At the end of two hours of discussion at Thursday’s FCC workshop on the economics of the net neutrality debate (CD Oct 3 p6), Chairman Tom Wheeler asked what economic model would assure the continued innovation by Internet startups that he said is key to the U.S. economy. In the back and forth that followed, Wheeler noted the role regulation played in supporting the Industrial Revolution. Responding to Wheeler’s question, Nicholas Economides, an economics professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said banning paid prioritization is key to supporting Internet startups. Others disagreed. The best way to sustain the innovation is “the regime that brought it, and that regime is one that’s worked very well,” said Thomas Hazlett, a Clemson University economics professor. What has never happened is the “radical principal of zero price” for access to infrastructure as edge providers want in opposing paid prioritization, said Economics Inc. Principal Hal Singer. That’s not necessarily true, said Christiaan Hogendorn, a Wesleyan University economics associate professor, citing the role unfettered access to U.S. highway and electricity systems played in the growth of businesses. And that, Wheeler said, “came only after regulations were imposed.”

Correction: The only category of repacked TV stations that doesn’t need to file FCC incentive auction reimbursement forms by a three-month deadline are those seeking new channels that were assigned channels that can’t be built out (CD Oct 2 p5).

The FCC stopped the 180-day shot clock on the review of Comcast buying Time Warner Cable, the commission said Friday in a letter to the companies involved in the deal and a related divestiture. Responses to information requests sent to Comcast, TWC and Charter Communications weren’t complete, the FCC said, and the commission needs time to analyze voluminous economic submissions by the companies. The commission also has pushed back the deadline for response comments on petitions to deny Comcast/TWC to Oct. 29, the letter said. Because of all these factors, the FCC is stopping the shot clock until Oct. 29, or until Commission staff has determined that the information responses are complete, “whichever is later,” the letter said.

Several groups warned the FCC that the agency seems to be losing objectivity in recent proceedings, citing the net neutrality rulemaking, but the FCC defended its actions. The groups, including American Commitment, the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and TechFreedom, sent a letter to the FCC Thursday (http://bit.ly/1vBp9jM). “Increasingly, however, FCC staff appear to be disregarding arguments that do not fit a preconceived agenda; and worse, they may be actively manipulating media coverage around controversial issues,” the groups said in the letter. They point to recent media reports that some FCC staffers may have “helped spin media coverage in favor of those pushing the FCC to invoke Title II.” The FCC said its involvement was to make sure all parties could comment in the proceeding. The agency’s information technology “team worked with multiple parties to ensure everyone was able to successfully submit comments to the agency on the Open Internet proceeding,” an FCC spokeswoman said. “After receiving a surge of comments leading up to the reply comment deadline, the IT team created a third option for filing bulk comments. This option was made available to all interested parties at the same time via a blog post on our website.”

The FCC’s latest technical difficulty that forced it to extend the deadline to file Form 477 submissions (CD Oct 1 p14) is unrelated to the large number of net neutrality comments that continue to slow the Electronic Comment Filing System, an agency spokeswoman told us. The agency created a new online interface, separate from ECFS, for broadband and voice providers to submit broadband deployment data as part of the commission’s new effort to collect the data as part of its twice-annual census of providers, she said. While monitoring the data to make sure the new system was working, staff noticed “an anomaly,” and “in an abundance of caution,” halted submissions until the problem is fixed, said a commission spokesman. In a public notice, the Wireline Bureau gave no timeline for the repairs (http://bit.ly/1ovVALd), saying it’s trying to resolve the problem “as quickly as possible.” Meanwhile, ECFS is running more slowly than normal, the spokeswoman acknowledged, attributing it to “several very large searches that download a large number of comments sequentially.” That “tends to tie up the system and slow down query response times,” she said. The large influx of comments in some dockets, including the net neutrality proceeding, is also adding to the delays, she said: “Our [information technology] team is doing what it can to find workarounds to the issues.”

CTIA asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to let it intervene in support of the FCC against the legal challenges brought against incentive auction rules by NAB and Sinclair, said a motion to intervene filed Thursday (http://bit.ly/YTCQyL). CTIA’s interests “will be substantially affected by this Court’s review of the challenged order,” the motion said. The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition and CEA filed motions to intervene in support of the FCC (CD Sept 30 p12), opposing only the Sinclair petition, which has been described as having broader objections to the auction order than the NAB petition did (CD Sept 22 p4).

The FCC unlicensed devices rulemaking notice approved by the agency Tuesday (CD Sept 1 p6 or CED Sept 1 p4) asks questions about how to improve white spaces databases, as well as dozens of other often highly technical questions. The FCC posted the notice, which runs 87 pages without commissioner statements, Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1vxJFBU). The NPRM says the FCC is examining whether it should allow white spaces devices to operate in the whites spaces that remain in a larger part of the broadcast band than is now permitted. “We believe that it is appropriate to revisit the Commission’s previous decisions to prohibit personal/portable device operation on channels 14-20 and below channel 14,” the FCC said. “Since the time the Commission made these decisions, it has designated multiple TV bands database administrators and has had extensive experience working with their databases.” Comments are due 45 days after publication in the Federal Register, replies 20 days later. The size of guard bands and the duplex gap will depend on how much spectrum is recovered in the auction, the agency said. The guard band between wireless downlink services and TV spectrum could be 7, 9 or 11 MHz wide, the notice said: “The duplex gap will be 11 megahertz wide under all spectrum recovery scenarios, but its frequency location will depend on the amount of spectrum recovered."

The FCC released the details of an Oct. 14 workshop by the Wireless Bureau and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on curbing deaths and injuries for workers on communications towers. The session starts at 9 a.m. EDT at FCC headquarters. Among the topics are methods “for addressing specific risks and potential safety system failures,” industry best practices and ways to “build a proactive, creative, and comprehensive culture of safety,” said the Wednesday FCC notice (http://bit.ly/1uec14x). Among the speakers is Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman and David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez are to offer concluding remarks.

Correction: An FCC declaratory ruling said that in the incentive auction process the agency will permit only 0.5 percent interference to another station’s viewers (http://bit.ly/1vxTOOR) (CD Oct 1 p1).

Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) issued a draft decision Tuesday that would approve Frontier Communications’ proposed $2 billion purchase of AT&T’s broadband, video and wireline assets in the state. PURA proposed to accept the deal in conjunction with the public interest settlement agreement Frontier reached in August with the offices of state Attorney General George Jepsen and Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz, along with additional commitments Frontier made after PURA rejected the initial settlement (http://bit.ly/1wVtPRE). Jepsen’s and Katz’s offices had urged PURA to accept the settlement with Frontier’s additional commitments (CD Sept 22 p9). PURA denied as “untimely” the Connecticut Internet Service Providers Association’s (CTISPA) request that the regulator require Frontier to begin offering DSL service to ISP users separately from phone service when ISPs buy wholesale DSL transport. PURA said CTISPA can petition the regulator to consider the issue. PURA also denied Connecticut Light and Power’s (CL&P) request that it require AT&T to pay for $9.25 million in storm cleanup costs before the Frontier deal closes, saying the regulator doesn’t have statutory authority to interpret the issue. PURA suggested CL&P seek relief in court or through another state agency. The settlement terms and additional commitments will be incorporated into a final decision that PURA plans to issue Oct. 15. Written exceptions to the draft decision are due at 4 p.m. on Oct. 7, while oral arguments on the draft decision are to be at 10 a.m. Oct. 14 in Hearing Room 1 at PURA’s New Britain headquarters.