The Alabama Public Service Commission disputed Global Tel*Link’s arguments and call for the FCC to impose further sanctions on the APSC and one of its officials who made filings in the inmate calling service rulemaking. Global Tel*Link wants the APSC and Utilities Service Division Director Darrell Baker punished for their responses his release of confidential data in violation of a protective order (see 1510050034). The remedial measures the APSC took to prevent further data breaches are sufficient, said APSC Executive Director John Garner in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 12-375. GTL “incorrectly concluded” that a Baker email, responding to an FCC staffer, violated a Wireline Bureau order barring him from participating in the ICS proceeding, Garner said. The bureau order and APSC measures prohibited Baker from making filings on substantive ICS issues, not from responding to FCC informational queries on his inadvertent release of confidential data from GTL and other ICS providers, said Garner. “The FCC order directed Mr. Baker to respond to the matters addressed herein. ... GTL's interpretation of the APSC's measures would suggest that the FCC, by directing Mr. Baker to respond, was inviting Mr. Baker to violate the APSC's remedial measures by responding to the Order. This interpretation defies common sense,” Garner said. “Mr. Baker made a mistake. The APSC has taken actions to remedy that mistake. GTL's motive in this matter appears less about the violation of the Protective Order and more about seizing an opportunity to attack an individual who has championed the ICS reform effort.” The FCC should focus on the actual data breach -- "which was a hasty mistake by an APSC employee who has devoted himself to this cause" -- and on the APSC's response, Garner said: "Great weight should be given to the fact that there have been no further instances of non-compliance with the terms of the Protective Order. Indeed, the remedial measures implemented by the APSC address the real issues in this cause and are adequate to ensure that there will be no future violations of the Protective Order."

An FCC order giving 911 providers more certification leeway will take effect Nov. 6 after the Federal Register published the commission's final rule Wednesday. The FCC issued the order July 30 giving 911 service providers flexibility to comply with certification rules intended to ensure emergency communications reliability, provided they explain how they are still reducing the risk of network failure (see 1507310010). The order responded to a request from Intrado that the commission clarify or partially reconsider a 2013 decision requiring 911 communications providers to certify annually they're taking reasonable measures to provide reliable service through "911 circuit diversity, central office backup power, and diverse network monitoring."

The FCC's Connect2Health Task Force will visit Cleveland and Detroit as a part of its Beyond the Beltway series, it said in a news release Tuesday. The task force will visit Cleveland Oct. 26 and Detroit Oct. 27-28 to discuss its "ongoing efforts to promote the transformative power of broadband technologies and next-generation communications services" to improve access to healthcare services, the FCC said. While in Cleveland, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will keynote the Cleveland Clinic's Medical Innovation Summit, and the task force will hold a data-gathering roundtable discussion on broadband technology and the future of healthcare in urban and underserved areas. In Detroit, Chairman Tom Wheeler and Clyburn will host a broadband inclusion roundtable chat at the Henry Ford Innovation Institute Oct. 27. The following day, the task force plans a public event on reducing urban health disparities and expanding access to healthcare. The Connect2Health Task Force recently held events in Florida as a part of the Beyond the Beltway series (see 1509020060).

Commercial Network Services is preparing to file a formal net neutrality complaint against Time Warner Cable at the FCC, after informal complaints to the agency didn't succeed, said CEO Barry Bahrami Tuesday in an email. CNS hasn't received any feedback from the FCC on the substance of its informal complaints, just emails closing an informal track and outlining procedural options, Bahrami said. “The ticket was just abruptly closed. Definitely feeling let down by the informal process,” he told us. An FCC spokesman had no comment. Bahrami had informally complained to the agency in June that TWC was violating net neutrality rules against Internet throttling and paid prioritization by not providing CNS with settlement-free peering, causing streaming video of the company’s “San Diego Web Cam” to be disrupted due to network congestion (see 1506230048). TWC said CNS didn’t qualify for settlement-free treatment under its “longstanding and industry-standard peering policy.” An industry analyst and an ardent net neutrality public-interest advocate said they believed CNS was facing an uphill battle (see 1506240049). After some CNS and TWC back-and-forth in filings, Bahrami recently received an email from the commission telling him it regretted he wasn’t satisfied with FCC staff attempts to facilitate satisfactory dispute resolution. “You will receive no further status on your complaint from FCC staff,” said the email. Bahrami said, “The San Diego Web Cam will remain unavailable to TWC viewers and the virtuous cycle will continue to not run on all cylinders.” He sent an inquiry to Chairman Tom Wheeler and received an email informing him of his right to contact the FCC Market Disputes Resolution Center and file a complaint. “We are doing that now while we prepare a formal complaint,” Bahrami said. A TWC spokesman said Wednesday there wasn’t anything new to say. “As we've said before, TWC’s interconnection practices are not only ‘just and reasonable’ as required by the FCC, but consistent with the practices of all major ISPs and well-established industry standards,” he said.

Broadcasters face “trying times” at the FCC, said Commissioner Ajit Pai Wednesday in remarks prepared for delivery to the National Religious Broadcasters' President's Council Wednesday. “Is this all a test by the FCC to see if broadcasters have the patience of Job?” he asked. Pai opposes proposals to prioritize unlicensed white space devices over TV stations in the TV band, he said. “When it comes to broadcast television spectrum, broadcasters should have priority. But sadly, the Commission no longer appears to believe this.” Though the incentive auction means some low-power TV broadcasters will be displaced, the FCC shouldn’t exacerbate the problem, Pai said. “If low-power stations are not allowed to continue operating in the UHF band, they will go out of business. That’s just not the case for unlicensed devices.” The FCC should open up spectrum in the 5 GHz band, Pai said. He also spoke about the AM radio revitalization draft order (see 1510070065)

The FTC and George Mason University School of Law will host a public departure ceremony for former FTC Commissioner Josh Wright Friday in the Robert Levy Atrium of Hazel Hall on George Mason’s Arlington campus, 9:30-11 a.m., a George Mason news release said. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, George Mason University Dean Henry Butler, Freshfields Bruckhaus antitrust attorney Jan Rybnicek and former FTC Competition Bureau Assistant Director Jeff Perry, now a partner at Weil Gotshal, will give formal remarks, it said. Wright, who became an FTC commissioner in 2013 and resigned in August, was the “driving force behind new guidelines for the Unfair Methods of Competition provisions of Section 5 of the FTC Act,” the release said. Wright’s “call for evidence-based decisions has been a welcome reminder of that crucial element of sound policy,” said former FTC Chairman Timothy Muris, also a George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law.

The FCC clarified what communications are and aren't barred around the incentive auction. The clarification came in an 18-page public notice Tuesday evening. There are three exceptions in which communications on bids or bidding strategies are OK, with some caveats, the PN said: if licensees share a common controlling interest or some personnel; between a broadcaster and a forward auction applicant that have such overlapping interests; and between broadcasters that are part of channel-sharing agreements. Also OK, the commission said: "Communicating directly or indirectly that a licensee has or has not filed an application to participate in the reverse auction does not constitute communication regarding an applicant’s bids or bidding strategies and therefore does not violate the reverse auction rule prohibiting certain communications." And "routine" business communications that don't convey bids or bidding strategies are allowed, as are discussions with some third parties.

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.