Parties seeking to administer an FCC national deaf-blind equipment distribution program in individual states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories can apply for Consumer and Governmental Affairs bureau certification through April 7, said a commission public notice in docket 10-210 in Wednesday's Daily Digest. Current state administrators certified under a pilot program also must notify the FCC by April 7 if they don't wish to continue in the permanent program, which the FCC adopted in August (see 1608040065). The pilot program ends June 30 and the permanent program begins July 1. Also known as iCanConnect, the program is budgeted annually at up to $10 million, and gives those who are deaf-blind and meet income guidelines free equipment designed to make telecom, internet access and advanced communications services accessible. Installation, training and other technical support are also available.

AT&T, IBM, Nokia, Palo Alto Networks, Symantec and Trustonic formed the IoT Cybersecurity Alliance Wednesday to “use their combined expertise to help tackle today's top [IoT] security challenges,” AT&T said: IoTCA “will research and raise awareness of ways to better secure the IoT ecosystem.” AT&T said the group also intends to “influence” cybersecurity standards and policies. “Be it a connected car, pacemaker or coffee maker, every connected device is a potential new entry point for cyberattacks," said AT&T Chief Security Officer Bill O’Hern. "Each device requires very different security considerations. It's become essential for industry leaders and innovators like those in the founding members of this Alliance, to work together to help the industry find more holistic security approaches for IoT.”

FCC data collection to make a pilot national deaf-blind equipment distribution program (NDBEDP) permanent was approved for three years by the Office of Management and Budget, said a commission rule summary in Monday's Federal Register. An August order "clarified that the pilot program will not terminate until after all reports have been submitted, all payments and adjustments have been made, and all wind-down activities have been completed, and no issues with regard to the NDBEDP pilot program remain pending," said the rule, noting the program's $10 million annual budget. Parties can apply for a period of 60 days to be certified for the program. "To minimize any disruption of service in the transition between the pilot program and the permanent program, the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau will announce its selection of the entities certified to participate in the NDBEDP permanent program as soon as possible, but such certifications will not become effective before July 1," the rule said.

FTC Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen said the commission will continue to "aggressively" challenge anticompetitive mergers and exclusionary conduct, but added there's room for improvement. In prepared remarks to the Global Competition Review annual antitrust forum Friday, Ohlhausen said she supports the Standard Merger and Acquisition Reviews Through Equal Rules (Smarter) Act, which seeks to eliminate disparities in the antitrust review process between DOJ and the FTC. The House passed its version last year but the measure never reached the Senate floor (see 1702010069). The bill is expected to be reintroduced this year. Ohlhausen said the bill "would subject the FTC and DOJ to the same standard in seeking preliminary injunctions, and bar the FTC from challenging unconsummated mergers" in the commission's Part 3 process, which permits the commission to challenge alleged Section 5 violations via administrative litigation. "A merging company's prospects should not depend on which agency reviews its [Hart-Scott-Rodino] filing," she said. The commission also got its Part 3 priorities "backwards" under the prior administration, favoring going to federal court to seek disgorgement rather than use administrative litigation in some conduct cases, she said. Ohlhausen said she would like the FTC to explore new guidance on disgorgement, as well as work "to define and confine" anticompetitive effects from state government action. "From one perspective, federal antitrust enforcement can make governments be politically accountable for state-imposed restrictions on competition," she said. But she added it doesn't have to be adversarial and the commission can work with state and local governments to reduce barriers to competition.

The FCC will review a wide range of agency rules that are more than a decade old, it said in a notice scheduled for Friday's Federal Register. "The purpose of the review is to determine whether Commission rules whose ten-year anniversary dates are in the years 2011-2014" should be "continued without change, amended, or rescinded in order to minimize any significant impact the rules may have on a substantial number of small entities," it said. Comments will be due May 4.

Roughly one-fourth of U.S. broadband homes are willing to exchange data from a smart home product for tech support benefits, said a Parks Associates blog post Tuesday. "Data can be used as an alternate currency in the IoT, and consumers are willing to exchange that data for support" such as warranty information, product updates or product tips, said analyst Patrice Samuels. Some 26 percent of consumers surveyed said they're willing to share data for product updates or improvements, said Samuels.

Representatives of the American Bankers Association are pressing the FCC under Ajit Pai to act on its August 2015 petition seeking changes to rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for time-sensitive calls and text messages. In 2015, the FCC granted an exemption but limited it to calls and texts sent “to the wireless telephone number provided by the customer of the financial institution.” ABA opposes this provided number condition. The association said representatives met with Zenji Nakazawa, acting aide to Pai on consumer issues. "ABA inquired about the status of the Petition,” said a filing in docket 02-278. "ABA also advised Mr. Nakazawa about the harmful impact that the provided number condition has had on the ability of financial institutions to make time-sensitive calls and texts pursuant to the exemptions.”

Some 24.5 million voice-first devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home will ship this year, reported voice analytics company VoiceLabs. That’s up from 6.5 million last year and 1.7 million in Echo’s launch year, 2015, it said. Google will excel at web search and deliver intelligent responses to general knowledge questions, and Amazon will stand out in e-commerce, said VoiceLabs. Google and Microsoft “should excel at email, contacts and calendar,” it said.

Donald's Trump's presidency will have an even bigger impact on telecom/cable regulation than his November victory did, Bank of America Merrill Lynch cable/satellite analysts wrote investors Wednesday. The Republican election sweep forced Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to abandon efforts to push through new rules on cable set-top boxes and telecom business data services, they noted. The post-inauguration regulatory impact "will be even more significant as the President-elect's administration is reportedly interested in: (1) reshaping the FCC into a more streamlined agency that better reflects convergence; (2) re-working the Open Internet Order; and (3) re-writing the 1996 Telecommunications Act," they wrote. "The new FCC and potential for a re-working of the Open Internet Order would eliminate the significant overhang of rate regulation and also reduce uncertainty." A note by Bank of America Merrill Lynch telecom equipment analysts said the new administration "appears likely to drive spending on infrastructure & cyber security" and promote "an offshore cash repatriation holiday and a broad reduction of the corporate tax rate, ie from 35% to 20%." They expect a Republican rollback of net neutrality to drive increased capital expenditure for service providers, to the benefit of equipment providers such as Cisco and others.

Nielsen and AT&T signed a multiyear agreement letting the ratings firm use anonymized set-top box data from DirecTV and U-verse subscribers in its local and national TV currency ratings services. Nielsen in a release Wednesday said the data will be used in its local and national TV measurement services and also will be incorporated with data from other providers to complement its national and local products.