Lumen agreed to sell its incumbent LEC business in 20 states to Apollo Global Management for $7.5 billion including debt assumption, the telco announced about 4:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The carrier would retain its ILEC assets in 16 states, plus its national fiber routes and competitive LEC networks.

The full FCC voted to impose a per station penalty of $512,228 against 14 broadcasters and a reduced $30,000 penalty against another over violations of good faith negotiation rules in retransmission consent negotiations with AT&T and subsidiary DirecTV, said a heavily redacted forfeiture order released Wednesday afternoon. The stations involved are affiliated with Sinclair through service agreements.

New York wouldn't enforce its cheap-broadband law as part of a settlement with ISP associations including the New York State Telecommunications Association, USTelecom and CTIA.

President Joe Biden will nominate Jonathan Kanter to lead DOJ’s Antitrust Division, the White House announced Tuesday. Currently a partner at the Kanter Law Group, he previously served as an FTC Competition Bureau attorney.

Saying it accepted the argument that AT&T’s spinoff of its North American video distribution business poses no substantial harms, the FCC signed off on the related license transfers Friday. AT&T didn’t immediately comment.

The FTC plans an open meeting at noon Wednesday, when commissioners will vote on issuing a new policy statement on right to repair restrictions. President Joe Biden’s executive order earlier this month encouraged the FTC to issue rules against anticompetitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing do-it-yourself repairs of devices and equipment. See our bulletin here. The FTC will vote on issuing a “new policy statement, following the Commission's ‘Nixing the Fix’ report which was unanimously agreed to and announced on May 6, 2021,” Chair Lina Khan announced July 12.

There are many broadband and tech provisions in President Joe Biden's executive order on promoting competition, with suggestions for the FCC and FTC, per a White House fact sheet. Among them are net neutrality, broadband billing, and a right for consumers to get their tech devices repaired by third parties.

A federal judge froze Florida’s law regulating social media hours before it was to take effect.

The Senate voted 69-28 Tuesday to confirm Lina Khan to the FTC. The chamber had voted 72-25 Monday night to invoke cloture on Khan, including all 50 Democratic caucus members and 22 Republicans.

President Joe Biden plans to name Lina Khan as his pick for permanent FTC chair, a White House official confirmed to us Tuesday. Khan would succeed current acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who’s led the FTC since shortly after Biden took office in January. News of Khan’s impending ascension to the FTC chairmanship came just hours after the Senate voted 69-28 to confirm her as a commissioner.