Alamo Broadband and USTelecom asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit not to dismiss their initial challenges to the FCC net neutrality order. In a joint opposition to the agency's motion to dismiss their filings, Alamo and USTelecom said the FCC had conceded they have since filed timely supplemental petitions for review of the order following its Federal Register publication. "The Court need not decide the motion to dismiss now and can -- and should -- refer the motion to the merits panel, which may address it if necessary to resolve this case," said the company and the association. "In any event, contrary to the FCC’s claims, neither its regulations nor this Court’s precedents clearly resolve the question of when a party may petition for review of a declaratory ruling that is included in an FCC document that also promulgates new regulations."

The Broadband Opportunity Council got only a handful of questions Wednesday during a webinar designed to answer broad queries as it seeks public input on barriers hampering broadband deployment. The council was established March 23 by President Barack Obama and is led by the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, through the Rural Utilities Service and NTIA. “The plan is to make sure that we develop a national broadband expansion plan,” said Keith Adams, assistant administrator at RUS, who spoke during the webinar. “We must use the unique opportunity to collectively join in with the president’s broadband mission and deliver unprecedented impact.” The council already is taking a close look at all federal programs that support broadband “or have the potential to promote broadband services via any type of modifications to rules or regulations,” he said. The council is seeking recommendations from agencies for executive actions and will prepare a final report to the president in August, he said. “We want to make sure that we’re getting all kinds of information from industry, from state, local governments, from anybody who has a stake in understanding how we can provide broadband,” Adams said. The council wants “firsthand feedback on the current issues,” said Douglas Kinkoph, acting associate administrator over the NTIA Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications. “We want to solicit new, bold ideas,” he said. “We’re open to all ideas and issues that you are experiencing.” Comments should cover adoption and deployment issues, Kinkoph said. “It’s important to be specific in regards to the programs, rules, agencies, obstacles and opportunities.” Commenters should avoid addressing issues already before the FCC, such as net neutrality or intercarrier compensation, he said. The council said in a May 6 notice it's seeking comment on: “(i) Ways the federal government can promote best practices, modernize outdated regulations, promote coordination, and offer more services online; (ii) identification of regulatory barriers to broadband deployment, competition, and adoption; (iii) ways to promote public and private investment in broadband; (iv) ways to promote broadband adoption; (v) issues related to state, local, and tribal governments; (vi) issues related to vulnerable communities and communities with limited or no broadband; (vii) issues specific to rural areas; and (viii) ways to measure broadband availability, adoption, and speed.” Comments are due June 10.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau cautioned ISPs the agency will be watching to ensure that the privacy of consumers is protected after the agency’s net neutrality order takes effect June 12. The order “applies the core customer privacy protections of Section 222 of the Communications Act to providers of broadband Internet access service,” the Wednesday notice reminds ISPs. The FCC may offer additional guidance, the bureau said. Until then “the Enforcement Bureau intends to focus on whether broadband providers are taking reasonable, good-faith steps to comply with Section 222, rather than focusing on technical details,” the bureau said. “By examining whether a broadband provider’s acts or practices are reasonable and whether such a provider is acting in good faith to comply with Section 222, the Enforcement Bureau intends that broadband providers should employ effective privacy protections in line with their privacy policies and core tenets of basic privacy protections.”

A U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel struck Daniel Berninger's motion to stay the FCC net neutrality order that reclassified broadband Internet access as a Communications Act Title II service. The panel's order Tuesday said the court's clear intent in previous orders was for Berninger's case to be consolidated with others in a single joint motion for a stay, but Berninger, founder of Voice Communication Exchange Committee, filed his motion separate from a previous stay request of telco and cable groups. The latter motion targets only the Title II broadband reclassification and an Internet conduct standard, not the net neutrality rules against Internet blocking, throttling and paid prioritization (see 1505190033). The D.C. Circuit denied a motion by intervenors, including Public Knowledge, backing the FCC order that had sought to exceed previous page limits in a separate opposition to the stay motion. The panel did allow intervenors to file a single joint response of up to 20 pages by noon Friday, when the FCC response is due. The panel gave telco/stay petitioners until noon May 29 to file a reply of up to 28 pages. In another development, judges for the 3rd Circuit ordered that a challenge to the net neutrality order by Full Service Network, Sage Telecommunications, Telescape Communications and TruConnect Mobile be transferred to the D.C. Circuit. The FCC had requested that change.

Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said Tuesday he's resigning from the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) because he was unhappy the group had posted an article by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which he said alleged that labor leader Cesar Chavez would not have supported NHMC’s work on net neutrality. MMTC removed the article from its website after it appeared there only briefly. Nogales announced his resignation in a blog post on the Huffington Post. MMTC had no immediate comment.

Voice Communication Exchange Committee founder Daniel Berninger asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday to stay the FCC net neutrality order that reclassified broadband Internet access as a Title II telecom service. Berninger said the entire order should be stayed because it "threatens his livelihood," which is "predicated on the ability to design, develop, and deploy services that are not subject to regulation by the FCC under Title II -- an ability that will be forever lost if the order takes effect." Berninger asked the court to act before June 12, the order's effective date, or as soon thereafter as practical. Major telco and cable groups asked the D.C. Circuit last week to stay the order's broadband reclassification and its Internet conduct standard but not its net neutrality rules barring Internet blocking, throttling and paid prioritization (see 1505130049). A D.C. Circuit panel asked the FCC to respond to that petition by noon Friday and for the telco/cable petitioners to reply by May 28. Those petitioners Tuesday opposed a motion by intervenors, including the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates and Public Knowledge, to supplement the FCC response to the stay with their own opposition as "unfair to petitioners" due to page limits.

The Supreme Court granted Campbell-Ewald's cert petition seeking review of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit involving the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), said the court's May 18 order list. The case is Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Jose Gomez, docket 14-857. The case involves a class action brought under the TCPA against Campbell-Ewald, a national marketing firm, over a text message that Campbell-Ewald sent on behalf of the U.S. Navy to recruit sailors, according to the Campbell-Ewald cert petition. The TCPA provides for statutory damages of $500 per violation for unauthorized messages, the petition said. "But the Act has become an extortionist weapon in the hands of class action attorneys seeking to extract lucrative attorneys’ fees for class-wide settlements. In response, many defendants, including Campbell-Ewald here, have offered plaintiffs complete relief on their individual claims at the outset -- before any class is certified -- agreeing to make plaintiffs whole for any TCPA violations, while sparing all the costs of protracted litigation. In its decision, the Ninth Circuit held that an offer of complete relief fails to moot either the plaintiff’s individual claim or his class claim," said the petition, which said the 9th Circuit ruling contravenes basic Article III principles and conflicts with the decisions of other circuits. The petition presented the following questions: "1. Whether a case becomes moot, and thus beyond the judicial power of Article III, when the plaintiff receives an offer of complete relief on his claim. 2. Whether the answer to the first question is any different when the plaintiff has asserted a class claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, but receives an offer of complete relief before any class is certified. 3. Whether the doctrine of derivative sovereign immunity recognized in Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Construction Co., 309 U.S. 18 (1940), for government contractors is restricted to claims arising out of property damage caused by public works projects." Campbell-Ewald didn't immediately comment.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson urged the FCC to approve AT&T's proposed buy of DirecTV "promptly and discussed peering and interconnection issues raised in the proceeding," in a conference call with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Thursday, said an ex parte letter posted Monday to docket 14-90. It provided no more details. At a recent meeting with FCC staffers, Cogent, Dish Network, Free Press, Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute asked the FCC to impose certain conditions -- including on stand-alone broadband, interconnection, data caps and net neutrality -- to address various alleged harms if it decides to approve the deal, said an ex parte filing (see 1505130042). Comptel recently backed Cox Communications' proposal to restrict AT&T/DirecTV from entering into video programming contracts that include unreasonable volume discounts, and the American Cable Association's proposal to prevent the combined company from interfering with rates, terms and conditions that video programmers offer competitors. Comptel also proposed, among other things, that AT&T/DirecTV be (1) required to file quarterly reports on its programming contracts, (2) prohibited from charging terminating access fees or using broadband data caps in a way that could harm online video distributors, and (3) required to comply with Sections 251 and 252 of the Communications Act both during and after its wireline transition to IP. In addition, New Networks Institute and Teletruth petitioned the FCC to delay acting on AT&T/DirecTV and investigate whether AT&T committed perjury in its representations to the agency regarding its broadband deployment. Monday, the FCC informal 180-day shot clock was still halted on Day 170 after the agency decided on March 13 to await a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit regarding video programming confidential information. The court May 8 vacated an FCC order that would have let participants in the commission's AT&T/DirecTV transaction proceeding review confidential programming and retransmission consent contract data, after finding it was “substantively and procedurally flawed,” in CBS et al. v. FCC (see 1505080053).

The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and 35 other groups sent a letter to the FCC calling for “immediate and comprehensive reform” of the Lifeline program to also pay for Internet access, MMTC said Friday in a news release. “A bi-partisan effort is required to modernize this program so that millions of Americans can realize the full potential of the digital broadband age, and obtain this benefit in an efficient and effective program,” the letter said. “Successfully upgrading the 30-year-old Lifeline program will require policymakers to embrace a new approach,” said President Debra Berlyn of Consumer Policy Solutions, one of the groups that signed the letter. “Today, too many people have to choose between broadband and other services, and it’s the time to make access more affordable and accessible,” said Rainbow PUSH Public Policy Institute Executive Director Steven Smith. Industry and FCC officials have predicted that Lifeline changes could headline the FCC’s June 18 open meeting (see 1505010051). FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn has been a major advocate of expanding the Lifeline program and has called for launch of a rulemaking before the start of the summer (see 1503130058).

The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) told the FCC it was never consulted as Oceaneast Associates, an outside consulting firm, prepared a report that prompted an FCC proposal to shut down many of its 28 Enforcement Bureau field offices in a major reorganization. “It is fundamentally unfair to those of us who stand to be profoundly adversely affected by a Commission restructuring proposal to have no input into the process whatsoever,” SBE said in a letter filed at the FCC. “In this case, the contractor that the Commission retained to examine the Enforcement Bureau’s operations and to make recommendations claimed to have contacted a wide variety of stakeholders in the process of developing its proposal. This created the false impression that there had been some input sought. No contact has been made by the contractor, however, with any representative of SBE or of the broadcast engineering community to the present time.” The bureau has defended the change as necessary to modernize its operations (see 1505060064). “The field offices are already operating at well below efficient levels due to the longer term effects of hiring freezes and attrition in the offices due to retirement of experienced staff,” SBE said. “It is SBE’s view that the draconian cuts proposed now will have a substantially adverse effect on compliance in virtually all radio services.” SBE’s volunteer frequency coordinators facilitate sharing of broadcast and cable auxiliary spectrum between broadcasters and government agencies and their job will be “exceptionally difficult if not impossible going forward” if the offices are closed, the group said. SBE asked the FCC to rethink the plan and seek comment from stakeholders, including SBE.