President Barack Obama touted his ConnectED initiative and praised the recent FCC E-rate proposal (see 1411170042) during a White House event with educators Wednesday. “Just this week, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler unveiled his plan to help us finish the job,” Obama said, referring to the five-year ConnectED goal of connecting 99 percent of students to high-speed broadband. He lamented what he sees as shortcomings to that end, but also cited earlier FCC commitments from earlier in the year: “The FCC decided to double its investment for broadband in schools.” He announced the release of the infrastructure guide and learning tool kit the Department of Education will release, pegged to this initiative. It’s time to “yank our schools into the 21st century when it comes to technology,” Obama said, describing other countries' efforts on this front. Schools “literally don’t have the bandwidth,” he said. “There aren’t enough computers to go around.” He highlighted the role of industry and commitments from 10 companies amounting to more than $2 billion to help. “According to the FCC, 68 percent of school districts report that not a single school in their district can meet high-speed connectivity goals,” a White House fact sheet about the event said. It said Wheeler "announced plans to dramatically expand investments in the E-rate program, increasing the program by $1.5 billion annually. This proposal -- scheduled for consideration by the FCC in December -- constitutes an essential step to provide the resources needed to meet the goals the President outlined last June.”

Corrections and clarifications: Cablevision, not Charter Communications, was the second cable company that the Computer & Communications Industry Association invited to its Monday panel discussion on media issues (see 1411170037)... The proposal FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler plans to circulate to increase the E-rate spending cap will be in the form of a draft order (see 1411170042)... Florida Public Service Commissioner Ronald Brisé was the name of the commissioner who had concerns with a resolution that NARUC’s Telecom Committee advanced Monday (see 1411170044)... The Recording Academy believes that just as digital broadcasters should pay performance royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings, terrestrial broadcasters should also pay such royalties for pre- and post-'72 sound recordings, said Daryl Friedman, chief advocacy and industry relations officer (see 1411170043).

Corrections: An NPRM seeking comment on redefining multichannel video programming distributors to include over-the-top services does briefly seek comment on the obligations that go with being a cable system, said FCC Special Counsel for External Affairs Gigi Sohn, clarifying her statement at a Practising Law Institute conference last week (see 1411130040) ... Stéphane Boyera spoke about mobile payments in his role as World Wide Web Consortium Web payments group leader (see 1411140001).

Broadband services should be added to Lifeline, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at an American Enterprise Institute panel Wednesday on reforming the program. Internet access is “the greatest equalizer of our time” and “key in helping to break the cycle of persistent poverty,” Clyburn said. She said 70 percent of American adults have connectivity at home, but only 64 percent with incomes of less than $30,000 have online access. Saying adding broadband alone is “insufficient” in reforming the program, Clyburn also proposed establishing minimum service standards for any provider getting the $9.25 monthly Lifeline subsidy, to “ensure we get the most value for each universal service dollar and better service for Lifeline recipients.” Providers shouldn't be responsible for determining customer eligibility, Clyburn said, saying such a change would eliminate incentives for waste, fraud and abuse. Customers would also not have to provide sensitive financial information to providers, she said. As the commission did with the E-rate program, Clyburn said, allowing consumers to apply for Lifeline at the same time they apply for other government benefits would “provide a better experience for consumers and streamline our efforts,” Clyburn said. The FCC should also enter into public-private partnerships to coordinate outreach efforts for the program, she said.

The hybrid net neutrality approach FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is said to be considering is “highly questionable and could fundamentally threaten the open Internet,” said more than 70 organizations, including Common Cause, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press and Fight for the Future, in a letter to Wheeler on Friday. “This is not what the public wants or what President Obama promised the American public. Even the original authors of some of these approaches have said that full Title II reclassification is the better way forward, and ISPs like Verizon have already threatened lawsuits” (see 1411050042), the letter said. “While a sender‐side approach may seem novel, we believe the FCC is in danger of failing its duty to protect the public if it’s contemplating an experimental legal theory that's unlikely to survive litigation.” Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, which signed the letter, said in a news release that “basing network neutrality rules off a new, untested relationship between content senders and distant Internet service providers could have serious, far-reaching collateral effects on the Internet ecosystem beyond network neutrality. The FCC’s surest, clearest path forward for strong network neutrality protections remains, as it has been, to reclassify the last-mile retail broadband Internet service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.” The strategy also drew fire from Title II opponents. “This proposal is unworkable," said Danielle Coffey, Telecommunications Industry Association vice president-government affairs, in a blog post Friday. "Title II in any way, shape, or form is bad for consumers, bad for industry, and bad for the U.S. economy.” An FCC spokesman declined comment.

The FTC said its members unanimously agreed to a settlement with patent assertion entity MPHJ Technology Investments that will prohibit the PAE and the Farney Daniels law firm from sending out deceptive patent demand letters to small businesses or other entities the PAE claims have violated its patents. The FTC said Thursday the settlement is its first action against a PAE using its consumer protection authority. MPHJ’s patent portfolio includes multiple patents on scanning documents for attachment to emails. The FTC said it had been investigating whether MPHJ’s sending of more than 9,000 demand letters between September 2012 and June 2013 to small businesses constituted “deceptive sales claims and phony legal threats.” That investigation determined that “the senders had no intention -- and did not make preparations -- to initiate lawsuits against the small businesses that did not respond to their letters. No such lawsuits were ever filed.” MPHJ counter-sued the FTC in January (see 1401160076), but that suit was dismissed. MPHJ, Farney Daniels and MPHJ owner Jay Mac Rust agreed not to make deceptive representations when asserting MPHJ’s patent rights and not to misrepresent the likelihood and timeline of possible patent infringement lawsuits in demand letters. Violation of the settlement will result in a $16,000 fine per letter, the FTC said in a consent order adopting the settlement. MPHJ and Farney Daniels said in a joint statement that they “strongly maintain their position that the enforcement letters that were sent were accurate, required by law, and protected by the First Amendment.” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., praised the FTC in a statement, but said “this action alone with not stop abuse of the patent system.” The Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) included a demand letter provision that “would have empowered the FTC to seek meaningful monetary penalties from bad actors, which is an important deterrent for misconduct,” Leahy said in his statement. Leahy scuttled the Judiciary Committee’s consideration of S-1720 in May (see 1405230056), which CEA President Gary Shapiro (see 1411050022) and others have blamed on direct pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Shapiro in a statement Thursday hailed the FTC "for focusing on the deception and harm caused by patent trolls," describing them as "extortionists that bleed $80 billion a year from the U.S. economy and who engage in fraudulent conduct." Slapping patent abusers with stiff financial penalties and having them make whole the businesses they deceived "is a step in the right direction," he said. "More important will be the swift passage of patent litigation reform in the next Congress, which will help drive trolls back under the bridge and ensure that our patent system is used to promote -- not suppress -- innovation to create jobs and grow our economy.”

Clarification: The one-year period Derek Khanna, a fellow at New America Foundation’s X-Lab, described as Congress having to pass a copyright bill is because he thinks it's unlikely it would pass in 2016 during the next election season (see 1411050048). Khanna was speaking on his own behalf.

New dates were set for the pleading cycle for reconsideration petitions against the incentive auction order, the FCC said in a public notice Wednesday. The previously announced dates were incorrect due to an error in the Federal Register, the PN said. Oppositions are now due Nov. 12, replies Nov. 24, in docket 12-268.

An anti-Communications Act Title II policy group's arguments that the FCC can't easily forbear to create a “Title II Light” in dealing with net neutrality are “word games designed to confuse the issues,” Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood emailed us. Because the FCC has denied forbearance in cases involving monopolies, and has found that ISPs are “terminating monopolies,” it can't easily use forbearance to mitigate reclassification, said the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies in a study released Monday (see 1411030046). The study’s authors “either don’t get or willfully obscure the difference between a ‘terminating access monopoly’ and a monopoly or duopoly when it comes to retail consumers," Wood said. "So the Phoenix Center continues its crusade to erase the difference between the terms ‘terminating access monopoly’ and ‘dominant carrier,’ and ignores the fact that the Commission has forborne early and often from Title II requirements for wireless voice carriers, CLECs, enterprise broadband providers, and other communications providers with terminating access monopolies."

Public Knowledge said it will release a study on responses by consumers “to the threat of losing their existing copper lines and on the importance of not leaving anyone behind in the phone network transition,” in a news release Monday. The study, to be released Thursday, comes after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced Friday he’s circulating a draft NPRM that would among other things ask whether an alternative should be available before copper can be retired (see 1410310047). “This new report reminds us that a significant portion of the population still uses the existing phone network, and relies on the existing network for specific benefits like reliability, quality, and price,” said Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney Jodie Griffin. “As we move forward in the phone network transition, policymakers must ensure the transition is a step forward for everyone, including those still relying on traditional service.”