The FCC sent the net neutrality order to the Federal Register for publication on Wednesday, an agency official said. Publication is likely to set off more appeals to the order (see 1503300055). When it will be published was unknown Thursday. The typical timeline is three business days, the Federal Register said on its site, and it wasn't listed to be published on Friday. Alamo Broadband and USTelecom appealed the order March 24 (see 1503230066). The agency has said they were premature before publication in the Federal Register and plans to file a motion to dismiss the two appeals on that ground (see 1503270036).

Multichannel video programming distributors' video subscribership showed the first-ever full-year decline between the end of 2012 and the end of 2013, the FCC said in its 16th Video Competition Report, released Thursday. Between year-end 2012 and year-end 2013, the number of MVPD video subscribers dropped from 101 million to 100.9 million households, the report said. Cable sub numbers fell from 56.4 million to 54.4 million, while direct broadcast satellite subscribership increased from 34.1 million to 34.2 million. Telephone MVPD video numbers increased from 9.9 million to 11.3 million subscribers, the report said. MVPDs have been increasing video revenue partly by raising the price of video service, but data in the report suggests “that programming expenses are rising faster than revenue,” the report said. MVPD programming expenses were 44.6 percent of MVPD video revenue in 2013, the report says. Fifty-seven percent of the total footprints of the top eight cable MVPDs had transitioned to digital by the close of 2013, the report said. In broadcast TV, the number of stations broadcasting in HD was down slightly at the start of 2014, from the previous year, from 1,536 stations to 1,517, the report said. The number of houses relying exclusively on over-the-air broadcast increased from 11.2 million households in 2013 to 11.4 million households in 2014, the report said: “The percentage of all households they represent has remained steady at 9.8 percent.” Broadcast industry revenue “rose to $24.6 billion in 2012 from the $21.6 billion in 2011, but were reported to fall to $24.2 billion in 2013,” the report said. The data also shows viewing of online video distributors' content on multiple devices becoming more prevalent, the report said, with more than 53 million U.S. households watching online programming with at least one Internet-connected device. During Q4 2013, 12.8 percent of video streams were viewed on smartphones, up from 7.2 percent during Q4 2012, the report said. The report is “filled with good news," said Commissioner Ajit Pai in a statement attached to the report. “When it comes to video programming, Americans have more choices than ever before.”

The FCC’s net neutrality order will “have a negative impact on innovation,” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told the Association of National Advertisers on Wednesday. The order’s “vague, catch-all” Internet conduct standard will be used to “decide the lawfulness of sponsored data plans,” he said (see 1502250064). “Other attempts by providers to differentiate themselves through innovative partnerships and pricing models may also end up on the chopping block,” he told the group in a wide-ranging speech that also touched on multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). The agency has a “desire to edge into Internet privacy and security issues,” O’Rielly said. The FCC also could try to police how broadband and edge providers collect, use, share and store consumers’ information, as well as how those practices are disclosed to consumers, he said. The agency’s NPRM (see 1412190050) could also lead the agency to redefine some over-the-top video programming providers as MVPDs, he said. The agency doesn’t seem to have “any authority to allow an opt-out,” so “if the Commission declares an OTT video provider as an MVPD, it is so. And the limited benefits and many burdens of doing so will be applicable,” O’Rielly said. It’s a “safe bet that there will be significant unintended consequences on an emerging industry still trying to define itself, as it moves forward.” On the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, O’Rielly said the agency should “provide clear rules of the road that will benefit everyone” by acting on pending TCPA petitions to clarify the law. He doesn't support companies “hounding consumers with incessant or harassing calls,” but the litigation risk created by the law, agency decisions and court rulings have forced businesses to “avoid making calls to their existing customers or clients even if the purpose of the call could directly and immediately help the customer,” O’Rielly said. In addition, he said broadband providers’ advertisements “are garnering greater scrutiny and are even being used to justify FCC decisions to increase regulation.” Ads about speed and capacity were used to help justify the reclassification of broadband as Communications Act Title II service, he said. “Unfortunately, I would not be surprised if decisions like these begin to have an impact on how providers market their services,” O’Rielly said.

The FCC rulemaking process is “mired by incomplete and unfinished documents being allowed to circulate, perpetuating a belief that the circulation deadline is irrelevant,” said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly in a blog post Wednesday. FCC staff “certainly should not be negotiating last-minute deals with outside parties or revising the document without advance notice to all Commissioners and the consent of at least three offices,” during a proceeding’s “sunshine period,” O’Rielly said. It’s “patently unfair” to expect FCC commissioners to be able to read and give feedback “when staff is working on a substantially different document to be provided later -- sometimes not until late the night before a vote,” O’Rielly said. The FCC should “codify” its rules that the final text of a meeting item has to be presented to commissioners 24 hours before an open meeting, O’Rielly said. “If that simple concept -- what some wise people previously referred to as the pencils down moment -- can’t be met, there is no shame or harm in pushing the item to the next meeting,” he said. Many changes to recent items have been unrelated to edit requests from commissioners, O’Rielly said. “We are left to guess why revisions were made and at whose behest.” Edits to items are also not always memorialized in the “official email chain” as they're supposed to be, O’Rielly said. “If staff feels that additional changes are truly needed for whatever reason, then they should be made under the Chairman’s name and posted on the official email chain,” O’Rielly said. Revisions shouldn’t be made to an item unless two commissioner offices agree to them, O’Rielly said: “That shouldn’t be a heavy lift.” The FCC didn't comment.

The FCC should restart the transaction clock for AT&T/DirecTV and approve the deal as soon as possible, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Thursday, according to an ex parte filing. The restart should happen “as soon as issues involving the programmers are resolved,” the filing said.

A petition for U.S. Supreme Court review of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denial of petitions to review the 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation (see 1405270045) order should be denied, the FCC said in a brief filed with the high court. U.S. Cellular, Cellular South and the Rural Independent Competitive Alliance said the FCC lacked authority to require broadband buildout in order to receive USF, but none of the petitioners has standing to challenge the requirement, the agency said. The petitioners’ argument rests on the classification of broadband as an information service, but “the FCC has now reversed that classification,” the brief said. The appeals court also correctly said the agency was authorized to impose the broadband requirement even when broadband was classified as an information service, the agency said.

A new group, the High Tech Forum, plans to examine the technology behind high-tech policies, its organizers said in a news release last week. “The Internet is one of the most successful experiments in world history -- but most people have no idea how it works,” the group said. "The new High Tech Forum will change that.” The forum is led by Richard Bennett, longtime network engineer and visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The group is offering a classroom, which will provide “basic explanations” of Wi-Fi, wireless networks and “more complex issues like the limitations of unlicensed spectrum and functionality of high versus low frequencies,” the group said. It's offering an "Ask the Engineer" feature and forums for discussing issues.

Wiley Rein is laying off 18 partners, 18 secretaries and 12 administrative support staff, according to a news release from the firm. The move was part of a “strategic plan” and a response to “changes in client demand in certain areas,” the firm said. The strategic plan was the outgrowth of a “year-long business review" launched in 2014, the firm said. “We needed to take steps to ensure our professional and staff resources were aligned with our strategic and practice area goals,” the release said. The firm's Telecommunications Practice was not impacted and "is doing great," a firm spokeswoman told us.

The FCC Wireline and the Consumer & Governmental Affairs bureaus scheduled a workshop April 28 to discuss what steps the FCC should take to protect privacy after the net neutrality order forbore broadband providers from rules barring the disclosure of consumer proprietary network information, the agency said in a public notice Monday. Acknowledging the order raised questions about privacy issues, Chairman Tom Wheeler announced at the Center for Democracy & Technology annual dinner last month that the agency would hold a workshop (see 1502240070). The 10 a.m. event will be at FCC headquarters. “Diverse stakeholders” will discuss a range of matters about the application of statutory privacy protections to broadband Internet access service, said the release, which didn't identify the participants. The workshop also will address to what extent the commission can apply a harmonized privacy framework across various services within its jurisdiction, the release said.

“Given the inaccuracies that have been published” in the media, specifically by The Wall Street Journal, Google Senior Vice President-Communications and Policy Rachel Whetstone said in a blog post Friday, the company wanted to share its side of the story. In response to The WSJ’s report saying FTC commissioners voted unanimously to end the investigation into Google despite the Competition Bureau recommending legal action be taken, Google said The WSJ chose not to report what “the FTC made clear this week,” (see 1503260030) which is the Commission’s decision was in accord with the recommendations made by the Competition Bureau, Economics Bureau and Office of General Counsel. With respect to The WSJ reporting Google employees have met with senior officials about 230 times since President Barack Obama took office, compared to Comcast employees visiting 20 times, Google said the reporting was inaccurate. “Our employment records show that 33 of the White House visits were by people not employed here at the time,” Whetstone said. More than five visits involved a Google engineer “on leave helping to fix technical issues with the government’s Healthcare.gov website (something he’s been very public about),” Whetstone said. “Checking through White House records for other companies, our team counted around 270 visits for Microsoft over the same time frame and 150 for Comcast.” The meetings Google employees had with senior officials “were not to discuss the antitrust investigation” but issues such as patent reform, science, technology, engineering and math education, self-driving cars, mental health, advertising, Internet censorship, smart contact lenses, cloud computing, cybersecurity and energy efficiency, Whetstone said. Directing her comments to Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, the Journal's owner, she wrote: “We understand you have a new found love of the regulatory process, especially in Europe, but as the FTC’s Bureau of Competition staff concluded, Google has strong pro-competitive arguments on our side.” Like the FTC, the Texas and Ohio Attorneys General “closed their comprehensive competition investigations into Google in 2014,” Whetstone said. “Courts in Germany and Brazil found that there is no basis in the law for Google competitors to dictate Google’s search results." The WSJ had no immediate comment.