NTCA clarified Thursday it believes the FCC can adopt a single order relatively soon to set the rules for giving rural rate-of-return carriers the option of receiving USF support based on a broadband cost model, fix a "stand-alone broadband problem," and adopt some other changes to legacy mechanisms. NTCA believes a second, later order would be needed, but not to nail down further model details; instead, it believes the FCC can make technical refinements to the model as it implements the first order -- including by conducting a "challenge process" to RLEC high-cost areas -- and addresses other issues, NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Mike Romano told us Thursday. Romano was reacting to a Communications Daily story that said NTCA had proposed a "two-step path" for adopting a rate-of return model-based support option (see 1512160060). He acknowledged there was a "semantics" issue in how different phases and actions could be described. NTCA does believe the FCC should take more time to adopt an order on its proposed "bifurcated approach" to updating legacy rate-of-return USF support that would be available for RLECs not opting for model-based support, Romano said. NTCA believes a Further NPRM would be helpful on the bifurcated approach, but isn't necessary on the model, he said.

The White House confirmed it hired Ashkan Soltani, a privacy expert who until recently was the FTC's chief technologist (see 1512030034) and before that helped with The Washington Post's coverage of NSA document leaker Edward Snowden (see 1410290060). The Office of Science and Technology Policy hired Soltani as senior adviser to U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, who used to work for Google and tweeted about Soltani's hiring. "Ashkan will focus on consumer protection, big data, and privacy issues, including algorithmic accountability, data ethics, and data discrimination," an OSTP spokeswoman emailed Thursday. "Ashkan will also help with capacity building for technologists in government, including working with agencies to build career paths for technologists across government."

Charter Communications' low-cost broadband service it plans to offer low-income subscribers after consummating its purchases of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable will offer 30/4 Mbps speeds at $14.99/month, with modems at no cost, the company said in a news release Thursday. Eligibility for the service will be limited to families with students taking part in the National School Lunch Program and/or senior citizens who receive Supplemental Security Income program benefits. Current phone and video customers who meet one of the criteria can enroll, Charter said, though enrollees can't have had a Charter/BHN/TWC broadband subscription within 60 days before signing up. The company said it would begin offering the service within six months of the close of the $89.1 billion deals. Charter had promised expansion of broadband offerings for low-income subscribers as part of its acquisition (see 1506250039).

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler suggested the agency isn't holding off on regulatory actions while its net neutrality and broadband reclassification order is being litigated in court. Asked by a reporter Thursday about such possible delays, Wheeler said, "No, we think that we're on strong grounds in the court." Speaking at the agency's press conference, he said FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and agency attorney Jacob Lewis "did exemplary jobs" at the Dec. 4 oral argument in the case. He said he listened to an audio recording of the argument and is "confident that the open Internet rules have a good future ahead of them." Wheeler also said he hopes the FCC can approve a Lifeline USF modernization order early next year. The agency has proposed to extend Lifeline low-income support to broadband and to revamp program administration. Asked if he was open to making permanent the net neutrality order's temporary small-business exemption from broadband provider enhanced disclosure rules, which the FCC just extended by one year, Wheeler said: "Let's base it on facts, rather than on suppositions; so let's see what we get in terms of the data." At their news conference, Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly criticized the FCC's one-year extension order on both substantive and process grounds. Pai said there wasn't evidence in the record to justify imposing the enhanced rules on small broadband providers.

An FCC draft order to grant USTelecom's forbearance petition in various areas is expected to be adopted Thursday without major changes despite CLEC pushback, agency officials told us Wednesday. XO and others pressed the FCC not to give ILECs relief from duties to share newly deployed feeder conduits with competitors at regulated rates (see 1512110062). They said USTelecom hadn't justified the forbearance and the competitors still need regulated access to such "entrance conduits" to reach the buildings of business customers. But the commission appears unlikely to back off the draft's proposal to give ILECs relief from regulated sharing of entrance conduits for “greenfield" developments, the officials said. A CLEC representative suggested Wednesday the agency could be setting a bad precedent. "If they let it go through as is, you have to ask: are they creating a low bar for future forbearance petitions?" the CLEC representative said. "A lot of this stuff is market specific. Are they going to allow them to skate by without the evidence." The commission is to vote at its Thursday meeting on a draft order on the USTelecom petition (see 1512100063), and agency officials indicated the item would give incumbent telcos relief from several requirements, including to offer wholesale access (see 1511240070 and 1511250047).

Noninteractive webcasters will be required to pay 0.17 cent per performance on nonsubscription services and 0.22 cent per performance for subscription services beginning Jan. 1, the Copyright Royalty Board said at our deadline Wednesday. The CRB released the initial details of its 2016-2020 webcasting rate-setting ruling Wednesday but hadn’t released a full unredacted version of the ruling to parties in the rate-setting proceeding at our deadline. There had been few clear signs before the ruling about how the CRB would rule (see 1512110064). Noncommercial webcasters will be required to pay $500 annually for each station or channel for all transmissions totaling no more than 159,140 aggregate tuning hours (ATH) per month, the CRB said. All transmissions above 159,140 ATH per month will pay a 0.17 cent per-performance rate. Rates for commercial and noncommercial webcasters will be adjusted annually between 2017 and 2020 based on the Consumer Price Index, the CRB said.

While another route to broadband access in schools is laudable, it's outweighed by the public interest of people with hearing loss being able "to fully participate in society" due to their hearing aid connectivity via Bluetooth Low Energy deployed in the 2.4 GHz band, the Hearing Industries Association (HIA) said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 13-213. It recapped a meeting between HIA Executive Director Andrew Bopp and staff of Chairman Tom Wheeler at which Bopp said Bluetooth LE "is threatened by Globalstar's proposed use of the 2473-2483.5 portion of the 2.4 GHz band" for its broadband terrestrial low-power system. As well as degrading functionality of hearing instruments, TLPS could interfere with Bluetooth LE advertising channels, HIA said. In a statement Tuesday, Globalstar said Bluetooth representatives taking part in TLPS demonstrations early this year at the FCC's Technology Experience Center "proved that our operations on Channel 14 have no perceptible impact on Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids. While everyone who attended those demonstrations heard it for themselves, unfortunately, the Bluetooth representatives have decided not to share their data, including the audio files, to either the Commission or Globalstar." TLPS critics have been especially busy lobbying in recent days with numerous ex parte meetings (see 1512140046). In its own ex parte filing posted Tuesday, Globalstar said its general counsel held meetings with a Wheeler staffer and a representative of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to argue for TLPS approval. In its filing, Globalstar said it reiterated the benefits of TLPS as shown in demonstrations at the Technology Experience Center and the FCC's Maryland lab, and in pilot tests at a university in Chicago and at the Washington School for Girls in the District of Columbia. It also said it "has made it a priority to meet with interested parties in an effort to find common ground on key issues," saying it "enjoyed a productive dialog with the public interest community." But Globalstar said "discussions with corporate entities and special interest groups have been far less productive [because they're] composed of and controlled by corporations with the incentive to maintain the status quo and stifle innovative uses of the ISM [industrial, scientific and medical] band regardless of the demonstrated benefits to consumers."

The Drug Enforcement Administration stopped collecting bulk telephony records of Americans making calls overseas and destroyed "the only bulk database of those records," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a blog post Monday. EFF staff attorney Mark Rumold said that EFF and its client, Human Rights Watch, confirmed the DEA practice was stopped and the records destruction occurred. He said DEA "secretly and illegally collected billions of records" from the 1990s to 2013. In April, EFF filed a lawsuit on behalf of HRW, which challenged the DEA program's constitutionality. HRW voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit after it received "assurances from the government, provided under penalty of perjury, that the bulk collection has ceased and that the only database containing the billions of Americans’ call records collected by the DEA has been purged from the government’s possession," Rumold said. He said the assurances were provided after a federal judge ordered the government to respond to HRW's questions -- "the first instance we know of in which a plaintiff challenging a mass surveillance program was allowed to take discovery." The government retains some illegally collected records, "and they've admitted as much," Rumold said. And the government still collects phone records in bulk through an NSA program and a similar DEA one, he added. DEA didn't comment.

The FCC should extend the short-form application deadline for the incentive auction to allow several Class A stations waiting for a verdict on their petitions of reconsideration to participate, said an emergency motion for stay filed by Abacus Television, WMTM and The Videohouse, known collectively as movants. The FCC should “extend the deadline for Movants to file applications to participate in the reverse auction pending the Commission’s disposition of the Reconsideration Petition (and any judicial review thereof),” the motion said. The recon petition was filed against the incentive auction order on reconsideration that barred the broadcasters from participating because they hadn't met a 2012 deadline for Class A stations to be auction eligible, the motion said. Alternatively, the FCC could allow the broadcasters to file to participate pending a decision on the recon petition, the motion said.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's office didn't respond to multiple requests for a meeting from Raycom, the broadcaster said in a letter to Wheeler posted Friday in docket 07-294. “I was disappointed that, although we made several requests to your office to schedule a meeting with you and your staff, we did not receive any response,” wrote CEO Paul McTear. Raycom met (see 1511090037) with the other commissioners in November, and discussed FCC ownership policies and planned changes to the syndicated exclusivity rules. “The existing retransmission consent regime is working exactly as Congress intended and is a critical source of the revenue stations need to invest in high-quality news and other local content,” the TV station owner's chief said. “Outdated rules continue to view virtually any consolidation among broadcast television stations as a threat,” McTear said. “That the Commission already is nearly four years overdue in completing its legally required quadrennial review of broadcast ownership rules surely has contributed to these rules having grown so far out of touch with the modern media market.” The FCC didn't comment.