Groups opposed to the proposed overhaul net neutrality rules asked the FCC for an eight-week extension of the deadline for reply comments, now due Aug. 16 (see 1706280037). The petition notes that more than 15 million comments were filed. “This volume alone warrants an extension of time for the replies,” the groups said. “The current schedule does not afford interested persons enough time to read and properly consider the record, let alone to prepare their own replies.” The groups note the FCC provided a longer comment period in past net neutrality proceedings. Public Knowledge, Access Now, the American Civil Liberties Union, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Consumers Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Engine Advocacy and National Consumer Law Center are among those that signed the filing in docket 17-108. Some 20 Democratic senators plus Vermont independent Bernie Sanders sought more time, too, noting past net neutrality proceedings gave twice the amount of time for replies: 60 days. "The FCC should follow its own precedent and extend the reply comment period to ensure the fullest spectrum of comments fills the docket in this historic rulemaking," wrote Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Al Franken of Minnesota, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and others. The agency declined to comment.

The General Service Administration accepted AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon and seven others into its 15-year, $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program. GSA listed participants on its website. Verizon and CenturyLink celebrated in Wednesday news releases (see here and here). The EIS program, part of GSA’s Network Services 2020 strategy, helps federal agencies buy IT and telecom infrastructure services.

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition said it's “declaring a truce” in the debate over a proposal to reserve vacant channels in the TV bands for unlicensed use (see 1707110015). The declaration came in an email newsletter Tuesday. Though NAB and Microsoft have been actively pressing the FCC on the matter, a broadcast industry official told us the two sides remain far apart, and the coalition announcement doesn’t indicate any of the other parties active in the vacant channel proceeding have reached an agreement with the coalition. The group is working on a plan under which licensees would be offered “economic opportunities to utilize their spectrum rights to participate in the solving of national problems,” the email said. LPTV spectrum could be used for rural broadband, and to assist in the rollout of ATSC 3.0, the email said. Microsoft didn’t comment. NAB "remains strongly opposed to the Microsoft proposal," a spokesman said in response to the coalition announcement. "Microsoft’s proposal could damage TV reception for tens of millions of people living in both rural and urban America.”

After assuring the FCC that changing Part 32 telco accounting rules to let carriers rely exclusively on generally accepted accounting procedures wouldn't lead to higher pole attachment rates, telcos are now saying they made no such guarantees, NCTA said in a docket 14-130 reply posted Tuesday. The filing responded to USTelecom and AT&T oppositions to its petition that the agency revise pole-attachment aspects of its order streamlining price-cap ILEC accounting (see 1707240051). NCTA said no one refuted its contentions of how pole rents can be inflated using GAAP. It said the required implementation rate differential isn't enough of a safeguard against rate increases under a GAAP-based regime. The association said the FCC should continue to provide access to pole cost data through public postings and pre-complaint discovery and require carriers responding to that discovery provide disaggregated pole cost data and not require confidential treatment.

The FTC will share consumer complaints about robocaller phone numbers every business day to carriers and others that have implemented call-blocking technologies, the commission said in a Tuesday news release. The numbers will be used in "blacklists" or databases of phone numbers flagged for complaints, said the agency. New data, including the date and time a call was received, what the call was about and if it was a robocall, also will be provided, the release said. More than 1.9 million complaints were filed in the first five months of the year, the agency said. "Kvetch and release" was the title of the agency's blog post about the initiative.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed in part and denied in part Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia’s challenge of FCC incentive auction rules (see 1705160070). FAB’s case was framed as a challenge of the commencing operations and channel sharing orders, but the FCC argued and the court ruled in an opinion released Tuesday that the policies FAB targeted actually stemmed from the 2014 incentive auction order. “The window for challenging the Auction Order shut 60 days after that order was entered, and it will stay shut unless cracked open again by the Commission itself,” said the majority opinion by Judge Thomas Griffith. Judges Sri Srinivasan and Karen Henderson were also on the panel. “This petition for review flies beak-first into that hard limit insofar as it aims to re-litigate the Auction Order’s procedures,” the opinion said. The auction order’s effects on low-power TV already were upheld by the court in the Mako case, Griffin said. Rejecting all the parts of FAB’s challenge that stemmed from the 2014 order, the court considered arguments against the other two orders but also found them wanting. FAB argued the FCC acted in an arbitrary fashion by not studying the effect of the auction on LPTV, but Griffin disagreed. Channel sharing “would help some LPTV stations by enabling them to survive the repacking process and save money by sharing costs,” Griffin said. “The Commission was surely right that letting some LPTV stations share channels after the auction would be better than offering them no assistance at all.” The FCC in 2014 “made decisions that threatened to drive petitioners off the air -- decisions that petitioners understandably tried to challenge,” Griffin said. “But the law does not leave them free to keep trying.” FAB didn’t comment.

The Capitol Hill debate over PBS funding is “a dynamic situation and the outcome is uncertain,” said PBS CEO Paula Kerger in a speech to the Television Critics Association Sunday, according to prepared remarks. Though the House Appropriations Committee approved most PBS funding, the House Budget Committee recommended ending federal funding for PBS, a situation that's likely to be “sorted out” after the August recess, Kerger said. “We have long-standing support from leaders in both chambers, on both sides of the aisle.”

Forty-six organizations and individuals filed comments with NTIA on how to prevent botnets and other automated threats, with many backing more government-industry collaboration (see 1707280030). Google and Alphabet's Nest Labs said they use security practices for their connected devices such as security by design, strong authentication and password practices, encryption, network security, automatic software updates and bug bounty programs. Microsoft described the work its digital crimes unit does with public and private sector partners to disrupt botnet operations and what the company does to improve hardware and software security. The Information Technology Industry Council said new IoT device makers such as startups may not be using best practices for secure device development and other cybersecurity approaches. ITI said barriers to the movement of global data could impede cyberthreat information sharing, citing as problematic 2013 changes to the Wassenaar Arrangement export control rules (see 1702130031). ACT|The App Association said law enforcement plays a vital role in preventing and mitigating attacks, requiring "close coordination" between U.S. and foreign governments and upfront forensic analysis. It said DOJ's position on law enforcement access to data stored abroad isn't aligned with U.S. law and "guaranteed rights" and this undermines the international rule of law, calling for more streamlined processes. NCTA said NTIA should push for a more "holistic approach" to fighting such threats, including application of artificial intelligence and adoption of mutually agreed norms for routing security. USTelecom supports principles for cybersecurity policymaking: private sector leadership and market-driven innovation; a dynamic flexible approach to security; shared responsibility among internet and communications stakeholders, government and consumers; and "active partnership against bad actors, not top-down government requirements."

The repacking priority window for stations that need changes to their post-incentive auction channel assignments will be Aug. 9-Sept. 8, said the Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau in a public notice Monday. The first priority window is also for stations that experienced a population loss of more than 1 percent due to the repacking and Class A stations that weren't protected in the incentive auction, the PN said. Twenty-five stations told the FCC they can’t construct facilities for the channel assignments they have received for the repacking, the IATF said (see 1707130060). After the priority window, the estimated cost of the repacking could decline, the IATF said, as the current figure includes price estimates for eight of the stations that have said their channel assignment needs to be changed. A move to a new channel could change the repacking costs for such stations, the IATF has said.

The FCC failed to reply to a pair of Freedom of Information Act requests on electronic comment filing system problems in May that the agency said was due to a directed denial of service attack (see 1705090063), investigative journalist Kevin Collier said in a complaint (in Pacer) filed Wednesday with U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Collier in his suit said he filed FOIA requests in May for records on the DDoS attack and the agency's analysis of astroturf anti-net neutrality comments, but it never provided or formally denied the documents. The FCC didn't comment.