Another flurry of Capitol Hill lobbying disclosure forms hit Friday ahead of the Monday filing deadline for the 2014 Q1 period. CenturyLink spent $1.01 million in this latest quarter, up from $920,000 in the same quarter last year. The telco lobbied regarding everything from FirstNet implementation to retransmission consent to telecom federal procurement rules. Charter Communications also spent more -- $720,000 in this Q1 compared with $650,000 in 2013’s Q1. The MPAA spent $330,000, drastically down from the $730,000 it spent lobbying over the same time last year. Motorola Solutions spent $540,000 lobbying, its priorities including FirstNet oversight meetings and patent litigation revamp. That spending is down from the $640,000 Motorola Solutions dropped in the same quarter last year. Sinclair spent $55,000 in this Q1. Bloomberg lobbied Congress on the enforcement of the merger conditions between Comcast and NBCUniversal and spent $100,000, down from the $140,000 it spent in 2013’s first quarter. Consumers Union lobbying spending went up from last year, $70,000 in this Q1 compared with $60,000 in last year’s. It lobbied on several telecom and media issues, from cramming to robocalls to in-flight cellphone use. Consumers Union also lobbied on the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger, which it opposes. Virtually all media stakeholders cited Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization among their lobbying priorities. The lion’s share of filings cites measures involving any overhaul of the FCC and the Communications Act.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler reassured Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., that he plans to end quantile regression analysis in determining high-cost USF support, as he’s previously told Congress. “I directed the Wireline Competition Bureau to prepare an Order for the Commission’s consideration that would eliminate the WRA,” Wheeler said in an April 11 letter, released Friday (http://bit.ly/1mkg5v2). “That Order, which will also address SNA [safety net additive] support, is now on circulation for my colleagues’ consideration at our April 2014 open agenda meeting.” Landrieu worried that the November 2011 USF order, which instituted quantile regression analysis, contained rules that “may hamper investment” in Louisiana, as she wrote in a Feb. 25 letter to Wheeler.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., is worried about smartphone theft. Franken, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Privacy Subcommittee, wrote FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler about his concerns in a Jan. 21 letter, which Wheeler answered April 11, released Friday (http://bit.ly/QtDEX5). Franken said there’s no “silver bullet” fix to the problem, suggesting strengthening a stolen-phones database. Franken has contacted CTIA about the use of kill-switch technology and the Justice Department about enforcement actions, he said. Wheeler agreed with Franken that the issue is “a global concern” and laid out the agency’s recent steps to address the problem and the state of the stolen-phones database.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., backs MGW Network’s application for $4.6 million in funding from the FCC’s rural broadband experiments initiative pegged to the Connect America Fund. He sent FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler a letter dated March 12, released Friday (http://bit.ly/1kJystp), saying that and calling MGW a “third-generation, family-owned telecommunications company” that hopes to provide broadband service to some Virginia residents for the first time. He wrote a separate letter (http://bit.ly/1lf8bWt) backing the BARC Electric Cooperative, serving Bath, Alleghany and Rockbridge counties in Virginia, and its plan to deploy fiber-to-the-premises.

Congress has a role in deciding whether to ban in-flight cellphone conversations, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told several lawmakers in an April 8 letter, released Friday (http://bit.ly/1i2V96m). He responded to a letter from several House members in December protesting the FCC’s announcement that it would examine whether in-flight cellphone conversation should be banned, looking at the issue from a technical perspective. Wheeler cited the legislation in the House and Senate that would ban such conversation. “The Commission is ready to offer technical assistance on these bills or any similar legislation,” Wheeler said. The FCC welcomes comment from all engaged stakeholders on this issue, Wheeler stressed.

T-Mobile spent slightly more on lobbying Capitol Hill in Q1 of 2014 than in the same period the year before. It spent $1.47 million this year, compared to $1.3 million last year. It spent slightly less in 2013’s Q4, at $1.43 million. That spending does not include outside lobbying firms T-Mobile has hired. Lobbying disclosure forms aren’t due until Monday, but several lobbying firms, companies and industry associations have begun filing this week (CD April 17 p9), although mostly firms rather than companies and associations so far. Other carriers have not filed their spending reports, though some lobbying firms hired on their behalf have. T-Mobile lobbied in favor of S-543, the Wireless Tax Fairness Act and HR-3086, the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act, it said. It lobbied widely on the spectrum provisions of the FCC National Broadband Plan as well as on consumer privacy and protection issues and “acquiring additional spectrum for commercial use before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees,” the carrier added. The American Cable Association’s lobbying spending stayed steady in Q1, with $130,000 spent on its own lobbying, as in multiple previous quarters. It again paid $100,000 to the Alpine Group, as it had in Q4 of 2013. ACA employed Alpine in Q1 of 2013 as well but paid the firm only $60,000 then.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked Netflix whether the Comcast acquisition of Time Warner Cable would hurt Internet consumers, in a letter he sent to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Wednesday. He said “Netflix is uniquely positioned to gauge the risks posed by this deal,” so he asked Hastings to “share Netflix’s views, particularly as they pertain to certain testimony provided by Comcast during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s April 9 hearing on the proposed acquisition.” Hastings has criticized Comcast about the paid peering deal the two companies reached earlier this year and sought stronger net neutrality protections applied to such deals. Comcast has dismissed the concerns and said they're unrelated to net neutrality. Franken agrees with Netflix that the peering agreement may suggest problems and said he worries that the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal may create anticompetitive effects in the content market. “Comcast’s recent interconnection arrangement with Netflix seems to illustrate my point,” Franken said. “My understanding is that Comcast’s consumers and the press documented problems streaming Netflix videos over Comcast’s broadband networks and that Netflix ultimately had to pay Comcast an undisclosed sum to resolve the issue. If incidents like this become the norm -- as I fear is more likely if Comcast is allowed to acquire Time Warner Cable -- it would have serious implications for consumers.” During the recent hearing, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said the paid peering deal was Netflix’s idea, but a Netflix spokesman told us the company seeks out agreements at no cost to either party (CD April 11 p10). The spokesman said late Wednesday that Netflix had received Franken’s letter and plans to respond. Franken asked Hastings if the deal would “increase Comcast’s ability to extract payments from non-affiliated entities as a condition of access to Comcast’s broadband Internet consumers” and what Netflix makes of how Comcast described such peering agreements.

Public Knowledge released a five-part plan it hopes will be a guide for Congress as it works on legislation aimed at curbing patent litigation abuse. That legislation should take into account the needs of all patent owners, rather than just large corporations, Public Knowledge said in the plan. Legislation should also include provisions that will improve the clarity of patents, target bad actors within the U.S. patent system, avoid “gamesmanship” in patent litigation where a party defeats its opponent by increasing litigation costs, and maintain competition in the “innovation economy,” Public Knowledge said in the plan (http://bit.ly/1maGEoE). The Senate Judiciary Committee is to consider a compromise version of the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) after the April 14-25 recess. The House passed a similar bill, the Innovation Act (HR-3309), in December.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler countered the 78 House Democrats who last week called for an open, fair broadcast TV incentive auction, with “equal terms” for all bidders (CD April 15 p5 ). “Consistent with the Spectrum Act, all who want to participate in the Incentive Auction will be able to bid,” Wheeler said in a Thursday letter to Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., a lead author of the congressional letter (http://1.usa.gov/1jOeRqR) and member of the House Commerce Committee. “At the same time, a priority of the auction should be to assure that companies that already possess low-band spectrum do not exploit the auction to keep competitors from accessing the spectrum necessary to provide competition. This is particularly important in rural areas where low-band spectrum is necessary if competitors are to fill in the blank white spaces on the coverage maps we see on TV commercials.” Wheeler praised the virtues of low-band spectrum, particularly for reaching rural customers, and said two carriers hold the bulk of it. Wheeler plans to circulate a draft order among the other commissioners soon, he said, as expected (CD April 17 p1): “My proposal would reserve a modest amount of this low-band spectrum in each market for providers that, as a result of the historical accident of previous spectrum assignments, lack such low-band capacity. This proposal will also contain safeguards to ensure that all bidders for reserved spectrum licenses bear a fair share of the cost of making incentive payments to broadcasters who voluntarily relinquish some or all of their spectrum usage rights.” AT&T Vice President Joan Marsh has attacked the idea that smaller carriers were ever denied access to low-band spectrum and this week hammered home AT&T’s opposition to such auction restrictions. Smaller carriers had “acquired low band spectrum at auction and subsequently made the decision to sell it,” Marsh said in a December blog post (http://bit.ly/1mhNHJX). An FCC official judged Wheeler’s philosophy “simple and consistent": “When he proposes reasonable rules of the road to prevent a single company to run the table at the incentive auction, he is speaking on behalf of consumers and competition,” the official said, saying the “the public interest is not measured against the business model of one or two companies; it is measured against the ability of the market to deliver the benefits of competition to Americans in urban, suburban and rural America alike.” In his letter, Wheeler said other carriers deserve a “fair shot” at acquiring low-band spectrum in the incentive auction.

Revelations about government surveillance compelled transparency, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Tuesday during a keynote at the GEOINT symposium in Tampa, where U.S. Central Command is based (http://bit.ly/1j25f8L). That need for transparency is the “major takeaway” from all the debate, Clapper said, describing the declassification of many intelligence documents about phone and Internet surveillance from recent months. That decision came with a cost but was necessary, he said. “It hurts our capabilities because our adversaries go to school on that very transparency,” Clapper said. “We made the painful choice to declassify critical documents in the interest of being more transparent.” Clapper rebuffed the idea of leaving his job anytime soon and said he plans “to stick around” in his position as long as he can.