As the FCC moves forward on broadband data services and other major wireline issues, Stephanie Weiner, Chairman Tom Wheeler’s wireline aide, is leaving, Wheeler said Thursday. Weiner is being replaced by Lisa Hone, an associate chief in the Wireline Bureau. Hone was previously an aide to former Commissioner Michael Copps and logged time at the FTC. Weiner played a big role both in drafting and defending the 2015 net neutrality rules, Wheeler said in a news release.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Freedom of Information Act request and accompanying blog post (see 1610260060) are an attempt to “fabricate drama,” said MPAA Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Neil Fried in his blog post Thursday. EFF said the Copyright Office met with programmers and content interests and didn't do enough to seek out all sides on the FCC set-top box proposal before deciding it violated copyright law. “The bottom line is that the Copyright Office did not approach stakeholders, selectively or otherwise,” Fried said. “It spoke with any and all comers who asked for the opportunity. It then examined the issues and met its statutory obligation to advise federal agencies and Congress on the law. Any EFF suggestion to the contrary is entirely false.” The CO “studiously avoided being brought into the debate” until it was asked by the FCC and Congress to weigh in, Fried said. “EFF’s great 'revelation' is that the Copyright Office did its job, responding to inquiries from various groups -- including technology companies, labor unions, copyright owners, the FCC and Congress,” he said. “Like anyone else, the EFF could have just as easily made its own inquiries, rather than issue a hyperbolic blog complaining about the entirely legitimate practice of a government agency communicating with a range of parties.”

Comments are due Nov. 9, replies Nov. 16 on a telecom industry petition for FCC reconsideration of a policy statement instituting treble damages for violations of rules for payments to USF and other funding programs. The pleading cycle was triggered Wednesday by Federal Register publication of an FCC notice, which created docket 16-330. "The policy statement adopts a new treble damages formula for calculating forfeitures for telecommunications service providers' failure: (1) to timely pay their assessments for the federal Universal Service Fund (USF), Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Fund, local number portability (LNP), North American Numbering Plan (NANP) and regulatory fee programs; and (2) to file data required to assess payment obligations for these programs," said a petition filed March 6, 2015, by CTIA, NCTA, Comptel (now Incompas) and USTelecom (see 1503310052). The FCC's goals are laudable, the groups said, but the policy statement must be vacated because it wasn't promulgated with notice and comment under the Administrative Procedure Act. On substance, the treble damages policy is arbitrary and capricious, reflecting "a results-oriented effort by the Commission to drive the relevant forfeiture amounts as high as possible," said the groups, which pressed the agency in August to open a docket and seek comment on their petition (see 1608050061).

The Lifeline Connects Coalition asked FCC staff to temporarily waive new rules that shorten a "nonusage window" from 60 days to 30 days and a "cure period" from 30 days to 15 days. Under rules adopted as part of a FCC Lifeline broadband and administrative overhaul, many wireless Lifeline providers would be required to de-enroll low-income customers who don't use the subsidized service for 30 days and fail to cure that nonuse in 15 days. Absent a waiver, "many eligible low-income consumers face the significant likelihood that they will through no action of their own be denied Lifeline benefits to which they are entitled and for which they have expressed no desire to discontinue," said an LCC petition to the Wireline Bureau posted Wednesday in docket 11-42, saying millions may lose service. The LCC also asked the bureau to direct Universal Service Administrative Co. to rescind guidance that would implement the 30-day nonusage rule prior to Dec. 2, which the group called "unlawful and impractical" to administer. It further asked the commission to waive a rule barring reimbursements for providers serving Lifeline subscribers enrolled in the program who are in a non-usage cure period. The LCC said the rules should be waived until the commission resolves TracFone's related petition for reconsideration and stay motion (see 1609190008). LCC members are Telrite, i-wireless, Blue Jay Wireless and American Broadband & Telecommunications Co.

With AT&T's planned DirecTV Now service a driver of its buy of Time Warner (see 1610240011), NBCUniversal CEO Stephen Burke questioned the likelihood it and other over-the-top entrants will siphon off significant numbers of traditional pay-TV subscribers. "Most people find tremendous value in their cable or satellite subscription and are not going to change," he said during the cable operator company's Q3 earnings call Wednesday. He also said it's unlikely such services would materially benefit NBCU at least in the first couple of years by delivering major numbers of cord-cutters and cord-nevers. Comcast executives said they wouldn't comment on the AT&T/TW deal itself. CEO Brian Roberts said Comcast is targeting mid-2017 for rolling out a wireless service as part of a multiproduct bundle. For the quarter, revenue was $21.3 billion, up 14.2 percent year over year, and it added 432,000 video customers vs. a 48,000 decline the same quarter a year earlier. The cable ISP said it added 330,000 broadband customers in the quarter, for the company's best Q3 result in seven years. Programming costs were up 11.4 percent in the quarter due to contract renewals, higher retransmission consent fees and sports programing costs. Comcast expects programming cost to be up more than 10 percent this year and similarly higher than normal in 2017, but further out they should increase more along the traditional 7-8 percent a year, Chief Financial Officer Michael Cavanagh said. Comcast closed Wednesday at $62.56, down 3 percent. Roberts was sanguine about the possible threat of streaming cannibalizing NFL and Olympics TV viewership, with the streaming portion of the Rio Olympics being 1 to 2 percent of what TV viewership was. Similar numbers apply to the NFL, he said, saying the ratings drops might reflect that the current NFL season isn't as strong as others. NFL and Olympics coverage is profitable, Roberts said, and the modest ratings decline "doesn't cause us too much discomfort." The company meanwhile just started the launch of its Xi5 all-Wi-Fi set-top box, Roberts said. Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit said the company should be moving to IP-based delivery of content "over the next couple years."

The FCC commissioner meeting will start at 9:30 a.m. EDT Thursday rather than the usual 10:30 a.m., said a notice. The agency is to consider four enforcement orders, followed by an item on rules for protecting ISP privacy.

The FCC added a way for consumers to share “concerns and observations” through the Consumer Help Center's “Tell your Story” feature, said Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Chief Alison Kutler in a blog post Tuesday. Comments made to the FCC using the “Tell Your Story” feature “will not be formally served” on telecom providers as complaints are, Kutler said. “Instead, they will be used by Commission staff to inform policy making and identify practices that may be ripe for potential enforcement action,” she wrote. “This differentiation will better allow the agency to focus its complaint resolution resources on those types of issues while maintaining and enhancing consumers’ ability to give voice to other concerns and thoughts.” The option will “add another layer of granularity” to FCC data since it differentiates between comments and complaints, Kutler said. “Whether you are confused, frustrated, or feel you’ve been harmed, we want to hear from you,” the post read. “With the insights we gain, we can identify trends and ensure that we remain aware of the issues and concerns that matter most to consumers."

Incompas urged the FCC to curb business data service "market power abuse" at the commissioners' Nov. 17 meeting, the preliminary agenda for which is due Thursday. "Setting a vote on BDS would advance a proceeding that has dragged on for over a decade," said CEO Chip Pickering in a blog post Tuesday. "We currently live in the EpiPen world of broadband, where companies like AT&T and CenturyLink use their market power to overcharge customers. ... Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to adopt a remedy to address market abuse on legacy BDS services is an important first step toward more competition that we support." The FCC "should establish a mechanism or clear guidelines for Ethernet BDS pricing that fosters competition, not monopoly rates," Pickering wrote. He said the FCC should ensure wholesale rates always are less than retail rates, and further address "lock-up agreements." Representatives of Public Knowledge, Common Cause, New America's Open Technology Institute and the Computer & Communications Industry Association pressed the agency to "promote competition and address unjust and unreasonable prices that enterprise, wholesale, and mobile wireless backhaul customers pay for TDM and packet-based BDS services." The commission should phase in proposed TDM rate adjustments in two years, rather than three years, and rates should be cut by 17 to 20 percent instead of a proposed 11 percent, said a PK filing in docket 16-143 on a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, which also urged the commission "to address the high cost of Ethernet services." Charter Communications said the FCC "cannot lawfully regulate the large universe of BDS provided on a private-carriage basis." In a filing on meetings with aides to Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn, Charter opposed any Ethernet regulation, even of incumbent ILECs at lower speeds, which it said "could have a devastating impact on BDS investment for cable and other competitive providers." Alaska Communications asked the FCC to defer any consideration of BDS regulatory changes in Alaska, given the "state's unusual market dynamics," said a filing on meetings with every commissioner except Wheeler, aides (including to Wheeler) and other FCC officials. Sprint, Frontier Communications, Level 3, AT&T and others made further BDS filings in the docket in recent days.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the FCC, academics, and consumer protection and civil liberties groups filed amicus briefs Monday supporting an FTC request for an en banc rehearing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court rejected the trade commission's lawsuit that alleged AT&T Mobility failed to adequately disclose its data throttling policy to customers with unlimited data plans (see 1610140038 and 1608290032). Blumenthal said (in Pacer) he supports a rehearing because if the opinion is allowed to stand, it "will create a regulatory gap that will allow unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent behavior to go without redress, harming consumers." The FCC said (in Pacer) the ruling would "undermine the agencies' successful partnership and harm consumers." The communications agency also said the decision would restrict the FTC's oversight of companies like AT&T, Comcast, Dish Network, Google and Verizon that have started to offer both common carrier and non-common carrier services. A dozen consumer and civil liberties groups -- including the Center for Digital Democracy, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America and the Electronic Privacy Information Center -- said (in Pacer) the ruling "could immunize from FTC oversight a vast swath of companies that engage to some degree in a common carrier activity." The result is "deeply disruptive to the market, and at odds with Congress' intent," they said, adding companies could commit deceptive and unfair acts as well as violate 70 other consumer protection laws. Companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Twitter could soon even engage in common carrier activities to "shed FTC oversight," they said. Georgetown University Law professor Paul Ohm and University of Minnesota Law School professor William McGeveran jointly filed an amicus brief (in Pacer) in support of FTC. Public Knowledge (in Pacer) also filed backing the commission as did New America's Open Technology Institute and two others groups jointly.

Internet, radio and TV are key tools​ for connecting local communities with their government, said city, anchor institution and public broadcast officials Friday. "Technology helps us narrow the gap between government and its complicated processes, and our residents,” said Philadelphia Chief Data Officer Tim Wisniewski at the Technology Learning Collaborative annual conference there. The city seeks to encourage innovative uses of open data by developers and overhaul the city’s website to better engage local citizens, he said: “Technology on its own just looks really neat. The only way to truly improve civic engagement with government is through empathy.” The city is seeking beta testers for its new website, beta.phila.gov, and plans to test usability at the city’s Keyspot computer labs across the city over the next couple of months, he said. The presidential election makes digital literacy an even more critical issue for Philadelphians, said Free Library of Philadelphia Director Siobhan Reardon. “We have an opportunity in the next three weeks” as the political parties’ presidential nominees try to win Pennsylvania, a key battleground in the election, she said. “It’s a giant opportunity for us to get in front of these candidates to ensure that our agenda around literacy, around information [and] informed citizenry are in front of these people.” Reardon also highlighted the importance of making PCs available to communities, and also accessible. People must be able to get to the computers to use them, so the Free Library launched an effort to increase accessibility at each of its libraries, she said. While not as fresh as the internet, radio and TV remain important channels for community media, said PhillyCAM Executive Director Gretjen Clausing. PhillyCAM is the city’s public access TV provider and licensee of WPPM(LP). Radio and TV aren’t mere “legacy media,” she said. “I see these as incredibly … important and vibrant platforms.” PhillyCAM provides training in TV and radio production to empower people to report and have conversations about their communities, she said. WPPM, dubbed "people powered media," which covers a two-mile radius in Center City and went on the air for the first time Thursday, wouldn’t have been possible without congressional and FCC actions in the past five years on low-power FM radio, Clausing said.