AT&T urged the FCC to update Lifeline USF to give eligible users more autonomy and to remove service providers from program administration obligations, including verifying the low-income status of users and delivering benefits to consumers. In a filing on a meeting with aides to two FCC commissioners posted Friday in docket 11-42, AT&T said, "We discussed ideas for reform that would benefit Lifeline recipients and strengthen the program such as establishing a third party verifier and replacing the current ETC designation process with a voluntary registered Lifeline service provider certification process." AT&T also addressed the commission’s legal authority to provide USF support to providers that aren't eligible telecom carriers (ETCs). In a separate meeting with FCC officials, Public Knowledge and other consumer groups asked the agency to modernize Lifeline to cover broadband service and allow providers to participate in the program without being ETCs. They said the commission has legal authority to authorize non-ETCs to offer Lifeline service and suggested a centralized, streamlined process to certify broadband providers in the program, including cable companies and community anchor institutions, a filing said. Without non-ETCs, there's a "very real concern that millions of Americans" needing Lifeline service, particularly in urban areas, will be left out, they said. Fixed and mobile voice providers should also continue to receive support, they said. Also at the Public Knowledge meeting were officials for the Benton Foundation, National Consumer Law Center, the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition and United Church of Christ. Comcast and NCTA also met with FCC officials to support expanding Lifeline to broadband and simplifying the process for certifying providers, said filings last week (here and here). As the FCC considers covering broadband, CTIA said in a filing on an FCC meeting, "mobile wireless must continue to be an integral part of the Lifeline program and eligible low-income consumers should have choice and control over the mobile wireless service that meets their needs." The FCC plans to act on Lifeline modernization this quarter, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said last week (see 1601210031).

The FTC will announce what it's calling a "major step forward" in helping victims recover from identity theft. Chairwoman Edith Ramirez will make the announcement Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. at agency headquarters and will also provide new ID theft complaint statistics for 2015, FTC said in a news release. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Falls Church, Virginia, Police Chief Mary Gavin are also scheduled to speak at the news conference.

Video programming distributors are in the best position to resolve closed captioning complaints, said representatives of Disney, Scripps, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox and Viacom in meetings with aides to FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 05-231. “The Commission should leave liability with the 'last link' in the distribution chain, as has been the case since the advent of captioning rules.” Multichannel video programming distributors have “an ongoing billing relationship with the subscriber” and “the vast majority of errors typically occur once programming reaches MVPDs’ facilities,” the content companies said. Programmers will work with MVPDs to resolve such complaints, but liability should lie with the VPD, they said. They responded to a proposal from Comcast/NBCUniversal.

The FCC denied inmate calling service provider requests that it stay an order restricting domestic ICS charges (see 1510220059). Global Tel*Link, Securus Technologies and Telmate had asked for an FCC stay pending judicial review of the order on its merits at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “The Petitioners have failed to meet the test for extraordinary equitable relief,” said Wireline Bureau Chief Matt DelNero in a 40-page order defending the commission’s actions. DelNero said the FCC is likely to prevail in court on the merits because its rate caps, ancillary fee restrictions and other measures are lawful. He also said the petitioners wouldn't suffer irreparable injury without a stay while others and the public interest would be harmed by a stay. "I don't think I have ever seen an FCC stay order which is as comprehensive and thoroughly considered as this one," said Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Georgetown Institute for Public Representation, in an email Friday. "The decision is a strong defense of the Commission's action. In addition, it does a very good job of explaining why the necessary analysis of irreparable harm weighs in favor of leaving the status quo intact." The FCC denial had been expected by some ICS provider critics (see 1512300041), including Schwartzman who recently said, “They are just getting their ticket punched so they can seek a judicial stay” (see 1512230034). “Securus will move for a stay at the D.C. Circuit,” confirmed Stephanie Joyce, an Arent Fox attorney who's counsel for Securus. GTL and Telmate didn't comment Friday. Both had said that if the FCC didn't grant them a stay, they would seek relief in the D.C. Circuit, where two of the underlying legal challenges have already been consolidated (see 1601140068). Schwartzman said in his email Friday that "the usual caveats apply" to making a prediction on court action: "One never knows, especially since one doesn't know who will be on the panel. Etc."

The Digital Living Network Alliance is “greening” its guidelines through mandates for the use of low-power modes across networked devices, DLNA said. A low-power requirement is now part of DLNA guidelines for subscription-TV streaming devices and other devices used for sharing personal content in the home, it said Tuesday. Other parts of the pay-TV and CE industries have likewise been working to cut energy use of devices (see 1506250038), as advocates want energy-efficiency rules for some devices (see 1508070059). It's "the first time that the power of the network has been harnessed to tackle the consumer electronics industry’s energy management challenge,” DLNA board member Stephen Palm emailed us. “As devices are added to a home network, instead of multiplying household energy usage, they will interact with other devices on the network to reduce overall power consumption beyond what is possible by focusing exclusively on the energy efficiency of individual devices." Most energy initiatives focused on improving the efficiency of individual TVs, set-top boxes, PCs, gaming consoles, routers and other devices. DLNA guidelines now mandate low-power modes for VidiPath-Certified Mobile Digital Media Server and Digital Media Renderer devices used to stream personal and subscription TV content, the alliance of CE companies said. DLNA ties together connected devices’ power-saving features and activities at the network’s application layer, improving the efficiency of these devices both individually and collectively, Palm said. More than 4 billion DLNA-certified devices are on the market, it said.

Jonathan Levy, an FCC staffer since 1980, is its new acting chief economist with the departure of David Waterman, Chairman Tom Wheeler announced Wednesday. Levy has been deputy chief economist since 2001. Waterman, formerly at Indiana University, held the job for a year. “The chief economist occupies a very important role at the Commission,” Wheeler said in a news release. “We have been very fortunate in recent years to have had very talented economists in-house as crucial advisors.” Levy has been the liaison between the chief economist and the economists in the bureaus and offices at the FCC, the agency said.

Altice should adopt an interconnection policy that mirrors Charter Communications' as a condition for approval of its buy of Cablevision, Cogent said in an FCC ex parte filing Wednesday in docket 15-257 about a meeting between Cogent Chief Legal Officer Robert Beury and various FCC Office of General Counsel and Wireline Bureau staff. The very fact Altice and Cablevision didn't talk about post-merger interconnection policies in their application "was notable," as was that they "continued to avoid the issue" in subsequent reply comments, Cogent said. Altice instead seems to be uncommitted to the emerging consensus among major U.S. interconnecting broadband ISPs, and buying Cablevision would "give it a level of bargaining leverage that its recently consummated Suddenlink acquisition did not," Cogent said. The details of Altice's interconnection policy can be worked out, but "what matters most is that it reflect an unambiguous commitment to an interconnection protocol that will ensure robust connectivity for consumers and avoid the sort of congestion and packet loss that leads directly to degraded service," Cogent said. Absent some interconnection policy, the FCC should require at least that Altice disclose its interconnection arrangements to the agency for four years while regularly reporting different interconnection performance metrics, it said. "This serves a dual benefit of giving the Commission insight ... and, like any meaningful disclosure requirement, serves as a deterrent to problematic conduct." In a statement, Altice said it "look[s] to a fair and open regulatory process with the relevant authorities in connection with our proposed Cablevision transaction, and as in all of our other territories we expect to deliver significant benefits to consumers and their communities."

Almost 60 public interest groups signed a letter urging the FCC to protect the privacy rights of broadband consumers and start a rulemaking proceeding on privacy immediately (see 1601190077). The letter was posted by the Center for Democracy & Technology Wednesday. "As adoption of broadband continues to accelerate and integrate across all aspects of our lives, the urgency to have clear privacy guidelines for providers of these services ratchets up significantly,” said Chris Calabrese, CDT vice president-policy, in a statement. “Every bit of data that consumers access on the Internet” is handled by an ISP, Public Knowledge Staff Attorney Meredith Rose said in a news release. “It’s this gatekeeper role that gives ISPs access to a vast amount of private data about their customers, and creates a substantial potential for abuse.” The FCC did not comment.

The FCC reminded small entities they can seek assistance on federal agency enforcement and compliance matters from the Small Business Administration's Office of the National Ombudsman. The office provides various forms of assistance, including a one-page form letter to facilitate written comments on "any complaints, suggestions, or compliments concerning a federal agency's enforcement action," an FCC news release said Tuesday.

The FCC should affirm the continued certification of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable to regulate cable rates in Adams, MDTC said in an FCC filing. A petition by Time Warner Cable doesn't rebut MDTC's demonstration that effective competition isn't present in Adams, it said. The ZIP codes that TWC identifies in the proceeding don't contain residential households, MDTC said. Because of that, any DBS subscriptions in those ZIP codes are irrelevant to a determination of effective competition in those areas, it said. Even if the nonresidential subscriptions that TWC found were included in the effective competition calculation, the DBS penetration would still be under 15 percent, MDTC said. Only a few state and municipal interests challenged nationwide effective competition for cable operators, and those companies including TWC have been rebutting those challenges (see 1601110040 and 1601080019).