FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler emphasized the importance of partnership between the commission and local and state telecom regulators, saying in a speech Wednesday to NATOA its members have a shared responsibility to increase broadband competition and robust 911 service. Wheeler invoked folk musician Bob Dylan to say the U.S. needs to collectively improve access to high-speed broadband, and those that don’t would “sink like a stone.” Success in high-speed broadband deployment would mean nationwide access to at least 100 Mbps broadband, Wheeler said.

Independent programmers, mid-sized pay-TV companies and Public Knowledge disagreed with larger programmers and broadcasters on Mediacom’s requests for the FCC to restrict programmers and broadcasters in content negotiations, in comments posted online in docket RM-11728 Tuesday. The proceeding is about a petition submitted by Mediacom in July (CD July 25 p13) asking for new FCC rules that would restrict bundling, volume discounts and programmers’ ability to halt online access to their content to provide leverage during negotiations.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is scheduled to reconsider Thursday whether to submit comments to the FCC supporting the federal body’s net neutrality Title II NPRM, though at our deadline Wednesday it was unclear whether a vote on the issue would proceed. An industry lawyer who has dealings with the CPUC told us Commissioner Carla Peterman was seeking to hold off on a vote on submitting comments until the commission’s Oct. 16 meeting. A CPUC spokesman said the net neutrality comments remained on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting, but an official list of held items wouldn’t be released until later Wednesday. Peterman and other CPUC commissioners didn’t comment.

The Justice Department isn’t the place for storing confidential documents on deals to carry programming on pay TV, said some cable-, satellite- and telco-TV interests that opposed broadcasters’ and cable channels’ requests for DOJ to keep the data (CD Sept 25 p6; Sept 23 p6). The FCC should host such documents and can keep them private, not DOJ where they would be only seen by commission officials and not other petitioners in FCC reviews of the two biggest media deals now pending, said multichannel video programming distributors. The Media Bureau last week sought comment on the pay-TV programmer and TV station data housing requests on AT&T’s planned purchase of DirecTV and Comcast’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable and divest some subscribers to Charter Communications (http://bit.ly/1sNsuhI). Hoping to get their deals approved, the combining companies didn’t oppose giving the documents to the FCC.

Little consensus emerged in discussions on net neutrality Wednesday at a Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative event, during multiple panel discussions at the National Press Club in Washington. Several speakers strongly objected to reclassification of broadband as a Title II service.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said Verizon opposes a move to impose tougher net neutrality rules on mobile broadband, in a Wednesday speech at The Financial Times-European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association Summit in Brussels. McAdam warned that if the FCC gets net neutrality rules wrong it could derail efforts to keep up with soaring demand: “History has repeatedly warned us of the dangers of over-regulation.”

New FCC draft relocation reimbursement forms (CD Sept 29 p14) for expenses incurred by broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors affected by the incentive auction are seen as complicated and not incorporating broadcaster feedback, broadcast attorneys, a broadcast executive and a broadcast engineer told us. The forms (http://bit.ly/1pwKpRS), necessary for broadcasters and MVPDs looking to receive compensation from the $1.75 billion relocation reimbursement fund, require a multistage filing process and ask broadcasters that choose to replace antennas and transmitters rather than modify existing equipment after being assigned a new channel to justify the purchase.

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.

The FCC approved a declaratory ruling, at its meeting Tuesday clarifying how the repacking approach it previously approved meets a congressional mandate to make all reasonable efforts to preserve the coverage areas and populations served by broadcasters. But Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly dissented, raising procedural objections. The ruling was one of three incentive auction items approved by the FCC Tuesday. (See related report in this issue.)