Calls by education and library groups, and FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in a speech Wednesday, to increase E-rate funding are running into opposition from telcos, in comments filed in the E-rate modernization Further NPRM. The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and USTelecom said they worry expanding E-rate could cut into other USF programs like the Connect America Fund.

The FCC is confident the communications industry will voluntarily lead commission-facilitated efforts to improve the industry’s cybersecurity risk management practices, but could look to its recent 911 annual reliability audit order as a model for regulatory action if the industry doesn’t “pull it together,” said Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson Wednesday. Simpson’s remarks at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event echoed the FCC’s message all year on the need for a voluntary industry-led effort on cybersecurity risk management. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in June that the FCC’s vision of a “new paradigm” on cybersecurity would include readiness to act if voluntary efforts failed (CD June 13 p1).

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler fielded a wide array of questions from House Small Business Committee lawmakers Wednesday. The committee held an oversight hearing with no fixed topic beyond how the FCC is serving small business and rural consumers, which turned into a discussion of everything from net neutrality to special access to broadband deployment policies.

FCC Inspector General David Hunt told a House Communications Subcommittee Wednesday that he has been unable to hire criminal investigators, despite recurring requests. Hunt said his office “initiated a discussion with management” on its need to hire investigators in early 2012, but has been unable to do so. Hunt also questioned FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s decision to set up a USF Strike Force under the Enforcement Bureau and whether its efforts duplicate work more properly handled by the Office of Inspector General (OIG).

Senators showed a strong partisan split Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in how they saw net neutrality. It’s the second such hearing that Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has held this year. Democrats urged net neutrality protections, while differing on what underlying authority should be relied on, while Republicans scoffed at the notion that any rules are necessary and pointed to antitrust law.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman offered some hint of the agency’s possible approach to mobile net neutrality during a commission open Internet roundtable Tuesday on mobile broadband, the second of the day held by the agency. (See related story in this issue.) Both suggested the FCC is considering the same rules for wireline and wireless, while letting wireless carriers put in place “reasonable network management” practices.

The FCC threatened the success of the incentive auction by creating a reserve trigger and violated its congressional mandate to protect broadcasters with its repacking plan, said multiple petitions for reconsideration of the incentive auction order by wireless carriers, broadcast affiliates, low-power TV stations and others.

Passage of the Satellite Television Access and Viewer Rights Act (S-2799) seems assured at its Wednesday Senate Commerce Committee markup session, committee leaders said. But amendments are still in flux, with some uncertainty among lobbyists and officials about which lawmakers will simply propose and withdraw their filed amendments and which will press for a vote.

Time Warner Cable’s decision to make Los Angeles Dodgers games available on KDOC-TV Anaheim, California, is probably influenced by pressure to avoid upsetting lawmakers and regulators while its takeover by Comcast is pending, some observers said in interviews Tuesday. Attorneys and sports media consultants previously said the FCC doesn’t have jurisdiction over the pricing of TWC-owned SportsNet LA, but TWC has the Comcast transaction to consider (CD July 31 p6).

In the days leading up to Monday’s deadline for filing replies to the FCC in the net neutrality debate, those on both sides told us they didn’t expect any major shifts or developments to come in the comments. Though the FCC, which said Tuesday the proceeding now has more than 3.7 million comments, still hadn’t posted most comments to the NPRM, observers said that based on those they've been able to obtain, their predictions were coming true.