The FCC rejected inmate calling service providers' objections to allowing the outside counsel of competitor Pay Tel Communications to view their commercially sensitive information pursuant a protective order in the ICS rulemaking. In an order Monday in docket 12-375, the commission denied a Securus application for review of an October 2014 Wireline Bureau order that sided with Pay Tel's request. The company's outside counsel didn't get access to the Securus data during the review, the agency said. The FCC also denied similar objections filed by Global Tel*Link and Telmate. The ICS providers said Pay Tel's outside counsel was too close to the rival company. But the FCC ordered the ICS providers to give Pay Tel's outside counsel access to the data within 10 business days. "Consistent with the general restrictions of a protective order, Pay Tel is entitled to have the representation it desires, and its outside counsel is entitled to have access to all the information it needs to zealously represent its client. Having found that Pay Tel’s outside counsel are not engaged in competitive decision-making and are eligible to review information under the Protective Order, we reject the Objectors’ arguments to prevent them from doing so," the commission said. The ICS rulemaking resulted in a November order restricting ICS rates and fees along with a Further NPRM seeking comment on more possible changes. The FCC said access to the confidential information was still at issue because of the new proceeding and legal challenges to the November order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which Monday stayed agency rate caps and one set of ancillary fee limits (see 1603070055). Commissioner Mike O'Rielly dissented from Monday's order, saying in a statement the FCC hadn't adequately considered the objections of Global Tel*Link, Securus and Telmate. Commissioner Ajit Pai didn't dissent but issued a statement criticizing the FCC comments about Pay Tel's rights to zealous representation and other things. "It's a little late for such high-minded rhetoric," he said. "How was Pay Tel’s outside counsel supposed to 'zealously represent its client' or 'meaningfully participate' in this rulemaking with 'one hand [tied] behind counsels’ backs'? The Order offers no answer. Nor does it offer any reason for the long delay in adjudicating this dispute. Although I support today’s order -- the proverb 'better late than never' comes to mind -- I am disturbed that we may have deprived a party of its administrative rights through inaction. That’s unacceptable and yet another troubling sign that the FCC’s processes are in desperate need of reform."

The FCC is observing National Consumer Protection Week, said Alison Kutler, acting chief of the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. The week is a “coordinated effort to encourage consumers to take full advantage of their rights and make better-informed decisions,” she said in a Monday blog post. “This is our bureau’s daily mission on behalf of the Commission.” The FCC knows “changes resulting from technology innovation occur rapidly in the marketplace, presenting new opportunities, but also new challenges for consumers,” she wrote.

Correction: The Disability Advisory Committee is the FCC committee that had membership changes (see 1603040029).

Nine auditing and security firms, including FireEye's Mandiant, PwC and Verizon Enterprise Solutions, were ordered by the FTC to provide information "on how they conduct assessments of companies to measure their compliance with" payment card industry data security standards (PCI DSS), the commission said in a Monday news release. Commissioners, who voted 4-0 to issue the orders, are seeking a better understanding of data security compliance auditing and how it protects consumer privacy. The FTC said it's compiling a study of the auditors and their policies, practices and procedures such as interactions with companies, sample PCI DSS assessments and additional services provided such as forensic audits. The commission said major payment card-issuing companies require PCI DSS audits of businesses that process more than 1 million card transactions annually to ensure companies are adequately protecting personal consumer data. The other companies receiving the FTC orders are Freed Maxick CPAs, Foresite MSP, GuidePoint Security, NDB, SecurityMetrics, and Sword and Shield Enterprise Security.

The FCC should at least seek comment on a proposal by Ligado Networks, formerly LightSquared, to repurpose the 1675-1680 MHz band and make it available via auction for commercial use, CTIA said in a letter filed in docket 12-340. The Ligado proposal is "an opportunity to repurpose more spectrum for mobile broadband use and spur additional investment, innovation, and competitive forces in the broadband marketplace,” CTIA said. It said it recognizes questions remain: “Of course, there are other issues directly relevant to Ligado’s plans, including issues concerning interference to GPS, and as part of the Commission’s inquiry it should seek public comment on whether those interference concerns have been adequately addressed.”

USTelecom and Incompas jointly asked the FCC to allow parties to make public aggregated data derived from industry filings in the agency's special access business broadband rulemaking, which the commission has prohibited as confidential or highly confidential information subject to a protective order. USTelecom and some ILECs previously made such requests (see 1602230057 and 1601290053), but Incompas represents CLECs and wireless critics of the ILECs, giving the telco request broader backing. In a filing posted Monday in docket 05-25, USTelecom and Incompas want parties to be able to include in their public comments and filings “numerical, statistical, and graphical descriptions of data aggregated at the national level, including the presence of providers and their facilities,” with data allowed to be aggregated for industry segments such as ILECs, CLECs and cable, but not for single providers such as Level 3. They also asked that parties be able to make public such data aggregated at a regional level and for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), states, or urban, suburban or rural areas, without identifying the particular MSAs, states, or areas. They asked that the data descriptions be allowed "at the national, regional, anonymized MSA or other anonymized location or circuit level concerning the adequacy and completeness of the data.” They provided examples for each of the categories listed, but said the list wasn't meant to be exhaustive and asked the FCC to confirm there may be other categories of nonconfidential aggregated data that could be filed in the public record. They also said the category lists were included only to clarify the requests, not to mean that either group was expressing a view as to their “relevance or probative value.” USTelecom further asked that the commission encourage all parties to review the redactions in their comments or filings "to remove any improper redactions of non-confidential information, consistent with the categories on the list (as those categories may be revised and approved by the FCC), and to resubmit those comments and filings into the public record" to inform the debate. The FCC had no comment.

The FCC should approve Verizon’s planned buy of XO Communications' fiber business because it will spark market efficiencies and consumer gains without any “material countervailing harms,” Verizon and XO Holdings said, asking the commission to transfer licenses between them. “By providing Verizon with access to XO Communications’ fiber-based IP and Ethernet networks, the proposed transaction will drive significant consumer benefits. That access will allow Verizon to better serve its enterprise and wholesale customers with deepened and expanded fiber facilities,” the companies said in their application posted in the agency’s electronic comment filing system Monday. “Verizon also will use the fiber assets to densify its mobile broadband network nationwide to provide wireless consumers with more capacity and enhanced network reliability. Densifying the network also will help pave the way for Verizon to deploy 5G technology.” XO's fiber network "is largely complementary to Verizon's," they said. Most of the XO fiber in its top 20 markets is “dark” (not being used), which matches well with Verizon’s wireless network and its increasing traffic flows and backhaul demand, they said. When the transaction is fully implemented, it “will yield synergies that Verizon estimates to result in total expense savings in excess of $1.5 billion on a net present value basis,” combining with other efficiencies to boost Verizon’s ability to compete, the companies said. The cost savings will come from “eliminating some access costs paid to third parties, and by consolidating various network monitoring and support systems, business functions, and finance and accounting processes,” and the FCC recognizes such efficiencies as public interest benefits, they said. The companies said the deal poses no material harms, including to consumers, because XO doesn't serve mass market customers and Verizon "will meet" XO legal obligations to customers. They said XO’s fiber network is largely outside areas where Verizon deployed fiber, with almost 85 percent of XO’s owned fiber outside Verizon’s remaining ILEC footprint. “There is no potential for material competitive harm in the market for high-capacity service,” they said. “Even in the small number of markets in Verizon’s ILEC territories where XO Communications has fiber facilities, there is sufficient supply of high-capacity facilities from other major providers and thus no material competitive harm from the transaction. Moreover, exploding demand for high-speed data services is feeding these providers and creating enormous opportunities in a rapidly evolving and dynamic market for high-capacity connections.” Colleen Boothby -- counsel for the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee, who raised concerns when the deal was announced (see 1602220071) -- emailed us Monday: "The driver for this acquisition seems to be the XO assets that can support Verizon’s wireless services. But XO has also been a useful competitive source for enterprise wireline services. We’re still looking at how the two companies' geographic markets line up but we remain concerned about the competitive impacts in enterprise wireline markets.”

The FCC reached a settlement with Verizon Wireless resolving an Enforcement Bureau investigation into the carrier’s practice of inserting unique identifier headers (UIDHs), also known as supercookies, into its customers’ mobile Internet traffic without their knowledge or consent. Verizon agreed to notify consumers about its targeted advertising programs, obtain customers’ opt-in consent before sharing the supercookies with third parties and obtain customers’ opt-in or opt-out consent before sharing UIDHs within the Verizon corporate family, the agency said. Verizon Wireless also agreed to pay a fine of $1.35 million. Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said Verizon cooperated with the investigation. “Consumers care about privacy and should have a say in how their personal information is used, especially when it comes to who knows what they’re doing online,” LeBlanc said in a Monday news release. “Privacy and innovation are not incompatible. This agreement shows that companies can offer meaningful transparency and consumer choice while at the same time continuing to innovate.” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said he had asked the FCC to investigate (see 1502060039 and 1502060039). “This is a win for consumers that will hopefully make companies think twice before engaging in practices that violate consumer privacy,” he said in a statement. “Verizon gives customers choices about how we use their data, and we work hard to provide customers with clear, complete information to help them make decisions about our services," a company spokesman emailed. "Over the past year, we have made several changes to our advertising programs that have provided consumers with even more options. Today’s settlement with the FCC recognizes that. We will continue to give customers the information they need to decide what programs and services are right for them.” The bureau said it launched an investigation of the practice in December 2014. “The investigation sought to determine Verizon Wireless’s compliance with Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 8.3 of the Commission’s rules,” according to the consent decree. The bureau found that Verizon Wireless began inserting UIDH into consumers’ Internet traffic as early as December 2012, but didn't disclose it until October 2014. In March, Verizon updated its privacy policy to include notice of the use of supercookies, the agency said. “The Bureau’s investigation also found that at least one of Verizon Wireless’s advertising partners used UIDH for unauthorized purposes to circumvent consumers’ privacy choices by restoring deleted cookies.” "Recently, carriers and their anti-privacy supporters have claimed that FCC enforcement would hamper ISP ‘innovation,'" Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said in a news release. "The only ‘innovation’ this consent decree prevents is the ability of Verizon to collect information from customers without their knowledge, and to expose that information to third parties without customer consent. Customers that value Verizon’s targeted advertising can still participate, but Verizon can no longer force them to participate without informed consent.”

An FCC draft order would address various rural broadband experiment waiver requests of applicants, an agency spokesman told us Friday. The order was on the FCC list of circulating items, which was updated Friday.

The FCC issued an order Thursday giving small video relay service providers some relief, retroactively and prospectively, from a four-year schedule of VRS compensation rate cuts -- relief that was expected after the order was adopted this week (see 1603020033). Under that schedule, affecting all six VRS providers, the rate of the three small (“Tier 1”) providers (handling fewer than 500,000 minutes per month) was cut from $5.29 per minute to $5.06/minute on July 1, 2015, and cut again to $4.82/minute on Jan. 1. In the order approved by the commission without dissent and released Thursday, the FCC returned the VRS compensation rate of the three smallest providers to $5.29/minute for the period between July 1, 2015, and Oct. 31, 2016. The commission set the rate at $5.06/minute for the period from Nov. 1, 2016, to April 30, 2017, and at $4.82/minute for the period from May 1 to June 30, 2017. One of the three small VRS providers, Hancock Jahn, notified the agency this week it was withdrawing from the VRS market. It cited FCC rate cuts and other policies, and said the relief was "too late."