Microsoft is concerned that LTE-U may hurt other unlicensed uses in the 5 GHz band, said President Brad Smith and another representative in a phone call with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the company said in filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-146. During Friday's conversation with Wheeler, Smith and Director-Government and Regulatory Affairs Paula Boyd sought to have at least three unlicensed channels designated nationwide in the TV bands after the incentive auction. Monday, Boyd and other cable and tech heavyweights like Comcast and Google shared with aides to FCC members their concerns about LTE-U hurting Wi-Fi (see 1510200048). LTE-U won't interfere with Wi-Fi, Qualcomm, a backer of the LTE technology, has said. Qualcomm declined further comment Wednesday.

Six companies will pay a combined $30 million in FCC fines for what the agency said was deceptive marketing of prepaid calling cards, though dissenting Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Ajit Pai said it's the agency that's stretching or breaking the law. The companies targeted immigrant consumers with advertising saying their calling cards cost just dollars but allowed hundreds or thousands of minutes in international calls, but then the companies all assessed numerous fees and surcharges that weren't clearly disclosed, the FCC said Wednesday. “Consumers should not have to comb through small print and contradictory disclosures to learn that the bold promises made in advertisements are false and misleading,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said in a statement. Each paying $5 million in fines are Locus Telecommunications, Lycatel, NobelTel, Simple Network, STi Telecom and Touch-Tel USA. Pai said the six "used blatantly misleading and deceptive marketing," but that the agency's investigation didn't get all the information needed to justify a finding of multiple violations of Section 201(b) by each company -- those multiple violations instead of a single continuing violation being the difference between $5 million in fines versus a liability cap of $1.575 million. The forfeiture number also seemingly "was plucked out of thin air rather than determined through the use of a rational methodology," Pai said in his dissent, saying the notices of apparent liability and the forfeiture orders in some of the six cases lack any evidence the cards were sold within the one-year statute of limitations. O'Rielly, meanwhile, said the fines are part of a further expansion of the reach of Section 201(b) into marketing, and the agency never received any complaints about the six companies. "Some may be tempted to dismiss these actions as merely closing out the enforcement backlog on an industry that has been on the decline for years, with no effect on other types of companies," O'Rielly said his separate dissent. "Indeed, it is not clear that all of these companies remain in business today. Since this isn’t about getting the money, which may never happen, then it must be about setting the principle. Once this bad 'precedent' is set, it will undoubtedly be used against other types of providers in the future."

A U.S. District Court judge in Milwaukee granted Performant Technologies a stay Tuesday of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act-related lawsuit pending the outcome of various cases before federal courts of appeal. Judge Rudolph Randa commented on the FCC July declaratory ruling on the TCPA (see 1506180046). Randa said he agrees with Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly, who raised concerns about how the FCC ruling interpreted the word capacity as spelled out in the TCPA. The FCC found that use of the term “capacity” in the definition of “automatic telephone dialing system,” doesn't exempt equipment that lacks the “present ability” to dial randomly or sequentially, Randa wrote. Pai said in dissenting from the ruling that the FCC “dramatically expands the TCPA’s reach,” Randa noted. According to Pai, the FCC found that the “TCPA prohibits a person from making ’any call’ to a mobile phone ’using any automatic telephone dialing system,’ except in certain defined circumstances,” Randa said. Randa said he granted Performant a stay because of the probability that finding won't survive legal challenge. “Thus, it seems to the Court, as it seemed to the dissenting Commissioners, that the majority’s interpretation of the term ‘capacity’ contradicts the plain language of the statute,” Randa wrote. The decision came in case no.13-C-1196.

Hillary Clinton backs enforcement of strong net neutrality rules, she said Tuesday in a commentary on business policy posted on the website Quartz. Clinton, campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president, criticized what she considered loopholes in the current system. “Closing these loopholes and protecting other standards of free and fair competition -- like enforcing strong net neutrality rules and preempting state laws that unfairly protect incumbent businesses -- will keep more money in consumers’ wallets, enable startups to challenge the status quo, and allow small businesses to thrive,” Clinton said in her column. Clinton indicated backing for the FCC’s direction on net neutrality, including reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, earlier this year. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has told us he doesn’t see the administration position shifting under a Clinton presidency (see 1504160034), and open Internet advocate Marvin Ammori has also expressed his confidence in Clinton on the issue (see 1507210050). No Republicans running for president back the FCC net neutrality order, and some have prioritized dismantling it. Clinton also intends to “prevent concentration in the first place by beefing up the antitrust enforcement arms of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission,” she added. “I will direct more resources to hire aggressive regulators who will conduct in-depth industry research to better understand the link between market consolidation and stagnating incomes. Ultimately, this will foster a change in corporate culture that restores competition to the marketplace.”

Relaxed legal out-of-band emissions (OOBE) rules, higher power levels and unlimited antenna heights open the door to more fixed satellite service (FSS) earth station interference and should be rejected, the Satellite Industry Association said in filing posted Tuesday in opposition to a CTIA petition for reconsideration of FCC rules on the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band. Instead, stricter citizens broadband radio service (CBRS) limits are needed to avoid "a significant increase" of more than 11 km in the protection distance needed between CBRS devices and FSS earth stations, SIA said in a filing in docket 12-354. While both CTIA and Nokia have pushed for greater emissions limits, "neither provides an adequate rationale," with CTIA itself arguing for more stringent OOBE limits "when its own members' operations could be the victims of unwanted emissions," SIA said. The satellite group also rejected the idea of changing the metric for OOBE limit compliance from average power measurements to a peak detector, because that would "undermine the prophylactic objectives of the OOBE limits." Similarly, a higher maximum effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and an eliminating of the antenna height limit for nonrural Category B citizens broadband radio service devices (CBSDs) will also "substantially increase the separation distances" needed to protect FSS from interference. Petitioners pushing for such higher EIRPs "fail to even acknowledge these trade offs," SIA said. But SIA said some areas of the FCC order should be reconsidered, such as the 60-second delay allowed for a CBSD to end transmission, lower its power or relocate to another channel, since even 60 seconds "could have significant adverse effects on FSS operations, including the potential to undermine safe satellite operations," SIA said. The FCC also should put in place a geolocation requirement to give reliable CBSD location information and "abandon the idea of relying on 'professional' installers to ensure the accuracy," the group said.

Correction: The International Trade Commission is the target of opposition from public interest groups over what those groups call regulation of Internet information (see 1510190052).

Tech and cable heavyweights said they don't oppose LTE in unlicensed bands, but the standards-setting process "is the path to protecting consumers and supporting innovation." Reporting on Thursday and Monday lobbying meetings with aides to all regular FCC members by executives from Cablevision, Comcast, Google and NCTA, and in some meetings Microsoft, a lawyer at Harris Wiltshire said the LTE-U Forum isn't a standards organization. The forum has restricted membership and doesn't "engage in the type of coordination needed to protect consumers," said the filing posted Tuesday in docket 15-105. "CableLabs and Google testing demonstrates that LTE-U specification-compliant devices would substantially undermine Wi-Fi consumers." Qualcomm, an LTE-U backer and according to the group's website a forum member, has said that LTE-U and Wi-Fi can coexist. The LTE-U Forum agreed to coexistence protocols to ensure LTE-U is "polite" to other wireless spectrum users, an executive at Verizon, which the forum says started the organization, recently said (see 1510060010). "Qualcomm and all the other companies involved in developing and deploying LTE-U, which is based on the 3GPP [3rd Generation Partnership Project] Release 10-11-12 global standards, are also strong supporters of Wi-Fi, and we have a strong vested interest in ensuring that LTE-U will not have any adverse impact on Wi-Fi," emailed Qualcomm Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Dean Brenner Tuesday. "A mountain of test results on file at the FCC proves that, in fact, LTE-U will not interfere with or harm Wi-Fi, and in fact, LTE-U will in many cases be a better neighbor to Wi-Fi than Wi-Fi is to itself. We are continuing our constant technical collaboration with our colleagues in the Wi-Fi community to answer questions, address issues, and ease concerns.” The LTE-U Forum itself couldn't be reached for comment.

The FCC's public notice on prohibited communications during the TV incentive auction was published in Monday's Federal Register. The notice covers both the forward and reverse auctions.

Correction: The thing that should be considered a bad practice only if it distorts the market through quality of service or pricing is zero rating, said Vishal Misra, Columbia University computer science professor (see 1510150075).

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is among speakers lined up for an Oct. 28 FCC summit on the telecom needs of people with cognitive disabilities. The agency released a working agenda Monday. The opening speaker is Emily Shea Tanis, associate director of the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities. The summit starts at 9 a.m. at FCC headquarters.