Correction: AT&T will build new towers to deploy advanced wireless technologies in previously unserved areas, the telco said in accepting FCC Connect America Fund Phase II support in 18 states (see 1508270068).

The FCC authorized four telcos to receive almost $950 million in Connect America Fund support, the Wireline Bureau said Friday in a public notice in docket 10-90 after the companies Thursday announced the states for which they had decided to accept Phase II funding (see 1508270068). CenturyLink will receive $505.7 million, AT&T will receive $427.7 million, Consolidated Communications will receive $13.9 million and Cincinnati Bell will receive $2.2 million for 2015. The bureau also issued a public notice saying Verizon had accepted $48.6 million Phase II support in California and Texas, conditioned on regulatory approvals of its wireline system sales in those two states to Frontier Communications. Responding to a Verizon request to defer CAF support until the deal closes, the bureau directed Universal Service Administrative Co. to suspend support to Verizon in the two states until further notice. In total, 10 price-cap carriers have accepted up to $1.5 billion in CAF Phase II annual support through 2020 to provide 10/1 Mbps broadband to almost 7.3 million consumers in rural, high-cost areas of 45 states, said Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey in a Friday blog post. “The funding that will flow to these areas will go a long way toward closing the digital divide isolating rural America.” Mattey said some companies didn’t accept support in some states, but the agency is preparing to “unleash the power of market competition to provide broadband” in those areas. “The FCC will open the door for other companies, including cable companies, neighboring rate-of-return carriers, electric companies, satellite companies and fixed-wireless providers, to compete for the first time with the price cap carrier incumbents to win these subsidies through a market-based auction,” she said, referring to a reverse auction the commission is developing in which the low bidder would win the subsidy in a high-cost area. “Our Rural Broadband Experiments program demonstrated that competitive auctions can draw interest from a variety of providers willing to provide faster broadband at lower cost, and we now are eager to implement competitive bidding on a larger scale across the country.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday reversed on a 2-1 vote a U.S. District Court in Washington ruling that said NSA bulk collection of phone call data was unconstitutional. The ruling, issued by Judges Janice Brown, David Sentelle and Stephen Williams, remanded the case to the lower court on the grounds the plaintiffs didn't prove their individual phone records were collected. Larry Klayman, who sued the federal government over NSA collection of bulk phone data, was joined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS), which filed as amici curiae. In her opinion, Brown said the plaintiffs' argument "leaves some doubt about whether plaintiffs' own metadata was ever collected," which goes against the central allegation that their rights were violated. Williams agreed with Brown, and said the plaintiffs claim to suffer injury from phone records collection but they can't prove their Verizon Wireless phone call records were collected by the NSA, since the only provider the government has acknowledged collecting records from is Verizon Business Network Services. In his dissenting opinion, Sentelle said he agreed the injunction against the government should be overturned, but argued the case should be dismissed, not remanded to the District Court. EFF and CNSS didn't comment.

To honor former Commissioner Joshua Wright’s tenure at the FTC, after his last day at the agency Monday, Truth on the Market hosted a symposium -- a collection of commentaries and contributions -- throughout the week. International Center for Law and Economics Executive Director Geoffrey Manne organized the symposium and wrote that what others at the FTC learned from Wright is an open question, “but there’s no doubt that Josh offered an enormous amount from which they could learn.” He should be applauded for bringing economics to the commission, Manne said. Wright’s tenure may have been relatively short, but he “used every moment of it to assiduously advance his singular, and essential, mission,” Manne said. Others commenting on Wright’s legacy included TechFreedom President Berin Szoka and former FTC Chairman Timothy Muris.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau (EB) said it's adopting new procedures for addressing industry and public safety complaints. The bureau said the FCC will launch a new portal for those otherwise unable to resolve interference complaints. “Once operational, the complaint intake system should allow such complainants to receive immediate confirmation of the FCC’s receipt of their complaints, as well as permit them to track the status of their complaints within the FCC,” the bureau said Thursday. The system will automatically transfer complaint information from the Web portal to the bureau’s case management database, “accelerating investigations and reducing the possibility of human error,” the bureau said. FCC field offices will contact complainants raising high-priority issues within a single calendar day, the bureau said. Low-priority complaints will receive an initial response within five business days of filing. “The public safety/industry interference complaint escalation process will improve complainants’ ability to stay informed of the status of their complaint,” the bureau said. “This process also will enable public safety/industry stakeholders to develop mutually beneficial relationships with the EB field agents in their area.” In July, the FCC approved a plan reorganizing Enforcement Bureau field offices, which includes shutting some of the offices (see 1507160036).

Ex-Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., will stop writing about cable and Internet issues in The Boston Globe due to conflict of interest concerns, Media Matters said Tuesday. It cited a blog post by Dan Kennedy, a Northeastern University journalism professor, who said that Globe Editorial Page Editor Ellen Clegg told him an understanding had been reached with Sununu that he would "not write about cable and Internet access." Sununu is a Time Warner Cable board member and an honorary co-chairman of Broadband for America, which Media Matters says is backed by broadband providers and the NCTA. Media Matters criticized the paper for allowing Sununu to complain about Internet regulation "without disclosing he has been paid over $750,000 by broadband interests." Broadband for America, the Globe's Clegg and Sununu didn't immediately comment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against the FTC in the agency’s case against the nonprofit organization Action, which had filed three Freedom of Information Act requests and said it should be exempt from paying the costs associated with the requests, said court documents released Tuesday. Judge Merrick Garland wrote the opinion for the court, on behalf of Judges Janice Brown and David Sentelle, and said Action’s claims it’s exempt from covering the costs of the FOIA requests were “not moot” because the information is in the public’s interest and the records aren't for commercial use. “The case must be remanded for reconsideration in light of the entire administrative record and our clarification of the standards for FOIA fee waivers,” said the ruling. The FTC didn’t comment.

The White House plans to unveil a broadband report and recommendations Sept. 21, said Jeffrey Zients, director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, in a blog post. Zients said Obama had created the Broadband Opportunity Council and directed all federal agencies "to think creatively and develop new ways to promote broadband investment, deployment, and competition." The White House has received the agency input, and Sept. 21 "will share a formal report and recommendations to improve broadband across the country," Zients said Friday. The BOC also received comments from other interested parties in June (see 1506120049).

Correction: The Prison Policy Initiative's stance on commission payments by correctional facilities to inmate calling service providers is that those payments shouldn't increase the cost of phone calls (see 1501280036).

The FCC IP technology transition order is unlikely to be shot down if challenged in court, said attorney Douglas Bonner of Womble Carlyle, who represents telecom, cable and VoIP companies in commission proceedings and related litigation. "I don't see obvious grounds for the FCC to be overturned," said Bonner, speaking Tuesday on a Law Seminars International telebriefing on the FCC's IP technology transition order. He said the commission "tried hard to at least balance the interests" of CLEC and ILEC stakeholders, and had substantial discretion under the court's Chevron standard, which defers to reasonable agency decisions when interpreting ambiguous statutory provisions. Section 214 of the Communications Act, which governs telecom service discontinuances and was a basis for much of the order, "delegates a great deal of authority to the FCC to act," he said. Bennett Ross, a Wiley Rein attorney who represents telecom carriers, manufacturers and others, said, "Unfortunately, the D.C. Circuit doesn't always hold the FCC to a rigorous standard in justifying its reasoning." He suggested the court often gives FCC explanations too much deference under Chevron. Both Bonner and Ross said they didn't know if there would be a legal challenge. Ross voiced concern that the FCC's order would slow the IP transition by introducing new layers of inter-related and sometimes imprecise notification and discontinuance regulation as ILECs look to retire "antiquated" copper networks and withdraw or modify related services or their rates, terms and conditions. The FCC order aims to ensure, among other things, that competitors continue to have affordable access to wholesale broadband and voice services as incumbents migrate to IP-based services over fiber networks (see 1508060044). "I think the competitors, CLECs, got much of what they wanted," Bonner said.