The FCC’s net neutrality proposal demonstrates that the FCC is acting with dispatch in reaction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s Jan. 14 decision (CD Jan 15 p1) largely rejecting the agency’s 2010 net neutrality rules, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said during a press conference following the commission’s monthly meeting. “First of all, this is a month after the decision,” Wheeler said. “There’s going to be a rulemaking in the spring. I don’t think we kicked the can, I think we picked it up and we're running down the road in the direction the court suggested we ought to be going.” Wheeler was asked about his statement that he would leave the Title II docket open (CD Feb 20 p1). “There are all kinds of tools in the toolbox,” he said. “What we're doing is we're adding, not subtracting, to what’s in that toolbox.” The agency favors broadband competition, he said. “When Google comes in and says that they're going to build more fiber, that’s a great idea,” he said. Wheeler said the commission is looking at the “right structure” for encouraging the buildout of more municipal broadband. “The operating hypothesis is that if the citizens of a community say we would like to have more competition and we want to work through our local elected officials to have that competition they should be encouraged, not thwarted.” Wheeler also confirmed background statements coming from agency officials that he is “skeptical” about a possible Sprint/T-Mobile deal, but he declined to say more. “I think that has been reported in the press, that both the Department of Justice and we indicated that we were skeptical about the proposed transaction, and that’s the extent of my willingness to comment on that situation,” he said.

Tightening rules on joint sales agreements would “likely harm the public interest,” said FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a blog post Tuesday night (http://fcc.us/1cpYn5P). A plan by Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office to circulate proposed changes to the rules on JSAs would leave O'Rielly (CD Feb 12 p1) “perplexed and deeply concerned,” because the media market is far more competitive than when the commission’s ownership rules were created, said O'Rielly. “Such a move would conflict with the spirit, intent and wording” of the 1996 Telecom Act, he said. “Instead of tinkering around the edges in a questionable manner, the Commission should comply with the law and move forward to holistically update its media ownership rules across the board so that they are justified against the backdrop of today’s media landscape.” NAB meanwhile lobbied the FCC in favor of JSAs. (See separate report in this issue.)

All paper and electronic filings that were due at the FCC Feb. 13, were due Feb. 14, the FCC said in a public notice Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1h7nWsa). Feb. 13 doesn’t count in computing filing periods of fewer than seven days because it was an FCC holiday, due to adverse weather conditions.

The White House backs the FCC’s commitment to net neutrality but declined to say whether reclassification of broadband service was the best route forward, it said in a response to a petition on the issue (http://1.usa.gov/1cWA2S1). The response was authored by Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy, and Todd Park, U.S. chief technology officer. “The petition asked that the President direct the FCC to reclassify Internet service providers as ‘common carriers’ which, if upheld, would give the FCC a distinct set of regulatory tools to promote net neutrality,” they said. “The FCC is an independent agency. Chairman [Tom] Wheeler has publicly pledged to use the full authority granted by Congress to maintain a robust, free and open Internet -- a principle that this White House vigorously supports.”

The FCC should reject a proposal from wireless companies to allocate the primarily broadcaster-used 470-698 MHz range of UHF spectrum to mobile uses on “a co-primary basis with broadcasting,” said CBS, Disney, Fox, NAB, NBCUniversal, Univision and several network affiliate groups in comments filed Tuesday on draft recommendations of the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference FCC Advisory Committee. The wireless proposal also suggests removing a requirement that incumbents on the frequency have to agree to deployment of new mobile services in the band. “If the FCC accepts the AT&T and Verizon proposal, the U.S. would become the only country in the world without spectrum dedicated to broadcast television as a primary use,” said NAB in a news release. “We are hopeful the FCC rejects this wireless industry proposal, which if approved could result in harmful radio transmission interference among neighboring countries, and seriously compromise the integrity of the U.S. television airwaves,” said an NAB spokesman. “That allowing high powered broadcast and mobile broadband operations in the same band creates the potential for harmful interference between services should be beyond dispute,” said NAB. Though it conceded that some broadcaster spectrum in the affected band may need to be reallocated to a mobile use, that shouldn’t happen without “additional sharing and compatibility studies,” NAB said. The wireless proposal “reflects a scientifically unsound approach that ignores current open proceedings intended to gather further information concerning required separation distances between broadcast television and wireless operations in a headlong rush by the wireless industry to mark the entire UHF band as its territory,” NAB said in the comments (http://bit.ly/Mawl42).

Public interest attorney and former Media Access Project head Andrew Schwartzman will join Georgetown’s Institute for Public Representation (IPR) to lead the new Public Interest Communications Law Project, said the Benton Foundation and Georgetown Law in a news release Tuesday. The project is a joint creation of the foundation and school, and Schwartzman will be Benton senior counselor, funded through grants from the Alphawood Foundation, Ford Foundation and the Media Democracy Fund, the release said. Schwartzman’s appointment will “expand IPR’s capacity to provide public representation in such critical areas as the transition of traditional wireline telephone service to broadband (known ’the IP transition'), Universal Service Fund reform, particularly of Lifeline and E-Rate, Diversity of Media Ownership and Spectrum Policy,” he said. Schwartzman will be able to continue as senior adviser to other Washington-based public interest groups, along with his private law practice, the release said. “I have long sought to help create a new generation of public interest advocates able to promote the public’s First Amendment rights to have access to a diverse and vigorous debate on important issues,” said Schwartzman. “This position is an ideal way to continue and extend that mission."

Comments are due March 31 on potential process reform at the FCC, a public notice said Friday (http://fcc.us/1ghrRUP). The comments are to be in response to a report prepared by commission staff that attempts to see “the agency operate in the most effective, efficient, transparent way possible,” the notice said. The report proposes more than 150 process reforms, including streamlining the internal review process, processing items more quickly and eliminating outdated rules, the notice said. The docket is GN 14-25.

Nearly two thirds of U.S. broadband households now have an Internet-connected TV, up from just over half last year, according to research released Thursday by The Diffusion Group, a technology and media behavior research company (http://bit.ly/1kHWiXz). The study -- based on a January survey of 1,500 adults subscribing to broadband service -- said households with a connected TV owned on average 1.6 TVs and 42 percent of connected TV owners have two or more connected TVs. “While not a simple a zero-sum game, we are nearing or at that breaking point where the growing use of broadband-based sources simply chips away at time once spent using traditional sources. This is hardly a radical argument, and made all the more inevitable given these new findings,” said Michael Greeson, TDG president and director-research.

Whether websites and other nonphysical spaces fall under the accommodations of the California Disabled Persons Act is the question that Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness [GLAD] v. CNN will resolve. It’s to be heard by the California Supreme Court, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an opinion (http://1.usa.gov/MPfS5P) Monday, according to a Davis Wright law firm news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1g2G31L). “The referral is the closing issue in a Ninth Circuit opinion that reverses a district court ruling by holding California’s anti-SLAPP [strategic lawsuit against public participation] statute applies to GLAD’s suit seeking to compel captions for CNN.com’s news videos,” said the release.

Global production of connected devices will rise 6 percent this year to 6.2 billion units, as new smartphones and tablets “enter the electronics ecosystem,” IHS Technology said Thursday. That would be the market’s largest increase since 2010, when production jumped 10 percent, a year after the global economic recession ended, IHS said. The research firm sees production growth rates slowing in the next few years, though total units produced will continue to rise in absolute numbers, it said. It estimates nearly 19.5 billion new devices “will flood the planet” between 2015 and 2017.