The federal government must protect GPS, which has become hugely important to public safety, critical infrastructure and the economy as a whole, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday at the start of a daylong commission workshop. “We have to make sure that we don’t mess that up,” he said. “These are not abstract issues."

The FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it “hurriedly promulgated rules” -- without seeking comment -- that banned companies from giving away IP Captioned Telephone Service phones with the captioning feature turned on. That’s the unanimous holding of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which found that an agency is not entitled to deference when it invokes “good cause” as a reason for bypassing the APA. The court vacated the agency’s “interim” order and parts of the final order, while leaving the remainder intact. The case is Sorenson Communications v. FCC (http://1.usa.gov/1psR2Z4).

ICANN’s development of a proposal to transition the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to a global multistakeholder body will dominate discussions at the ICANN 50 conference in London this week, said stakeholders planning to attend. The conference was to have begun Sunday, though preliminary meetings began Thursday (http://bit.ly/1pPDwAe). The transition proposal, which must be approved by NTIA, has been met with resistance from many House Republicans, who fear the move could jeopardize Internet security and openness (CD April 11 p2).

NTIA’s decision to “relinquish” its remaining role in overseeing the Internet in favor of control by the global multistakeholder community was a natural evolution, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said in an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators. The interview was set to telecast over the weekend. In March, Strickling touched off a firestorm when he announced that NTIA would give up its role overseeing ICANN.

Republicans made the case against FCC net neutrality rules Friday during a House hearing and pointed to antitrust law as the better consumer protection. The Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee trotted out Republican FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright and Robert McDowell, a former Republican FCC commissioner, to back the idea. Net neutrality scholar Tim Wu and subcommittee Democrats pushed back in favor of an FCC role.

The FCC should initiate a rulemaking to reform “unnecessarily onerous” pay-TV effective competition rules, said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a speech on regulation of the video market at a Media Institute luncheon Thursday. Along with effective competition, the FCC should relax its media ownership and foreign ownership rules, and consider eliminating the sports blackout rule, O'Rielly said. An NPRM proposes to end the blackout rule (CD Dec 19 p8). If the commission ignores the current competitive state of the video industry and doesn’t relax rules in that area, it will “look more foolish than an ostrich that has buried its head in the sand,” O'Rielly said.

T-Mobile is providing customers with unlimited data plans for music streaming on Rhapsody’s new unRadio service, said company news releases (http://t-mo.co/1lEXlY6) (http://bit.ly/1oLLPh6) Wednesday. The partnership is an example of why the FCC should take a case-by-case approach on net neutrality, said Doug Brake, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation telecom policy analyst, in an interview. Brake thinks the deal is a win for consumers. If data caps are “arbitrary,” what’s the point of having them, asked Matt Wood, Free Press policy director, in an interview.

Economists split Thursday on the role of examining claimed efficiencies in a merger review. “The antitrust enterprise has been captured by the narrow cult of the efficiency economist,” said American Antitrust Institute (AAI) President Bert Foer. “I think it’s a good thing,” countered FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright. The two sides squared off at AAI’s annual conference, “The Inefficiencies of Efficiency.”

The FCC, working through its Technological Advisory Council, will identify solutions to attack the growing problem of cellphone theft, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler promised Thursday during an FCC workshop. Wheeler said he is giving TAC until the end of this year to identify “specific, actionable” measures. Wheeler said if industry working with TAC doesn’t come up with a voluntary solution, the FCC is not afraid to step in and impose regulation.

The FCC said Thursday it is proposing the largest fine in agency history for the alleged illegal marketing of 285 models of signal jamming devices to U.S. consumers for more than two years. The FCC proposed a fine of $34.9 million against Chinese company C.T.S. Technology, an electronics manufacturer and online retailer.