providers meet "exponential" wireless data growth. "In 2015, for the first time, more wireless data traffic was offloaded onto a wired network than data carried over wireless infrastructure and that trend is increasing," the filing said. "The current BDS rulemaking would reduce, not increase, incentives to invest in much-needed wireline fiber-optic infrastructure that provides the foundation for offloading wireless data. We reiterated that it is important that any regime the FCC adopts does not deter investment, especially in rural areas." Also making recent filings in docket 16-143 were Comcast, FairPoint Communications, Incompas, Level 3, USTelecom, Windstream and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D).

NTIA said it’s beginning a new multistakeholder process via the Internet Policy Task Force on the cybersecurity upgradability of the IoT. The NTIA-facilitated process, which is to begin with an initial meeting in early fall, will focus on developing ways to improve consumers’ understanding of cybersecurity upgrades to IoT products, the agency said Tuesday. NTIA chose to proceed with the multistakeholder process in response to comments in both its recent IoT request for comment (see 1606020059) and the IPTF’s 2015 request for comment on cybersecurity issues (see 1506010055) that “identified security upgradability as an issue that required attention and coordination,” said Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary-Communications and Information Angela Simpson in a blog post. She said that the process’ goal will be to “promote transparency in how patches or upgrades to IoT devices and applications are deployed. Potential outcomes could include a set of common, shared terms or definitions that could be used to standardize descriptions of security upgradability or a set of tools to better communicate security upgradability.” There are instances in the IoT space where there has been “limited consideration for supporting future security patches, even though many devices will eventually need them,” Simpson said. “Enabling a thriving market for devices that support security upgrades requires common definitions so consumers know what they are getting.” No common definitions on IoT cybersecurity upgrades currently exist “and manufacturers can struggle to effectively communicate to consumers the security features of their devices,” she said.