The U.S. wireless tower sector is likely to do very well over the next 12 months amid a confluence of telecom industry trends like increasing network expansions and network quality improvements, industry participants and observers told us. Those trends taken together are making the tower sector “as robust as it’s ever been,” said Clayton Funk, a managing director at broker Media Venture Partners. Wireless carrier consolidations -- such as a possible merger between Sprint and T-Mobile US -- will continue to be a top factor in the industry’s outlook, but not as large as in the past, observers said.

Using Title II of the Communications Act to ensure nondiscrimination on the Internet wouldn’t work, would lead to massive litigation and would be a “ticking time bomb” that would reverberate throughout the Internet ecosystem, said panelists at a Thursday FCBA event. It would also raise thorny USF issues as regulators try to determine which high-tech companies should pay into the fund if broadband becomes a telecom service and thus regulated under Title II, some said. But not everyone agreed that Title II classification would lead to the suggested parade of horribles.

AT&T’s proposed buy of DirecTV is unlikely to sway forces lobbying Capitol Hill on Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization this year, stakeholder companies and lobbyists told us. But the deal worth about $67 billion including debt would ultimately raise AT&T’s stakes in the video market and may promise longer-term lobbying ferocity on issues such as retransmission consent, they said. STELA expires at the end of the year. DirecTV has pushed for aggressive changes incorporated into reauthorization, closely aligning with Dish.

Sinclair wants to cancel the licenses of three TV stations involved in its $985 million plan to buy Allbritton’s TV stations because of FCC rules barring joint sales agreements, a lack of willing third-party buyers and an approaching deadline to close the deal, Sinclair said in a letter to the Media Bureau Thursday. The stations slated to go dark are WCFT-TV and WJSU-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, and WCIV-TV Charleston, South Carolina. Though Sinclair will preserve the content of those stations by multicasting their signals, closing the stations scuttles a plan by African-American broadcaster Armstrong Williams to participate in the deal (CD April 24 p12) and doesn’t serve the public interest, said commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly in a joint statement. “We hope the commission will act immediately to correct its misguided policy on JSAs."

Operators of small cable systems said the blocking of online content to customers during carriage disputes is a growing concern among policymakers following FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s comments on the issue last week during a House Communications Subcommittee hearing (CD May 21 p12). “That is something that is of concern and that we all should worry about,” he said in response to a question from Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. The answer helps bring the issue further up front, said some public interest and cable operators in interviews. NAB said it has been cable operators that have restricted broadcast online programming. While Wheeler hasn’t yet had conversations with the other commissioners about blocking online content, he is keeping a close eye on the situation, an FCC official said.

With an FCC vote on changes to the E-rate program expected at the agency’s July meeting, Commissioner Ajit Pai is questioning whether the program is shorting rural schools. Pai visited Sioux Falls New Technology High School Wednesday and issued a statement Thursday. The school is in South Dakota, the home state of Sen. John Thune, likely the next chairman of the Commerce Committee if Republicans regain control of the Senate in the November elections. There is too little E-rate money going to libraries, ex-FCC Chairman Reed Hundt told us, while in another interview a library official said many small libraries are dissuaded from seeking the federal money. Ex-Commissioner Robert McDowell predicted a growing rural-urban library divide on E-rate funding.

Verizon is taking a wait-and-see approach on proposed net neutrality rules, approved at the FCC’s May 15 meeting (CD May 16 p1), Verizon Senior Vice President Craig Silliman said during an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators, set to air this weekend. “This is an NPRM; we're at the beginning of a process,” he said. “We'll have to see what the final rule is."

Verizon doesn’t have to participate in an FCC-sanctioned IP transition trial, because it’s not making any changes that require regulatory approval, and has no need to test its proven fiber technologies, executives said at a company event Thursday on the role of fiber in the wireline network. They said locations where Verizon is building out fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), customers will still get TDM-based switched voice service -- simply carried over fiber instead of copper. AT&T said this week it plans to stop offering TDM service to new customers in its two testbed towns in the second half of 2015 (CD May 29 p2).

Network operators should avoid impairing or restricting VoIP applications “unless no reasonable alternatives are available to resolve technical issues,” said the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group’s (BITAG) Technical Working Group Thursday in a report. Some network management actions, such as port blocking or traffic limitations meant to impede hacking of vulnerable VoIP services, may limit or restrict VoIP traffic “as a method of ensuring network integrity,” BITAG said. VoIP impairments, failures and restrictions could potentially be construed as “anticompetitive, discriminatory or motivated by non-technical factors,” the group said. Network operators should ensure they take such actions in a way that will “minimize the impact of the approach on legitimate VoIP use,” BITAG said (http://bit.ly/SVotYb). BITAG, a non-profit formed to develop industry consensus on Internet rules, previously released a report in October on best practices to reduce network congestion (CD Oct 23 p10).

One House bill would stop the FCC from reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecom service rather than as an information service, a key point of contention as the agency moves to reinstate net neutrality rules. House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, had announced intentions for such a bill during a recent FCC oversight hearing and formally introduced the six-page piece of legislation as expected (CD May 29 p6) Wednesday, which industry welcomed Thursday.