Level 3 said it plans to buy tw telecom, reaching a deal worth about $7.3 billion, including debt. Tw telecom shareholders will get a 27 percent stake in the combined company, Level 3 said in a Monday news release (http://bit.ly/1siB73h). The deal, set to close in Q4, is unlikely to face major problems in obtaining federal and state regulatory approvals, industry analysts and observers told us. The deal also likely signals the start of a larger trend toward similar deals involving long-haul and metropolitan network providers, analysts and observers said.

Interconnection and peering are getting more FCC attention. Chairman Tom Wheeler told agency staff to start gathering information from ISPs and content providers on the extent of such agreements, he said at the agency’s open meeting Friday. “Consumers need to understand what is occurring when the Internet service they've paid for does not adequately deliver the content they desire.” Industry observers told us they aren’t at all surprised the agency is collecting information on the agreements, but some worry the move may portend future regulation.

Industry groups criticized FTC research presented at the commission’s consumer-generated health data workshop, in comments filed to the FTC after the workshop. The research, a preliminary look into the data sharing practices of mobile health apps, had a flawed premise and relied on flawed assumptions, said several groups. Industry associations also pushed back against the risks of re-identifying health data as presented at the workshop, encouraging the FTC to take a more tangible economic cost-benefit analysis when considering further actions regarding consumer-generated health data. No privacy advocates submitted comments to the FTC following the workshop (CD May 8 p22).

Wyoming lawmakers have begun studying an industry request for a state sales tax exemption for broadband equipment, which one legislator said could take more than $2 million a year from state coffers. The proposal reflects a push for similar state exemptions around the country in return for the prospect of spurring more broadband deployment, said industry representatives and public officials nationally and in several states.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler plans to recuse himself entirely from involvement in AT&T’s wire center trial experiments, he said Friday. Wheeler was on the EarthLink board for about 10 years until resigning when he was confirmed to the chairman’s position in November. Wheeler’s EarthLink past caused him to recuse himself from the Wireline Bureau’s decision to suspend and investigate an AT&T tariff revision in the special access proceeding (CD Dec 9 p1). Industry observers then wondered if Wheeler would have to recuse himself from parts of other proceedings. One question raised by observers now is whether EarthLink participation on other, more contentious proceedings -- like Comcast’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable -- might force Wheeler’s recusal there as well.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless expressed general support for the FCC’s proposed bidding rules for the AWS-3 auction, scheduled to start Nov. 13. Comments on the rules were due June 9 in docket 14-78, but only posted Friday. All three asked for a few tweaks, which each said would make the auction a more likely success. Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. carrier, did not file comments, but Dish Network did. The FCC approved service rules for a 65 MHz AWS-3 auction March 31 (CD April 1 p1), setting the stage for the agency’s first major spectrum sale since 2008.

There are 250 applications pending for new low-power FM construction permits, the FCC Media Bureau said Friday at the monthly FCC meeting. Since the closing of the application window for new LPFM stations Nov. 15, the bureau granted more than 725 FM translator permits, said James Bradshaw, assistant division chief of the Audio Division, in an update on the LPFM application process. The window was open Oct. 17 to Nov. 15, following a delay due to the government shutdown (CD Oct 22 p2). The bureau received 2,826 applications, Bradshaw said. The bureau also received “an unprecedented number” of petitions or objections to many applications, he said. The bureau expects to issue three public notices identifying applicants that are tentatively selected for permits, he said.

Cable companies aren’t planning to create an Internet “fast lane,” and doing so wouldn’t make good business sense, said NCTA President Michael Powell on C-SPAN’s The Communicators (http://bit.ly/SGCvMz). “I don’t think we even know what a fast lane is, and I don’t think anyone is contemplating doing one.” His interview was scheduled to be shown this weekend on the cable channel.

The latest in a nearly 20-year dispute, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld (http://1.usa.gov/1ltd6Bf) the FCC 2013 decision not to overturn public utility commission decisions and grant payphone service providers refunds from AT&T and Verizon. In Illinois Public Telecommunications Association v. FCC, IPTA (docket 13-1059), the Independent Payphone Association of New York and the Payphone Association of Ohio had asked the D.C. Circuit to only mandate the companies pay the refunds, or force the companies to give payments they had received from long-distance carriers to the U.S. Treasury.

"The connection between Cogent and AT&T is completely saturated,” said Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer in an interview Wednesday. Representative graphs provided to us by the transit provider show its connections to AT&T peering interconnection points in New York City and Atlanta “flat line” once they hit 50 Gbps in New York and 40 Gbps in Atlanta. It wasn’t like this before last June, Schaeffer said. “The past practice has always been, as those connections become full, the two parties agree to upgrade.” To force companies like Netflix to enter into paid direct agreements, AT&T has “chosen not to upgrade,” he said.