Global Tel*Link sought further FCC sanctions on the Alabama Public Service Commission and David Baker, APSC Utilities Service Division director, for “recidivistic conduct” in allegedly not following FCC orders in the inmate calling service (ICS) rulemaking. In a filing posted Friday in docket 12-375 responding to a Sept. 21 Wireline Bureau order (see 1509220007), Global Tel*Link accused Baker of violating the order’s prohibition and APSC restrictions on his participation in the ICS proceeding by emailing a response to a bureau official email noting the order (see 1509280034). “Mr. Baker seems incapable of following the rules promulgated by the Commission,” said GTL, which also said Baker violated the FCC’s 2013 protective order when he posted confidential information from GTL and other ICS providers on the agency’s public electronic comment filing system, an error Baker acknowledged and for which he apologized. In its recent response to the order, the APSC said Baker reasonably didn’t expect his email to be placed in the record and said it imposed new procedures to oversee filings of confidential information (see 1509300023). But citing FCC rules, GTL said Baker’s email constituted an official “filing” that he was barred from making by the FCC’s Sept. 21 order. “While Mr. Baker no doubt will portray himself as a well-meaning hapless victim of a simple oversight or misunderstanding on his part, his disregard for the Commission’s Order and rules is very difficult to understand,” GTL said. “The APSC also should be held responsible” for failing to enforce the FCC’s Sept. 21 order and its own procedures, said the company. GTL urged the FCC to impose sanctions on Baker and the APSC. It didn’t make a specific recommendation but said the agency could suspend or disbar counsel or consultants from practicing before the FCC, impose fines and issue cease-and-desist orders. In its response, Pay-Tel Communications, which was among the companies whose confidential data was briefly made public, said it believed the restrictions the FCC imposed on the APSC and Baker were sufficient. Pay-Tel called the breach limited in time, scope and impact, and said Baker seemed to have acted in good faith and had made valuable contributions to the proceeding. Pay-Tel also said further sanctions could “chill" future state regulatory participation in FCC proceedings. Any further response from the APSC and Baker is due Tuesday, according to the Sept. 21 bureau order.

USTelecom and others argued the FCC was precluded from reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecom service (under the Communications Act) by the 1996 Telecom Act, in a reply brief to the U.S. Court for Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The D.C. Circuit is reviewing their petition challenging the agency net neutrality order (USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063). "At its core, the Order rests on the claim that Internet access is no different from voice telephone service and that the FCC therefore has authority to subject them both to Title II’s common-carriage requirements," said USTelecom, joined by the American Cable Association, AT&T, CenturyLink, CTIA, NCTA and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. "But Internet access, unlike voice telephony, necessarily 'offers' a 'comprehensive capability for manipulating information' -- namely, data stored on distant computers -- which is a classic information service exempt from common carriage under a long-settled regulatory regime," they said. "In 1996, Congress codified that regulatory regime and thereby precluded the FCC from regulating such services under Title II," their brief said, adding: "The FCC defends its upheaval of the regime with little more than a plea for deference, based on an aggressive misreading of Brand X," the Supreme Court's ruling deferring to the FCC's previous finding that cable broadband/modem service is a Title I information service. "But Brand X involved classification of a transmission link to Internet access functions, whereas the Order reclassifies Internet access service itself, which everyone in Brand X agreed is an information service. And, to avoid reclassifying many other Internet players as common carriers, the FCC has done something else the statute forbids: it classifies the same computer-processing and storage functions in opposite ways -- as 'telecommunications services' or 'information services' -- depending solely on whether they are provided by petitioners or third parties," the brief said.

In the event of a government shutdown, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) would be required to publish documents "directly related to the performance of governmental functions necessary to address imminent threats" to public safety or the protection of property, it said in Thursday's Federal Register. Because it would be "impracticable" for the OFR to determine which documents would qualify for publishing during a shutdown, it would place the responsibility on the agencies submitting documents, OFR said.

Competition and innovation in the form of the new peer-to-peer business models that have been created as part of the sharing economy must be allowed to flourish, but targeted regulatory measures may be needed to ensure appropriate consumer protections, said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez at a Fordham University international antitrust event in New York City Friday. “The sharing economy appears to be responsive to consumer demand, to increase competition, and to promote a more efficient allocation of resources -- providing consumers with more options and, often, lower prices,” Ramirez said, according to prepared remarks. The FTC has “generally cautioned state and local governments not to impose legacy regulations on new business models simply because they happen to fall outside existing regulatory schemes,” she said, noting that the agency studied the sharing economy in a recent workshop (see 1506090046). “The threshold question for policymakers examining new peer-to-peer businesses should be whether there is a public policy justification for regulating the service at all, either through an expansion of existing regulatory schemes or through entirely new regulatory schemes,” she said. “If there is no public policy rationale justifying regulation, policymakers should allow competition to proceed unfettered.” Regulatory boards and other policymakers may have legitimate consumer protection and other public interest objectives, but they must consider the potential competitive effects such regulations may have, she said. For example, the FTC recommended that regulations directed at ride-sharing services focus “primarily on ensuring qualified drivers, safe and clean vehicles, sufficient liability insurance, transparency of fare information, protecting privacy and consumer data, and compliance with other applicable laws,” noted Ramirez.

The FCC denied it's undertaking any outreach to the business community -- a supposed move that had generated criticism from one of its own commissioners. "There is no tour," an agency spokeswoman said Friday in response to a report by Mergermarket Group's Policy and Regulatory Report (PaRR) that the FCC is about to undertake meetings in New York City to give more insight into and assurances about its transactions review process. The agency said no such tour ever was scheduled. General Counsel Jonathan Sallet was in New York City Friday to speak at a Fordham University. Sallet had been invited in August to speak at the event and initially accepted a separate invitation to speak at a separate breakfast with investors as he already was going to be in the city, but subsequently canceled, the FCC said. According to the PaRR, the outreach in part comes after concerns raised by a recent Sallet speech on the agency's merger review process (see 1509290024). Commissioner Ajit Pai in a statement Friday criticized that reported business community outreach by the agency: "The FCC’s problem right now isn’t messaging. What’s needed are better policies -- policies that make economic sense, that spur greater investment in and deployment of broadband infrastructure, and that give entrepreneurs the certainty they need to innovate and succeed." Pai also said "policy should be set straight in public by the five FCC Commissioners nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, not behind closed doors on Wall Street for the benefit of a selected group of insiders." Asked about the FCC denials Pai Chief of Staff Matthew Berry said "Our office is pleased that the tour was canceled once the FCC’s hand was caught in the cookie jar. Based on everything we’ve heard, the original article ... was accurate and the FCC is now dissembling to avoid embarrassment." Pai, along with Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, have largely stopped doing general meetings with financial analysts and their clients -- a notable difference from the FCC under Julius Genachowski, when Wall Street outreach was more commonplace (see 1502120010).

An FCC draft order would approve a cable/telco pole-attachment petition aimed at preventing power companies from charging telecom providers higher rates than they charge cable companies, agency and industry officials told us Friday. After the commission approved an order in 2011 aimed at driving traditionally higher telecom pole-attachment rates down to cable rate levels, NCTA along with Comptel and Level 3 filed a petition for reconsideration asking the agency to close a cost-allocation “loophole” that power companies could use to keep the telecom rates higher. “We are optimistic that the order will promote broadband investment by closing the loophole that enables pole owners to charge higher rates for telecommunications attachments," an NCTA spokesman emailed us. The issue took on more urgency after the FCC in February reclassified broadband as a telecom service under Title II of the Communications Act because some believe power companies could use the reclassification to charge cable broadband providers the higher telecom rates. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler suggested the agency would take corrective action and he recently circulated a draft order that agency and industry officials told us would approve the NCTA request. Granting NCTA’s petition “would promote broadband investment and competition by ensuring the rate for telecommunications attachments is comparable to the rate for cable attachments in all circumstances, just as the Commission intended” in its 2011 order, said an NCTA filing posted Thursday in docket 07-245. Power companies oppose the petition. A power industry representative had no comment.

The Washington, D.C., City Council’s proposal to heavily regulate Airbnb is an “atrocious public policy” that will stifle innovation and prevent necessary competition in the hospitality industry, said CEA President Gary Shapiro in a news release Thursday. "Airbnb helps D.C. visitors find affordable accommodations, while allowing D.C. citizens to earn supplemental income while sharing their love of this city,” Shapiro said. “Legislating higher prices and fewer choices” will harm D.C.’s reputation as a tech-friendly, pro-business city, he said.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said broadband applications can transform healthcare delivery by creating new solutions to old problems. “It’s not physical networks that drive social and economic change; it’s the use of those networks, the secondary effects, that determine the course of history,” Wheeler said Thursday at a broadband health conference in Jacksonville hosted by the FCC Connect2Health Task Force and the Mayo Clinic. “Virtualizing healthcare is our opportunity to have a secondary effect.” Wheeler hailed broadband network investment but said the commission must encourage consumer demand that “stimulates investment in competitive services, both wired and wireless,” available to everyone. He noted the 2015 Internet Trends report by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins' Mary Meeker, which ranks the Internet’s impact on various sectors (see Slide 8). “At the bottom of the list are government and healthcare. We can do better," Wheeler said. Also at the event, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said broadband could help "bridge the expanding chasm" between the growing demand for healthcare and the limited supply of healthcare professionals and services. She said interconnecting healthcare and advanced communications could help integrate a “fragmented medical system” and be a “force multiplier,” spurring “smart healthcare” approaches that prevent illness. “These smart systems could be exquisitely personalized to the specific needs of any of us,” she said.

The FTC topped the list of federal agencies ranked by employee engagement, with the FCC, Justice Department and Transportation Department coming in above average and the Broadcasting Board of Governors trailing, according to the 2015 Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey's Employee Engagement Index released this week. For 2015, the FTC had a score of 78, tied with NASA and the Office of Management and Budget. The Justice Department was at 68, while the FCC and Transportation Department were at 66. The Broadcasting Board of Governors had a 58 score. Among large agencies, the average score overall was 64. Among small agencies, where the average score was 67, the U.S. International Trade Commission and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative were above average with scores of 73 and 69, respectively, according to survey figures. "Employees across the Federal Government are more engaged in their workplaces and more satisfied with their jobs than they were a year ago. While there is still plenty of room for improvement, there are signs that the Administration’s focus on employee engagement is beginning to pay dividends for the workforce, and ultimately for our customers, the American people," Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Beth Cobert said in a blog Monday, pointing to the overall government score going up one point, to 64, from 2014. The index was created from 421,748 survey responses from 82 agencies.

The Alabama Public Service Commission is moving to prevent release of confidential data in violation of FCC protective orders, APSC Executive Director John Garner said in letter posted in inmate calling service docket 12-375 Tuesday. Responding to a Wireline Bureau request for any additional information on a recent data breach in the inmate calling service proceeding, Garner acknowledged APSC official Darrell Baker had improperly submitted confidential information from Global Tel*Link and other ICS providers to the FCC’s electronic comment filing system, where it was publicly available for three hours. Even though Baker labeled the filing as confidential, it was supposed to have been submitted to the FCC Office of the Secretary. The APSC “recognizes the seriousness of the filing error” and "regrets this mistake," and has adopted measures to prevent further violations, Garner said: retraining staff on protective order rules and filing procedures, securing current confidential information until resolution of the case, preventing Baker from making filings in the ICS proceeding (as required by a recent bureau order) and requiring any future filings in the docket to be reviewed and signed by an attorney. "This incident has prompted the APSC to implement a Protective Order Compliance Protocol which will be implemented in this and all future instances involving information submitted to the APSC and its staff subject to a protective order," Garner said. "This newly implemented procedure requires preapproval from the Executive Director to submit any filing containing information that is the subject of a protective order, the submission of a draft document which must be approved by the APSC Executive Director, and the signature of the Executive Director or another APSC attorney on the document in question." Garner also said Baker reasonably didn't expect a recent email response to a bureau official to be posted in the docket, as it was (see 1509280034). The bureau has asked that any responses from Global Tel*Link or others be filed by Thursday, and said it would decide on possible additional actions after concluding its investigation (see 1509220007).