Saying “meaningful competition for high-speed wired broadband is lacking,” even as the demand for “faster and better Internet” is growing, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency would move to promote more broadband competition in places where it’s lacking and preserve it where it exists.

Google agreed to refund at least $19 million to consumers, to settle an FTC complaint it allowed unauthorized in-app purchases for the past three years, the agency said Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1qh6yIT). The practices were long-ago corrected, but it’s best to settle and avoid a protracted legal fight, said Google and industry representatives. “As of today, the obligations have not been complied with,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez on a Thursday conference call with reporters.

Some broadcast attorneys backed up concerns from broadcast entities that potentially requiring pay-TV and radio licensees to upload public files online may be too much for the FCC database to handle. Other attorneys said the FCC’s role in placing files online takes some of the burden off broadcasters. In comments in docket 14-127, Educational Media Foundation, NAB and broadcaster associations in all 50 states cautioned against adding more than 15,000 radio stations to the regime before resolving technical issues with the database (CD Sept 2 p7).

The Association of Global Automakers (AGA) filed a paper at the FCC warning that if the agency moves forward on allowing the use of high-power, unlicensed U-NII devices in spectrum immediately adjacent to the 5.850-5.925 GHz band, it could make automotive safety technology there all but useless. “Global Automakers and others maintain that this issue has not been adequately studied by the FCC,” AGA said in reply comments filed at the FCC, posted Wednesday in docket 13-49. “Oppositions to Global Automakers’ Petition do not prove otherwise.”

The gradual reduction in video relay service rates approved by the FCC in 2013 was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1nXGTQz). But the D.C. Circuit also required the agency to put on hold stricter standards for how quickly VRS calls must be answered.

Now that a Sprint buy of T-Mobile is off the table, the FCC is under pressure to rethink whether to impose rules that would effectively keep the two from buying spectrum together in next year’s TV incentive auction, industry officials told us. But FCC officials said they've heard nothing to indicate that Chairman Tom Wheeler would want to drop restrictions on joint spectrum purchases by the national carriers.

Level 3’s proposed acquisition of tw telecom (CD June 17 p7) should be approved, and the “few” comments submitted to the FCC seeking conditions or delays “misuse” the approval process to “seek leverage in existing commercial disputes,” said the firms at the end of the period to file objections or replies. A Level 3 spokeswoman said Wednesday that the company anticipates completing the deal, initially pegged as worth about $7.3 billion, in Q4.

Denying a petition to roll back a reduction in the intercarrier compensation rate on some VoIP calls that took effect this summer would cost rural carriers millions of dollars that could be used instead to deploy broadband, ITTA and NTCA officials told us Tuesday.

Cable associations argued that the cable industry isn’t asking for an overreach of regulation by telling the FCC net neutrality rules should include edge providers. In an op-ed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell cautioned cable companies against supporting the idea.

Chicago and Washington, D.C., expressed strong interest in the model spectrum city program, proposed by the FCC and NTIA, in comments posted by the commission Tuesday. AT&T said the program should take in a wide variety of bands and possibly more than one city.