Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security Executive Director Melanne Verveer is hosting a fundraiser for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Friday in Hong Kong, said an invitation posted by a Sunlight Foundation initiative. She was chief of staff for First Lady Hillary Clinton in the 1990s and ambassador-at-large leading the State Department’s Office on Global Women's Issues during Clinton’s time as secretary of state. Her husband, Phil, is senior counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Both are seen as especially close to the Clintons going back decades and with possible implications for a future FCC under Clinton (see 1607110047).

Two telco groups, two satellite providers and a fixed-wireless association filed oppositions to petitions asking the FCC to reconsider aspects of its planned Connect America Fund Phase II broadband-oriented subsidy auction. Filings were posted Friday and Tuesday in docket 10-90 in response to a public notice (see 1608120048). USTelecom opposed proposals that would "unnecessarily risk" CAF funds or "unnecessarily direct such CAF resources to areas where funding is not justified," including those from Broad Valley Micro Fiber Network, Southern Tier Wireless, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and Utilities Technology Council. NTCA opposed the petitions of Broad Valley and Crocker Telecommunications as undermining a "reasonably comparable" rural mandate by seeking "to sidestep the distinct offering of voice telephony to consumers" in auction areas, particularly by revisiting a stand-alone voice requirement. ViaSat opposed the petitions of Broad Valley, Crocker and Southern Tier Wireless, which the satellite company called procedurally improper, and also opposed a Verizon petition that sought "to prioritize funding to census blocks based on the 'dollar per location' reflected in winning bids for those blocks" rather than the "ratio of bid to reserve price." Hughes Networks Systems opposed petitions "that would undermine" the FCC's goal of encouraging a broad range of providers to participate in the auction -- particularly those requests "that would preclude applicants in the higher latency category from competing effectively." Hughes supported ViaSat and Verizon proposals. The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association opposed requests "that seek to undermine the technology-neutral approach," particularly those proposed by Verizon. WISPA said such requests would "benefit price-cap carriers that declined" initial FCC offers of broadband-oriented support "in their efforts to bid on selected areas with technologies that cannot deliver unlimited usage and cannot meet a 95 percent buildout requirement."

A court consolidated Neustar's challenges to two FCC orders tapping Telcordia to become the next local number portability administrator. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted Neustar's unopposed motion (see 1609010065) to consolidate the two cases (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080 and No. 16-1293) in a Tuesday order (in Pacer). It said oral argument remains scheduled for Sept. 13.

Industry requests for rigid timelines for so-called Team Telecom review of transactions don't properly account for ”the complexity of the national security and law enforcement considerations that the Executive Branch must weigh in its review,” NTIA replied in FCC docket 16-155 by Friday's deadline. NTIA also takes issue with a proposal that applications on which Team Telecom hasn't ruled would be approved if the review lasted beyond a certain time period. “The assumption that silence denotes acceptance creates the potential for a license to be granted without full consideration of potential Executive Branch concerns," NTIA said. Nearly all industry commenters that filed reply comments restated their view (see 1608190048) that NTIA should have a rigid timeline to review a transaction, including CTIA, Incompas, Sprint and USTelecom. “The commission should reject proposals resulting in an unlimited Team Telecom review timeframe,” said joint comments by BT Americas, Deutsche Telekom, Orange Business Services and Telefonica Internacional USA. “This proceeding should reform the current process that provides the Executive Branch with unlimited review and no accountability to the Commission or applicants, not extend it,” CTIA said.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the FTC had no jurisdiction over AT&T in a data throttling case “has important, if murky, implications for the future jurisdictional lines” between the FTC and FCC, said Doug Brake, telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in a Friday blog post. The 9th Circuit Aug. 29 dismissed an FTC lawsuit alleging that AT&T failed to adequately disclose its data throttling policy to customers with unlimited data plans (see 1608290032 and 1608300055). “While some reactions were overblown, just how far the fallout spreads is not clear,” Brake wrote. “Regardless, the case warrants attention from policymakers on Capitol Hill, at the FCC, and elsewhere.” The court said the FTC common-carrier exemption is status-based, “triggered simply by virtue of the fact that a company is a common carrier,” rather than activity-based, “triggered only when a firm is engaging in common carrier activities,” Brake said. If the 9th Circuit decision stands, it could have implications for FCC-proposed rules on ISP privacy, he said. “When it comes to privacy, the FCC could and should leave broadband privacy to the FTC, but that seems unlikely if not impossible under this case,” Brake said. “The role of the FTC could diminish if the Ninth Circuit’s thinking is followed.”

Opportunistic public access to Wi-Fi channel 14 as an FCC condition for approving Globalstar's proposed broadband terrestrial low-power service is getting more pushback from TLPS critics. TLPS would disrupt Bluetooth, and its "new, more expansive proposal would be even worse," said the Hearing Industries Association and Entertainment Software Association in a joint filing Thursday in docket 13-213. Opportunistic use of channel 14 ignores the fundamental concern raised by 2.4 GHz users, they said. "Permitting other parties to transmit throughout Channel 14 is likely only to compound the problems." The associations said an order that includes third-party use would violate the Administrative Procedure Act since opportunistic use appears nowhere in the NPRM and isn't a logical outgrowth of the proposed FCC actions. In an ex parte filing, Wireless Communications Association International recapped a phone call with an adviser to FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in which it repeated previous objections to channel 14 sharing, including the agency's not providing the required notice and chance to comment on opportunistic use (see 1606130053). Globalstar, meanwhile, continues to talk with O'Rielly about such opportunistic use, it said of a pair of talks involving company representatives including Tim Taylor, vice president-finance, business operations and strategy; ex-Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth; and others with O'Rielly staff. Opportunistic sharing was championed by public interest groups like Public Knowledge and Open Technology Institute (see 1606140020).

The FCC gets why consumers are frustrated with unwanted marketing, spoofed and robotic calls, and help is on the way, said Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Chief Alison Kutler in a Friday blog post. “We’re consumers too, and we get our fair share of sham calls congratulating us on a ‘free vacation’ or warning us that our auto warranty is about to expire,” Kutler wrote. “We’ve ensured that robocallers must get your permission before making most types of calls to your cell phone,” she said. “We’re working with phone companies and many others to improve call blocking tools so that you can better control the calls you get -- and don’t get. We also want to get the word out on the worst scams. Criminals don’t play by our rules, so we’ll be ramping up our efforts to ensure consumers are aware of the latest telemarketing scams and fraud attempts for which you should be on the lookout. More on these efforts is coming soon.”

A critique of Verizon/Incompas business data service proposals was mistakenly sent to an FCC Daily Digest email distribution list Friday. "This e-mail was simply sent in error to the Daily Digest address," the agency said in a subsequent email. "The content of the e-mail was not part of the Daily Digest. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused." The BDS deal proposed by Verizon and Incompas "leaves billions of extra expenses charged to competitors and stifles potential growth," said the emailed Seeking Alpha piece by "contrarian" Bruce Kushnick, executive director of the New Networks Institute, which has joined the Consumer Federation of America in making pro-regulation arguments in the agency's BDS proceeding in docket 16-143.

The USF contribution factor for Q4 will decrease from 17.9 percent to 17.4 percent of carrier interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, said industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg in an email update Thursday. Despite a Universal Service Administrative Co. projection that the industry revenue base will fall to its lowest quarterly level ever at $14.2 billion, the contribution factor will drop because USAC had projected Q4 USF demand would drop (see 1608030047). Total 2016 USF demand will be $8.76 billion, "$67.4 million higher than 2015, but $772.7 million less than peak annual USF demand during 2012," he wrote. "However, because of the continued decline in the USF revenue base, the average assessment factor for all of 2016 will be 17.8%, the highest average assessment factor in the history of the USF." The previous highest average was 17.1% in 2012, and it was 16.9 percent in 2015, he said.

Neustar asked a court to consolidate its challenges to a March FCC 2015 order conditionally selecting Telcordia as the next local number portability and a July order approving the terms of Telcordia's LNPA contract (see 1503300036 and 1607250029). Consolidating the cases will "moot any potential jurisdictional objection" to challenging the 2015 conditional order without delaying the litigation, Neustar said Thursday in a motion (in Pacer) that it said was unopposed by government respondents and private intervenors. The cases are Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080 and No. 16-1293. Three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit are to hear oral argument Sept. 13 (see 1606080054 and 1608240059).