Broadcasters declared victory as Senate Commerce Committee leaders removed the controversial Local Choice proposal from their Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization draft, circulated Friday. But advocates for Local Choice, which would overhaul retransmission consent rules to stop TV blackouts, hope it will come back to life in 2015, as does Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

As pro-Communications Act Title II advocates said their online protest triggered nearly 40,000 phone calls to Congress, the White House and the FCC by noon Wednesday saying paid prioritization would slow the Internet, free market-group American Commitment said it was countering the effort by asking more than 2 million people by social media this week to sign a petition opposing federal intervention in the Internet. The FCC meanwhile hasn’t made any decisions on how wireless will be treated on net neutrality. (See separate report above in this issue.)

Remarks by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler at CTIA Tuesday (CD Sept 10 p1) could easily be read as a sign the FCC is headed toward imposing similar net neutrality rules on mobile as are expected to be imposed on wireline, said commission and industry officials at CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association meeting in interviews.

If the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) (S-2588) doesn’t pass Congress this year, it will be 18 to 24 months before another cyber info sharing bill gets this close, said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., during a Bloomberg Government event Wednesday. Senators and administration officials reiterated their support for some type of info sharing bill at the event and in a Senate hearing Wednesday, but the House-passed and Senate Intelligence Committee-cleared CISA measure has slim chances of passing in 2014, lawmakers said.

LAS VEGAS -- FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly predicted Congress will soon move forward with legislation to push federal agencies to give up spectrum that is used inefficiently. O'Rielly was a longtime Senate staffer before being confirmed as a commissioner last year. “The days of waiting and holding the breath and having a number of generals say ‘we absolutely need this but we can’t tell you why’ those days gave passed,” O'Rielly said at CTIA.

Increasing ICANN’s board voting threshold to reject the advice of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) could complicate the policy development of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), commented ICANN stakeholders this week (http://bit.ly/1oXwOCq). ICANN proposed Aug. 15 to increase the board’s voting threshold from 50 percent (plus the vote of an additional board member) to 66.6 percent (CD Aug 20 p3). If the proposal were accepted without mandating that the GAC advice be reached by consensus, and not majority approval, the proposal could risk ICANN becoming an intergovernmental organization, said Avri Doria, ICANN GNSO council member (http://bit.ly/1lTVXDq).

European Commission President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker named his team Wednesday, saying he wanted to “shake things up a bit.” If approved by the European Parliament, the new commission will have seven vice presidents, each leading a project team and steering and coordinating the work of several commissioners in groupings that could change over time as new situations develop, the EC said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1Ay165x).

Facial recognition code of conduct talks are set to resume in early October and stakeholders are hoping the extended break since late July will help reinvigorate the NTIA-backed group that faced some stagnation and setbacks in its last meeting, participants told us this week. The group is eyeing dates around Oct. 2, we're told. But because of some entrenched disagreements -- over the scope of the talks and the definitions of privacy, anonymity and discrimination -- the restart is unlikely to lead to a code of conduct any time soon, observers said.

Capitol Hill Democrats upped pressure on the FCC to form strong net neutrality rules, some backing a basis in Title II authority while others focused on banning paid prioritization. Congressional Republicans and industry associations have resisted Title II reclassification of broadband. They want the FCC to base any rules on Communications Act Section 706. Some pro-net neutrality allies are holding symbolic protests seeking Title II rules Wednesday. (See separate report below in this issue.)

Unanswered questions lingered Tuesday as Apple ended its two-hour news conference in Cupertino, California, by treating its audience to a surprise guest performance by U2. One question was whether the newly introduced Apple Watch will revolutionize the smart watch category the way iPhones transformed smartphones into a vast global business.