FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler declined to shed further light on whether he plans to push for reclassification of broadband as a Title II service or to impose similar rules on mobile and fixed broadband, during a news conference after Tuesday’s open meeting. Wheeler was asked about both, saying in each case he would let his past statements speak for themselves. “I'm not going to respond to hypotheticals,” he said. “I said Title II was on the table. Period.” The FCC received “3.7 million different ideas” when it took comments on net neutrality, Wheeler said. “We're looking at a lot of things that were suggested.” Wheeler said a Sept. 22 blog post by Julie Veach (http://fcc.us/1nGmDJ6), chief of the Wireline Bureau, accurately reflects where the agency is on net neutrality.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said he will chair a forum on Internet regulation Oct. 21 in College Station, Texas. The event is to be hosted by Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and will focus on the FCC net neutrality proceeding, Pai said Tuesday. “The FCC needs to go beyond the Beltway,” he said. “We need to listen to members of the American public who would be impacted by the commission’s proposed rules.” The event kicks off at 10 a.m. CDT at the Hagler Auditorium of the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center.

Correction: Where long lines formed last week for the iPhone 6 was at Apple stores (CD Sept 29 p3).

A third FCC commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, backs issuing the Further NPRM on inmate calling services being circulated by Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (CD Sept 26 p10), a Rosenworcel aide told us Friday. “Commissioner Rosenworcel supports asking more questions to continue the goal of reforming inmate calling services and doing so without further delay,” emailed Valery Galasso, special advisor to Rosenworcel. Though three members would constitute a majority of the commission, it was not immediately clear when the item would be formally approved. The FNPRM prepares for taking “the next critical step toward reducing the high price paid by inmates and their families to communicate,” said Wheeler and Clyburn in a statement (http://fcc.us/1BgnReG) Thursday. The commission’s 2013 order (CD Aug 12/13 p3), which included interim price caps on interstate inmate calls, reduced those rates by as much as nearly 40 percent, the statement said, but “many families of inmates still face exorbitant rates for in-state calls, not to mention punitive and irrational fees -- all of which make the simple act of staying in touch unaffordable.” The proposed FNPRM would make permanent the interim caps, create permanent caps on intrastate calls, bar the commissions ICS providers pay to correctional facilities, and cap ancillary charges placed on top of the rates (CD Sept 25 p1). The proposed FNPRM “proposes a simple, market-based solution to address all these problems. It proposes rules that will ensure that ALL Americans -- including inmates and their families -- have access to phone service at rates that are just, reasonable and fair,” said Clyburn and Wheeler. The 2013 order was approved on a partisan vote, and some elements were stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (CD Jan14 p3). A spokesman for Commissioner Ajit Pai, who dissented to the 2013 order, said in an email to us, “we hope that the agency will reach a bipartisan consensus that heeds the limits of the law.” Arent Fox’s Stephanie Joyce, representing Securus, said the ICS provider would file comments if the FNPRM is issued. The circulation of the item was praised by Clarissa Ramon, Public Knowledge government affairs and outreach associate (http://bit.ly/1qChuw3): “The families of prisoners deserve relief from high fees and phone costs that result from the commission system in many states. We believe this is a step in the right direction for families of incarcerated individuals.”

The FCC Media Bureau extended the comment deadline in a proceeding on requests from programmers and broadcasters to expand protections of highly confidential documents involved in the review of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal and AT&T/DirecTV. Comments are due Sept. 29, the bureau said Friday in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1u3pzQu). Comments were originally due Sept. 26, after the bureau issued a public notice Sept. 23 (CD Sept 25 p7). A public interest attorney had urged the FCC to reexamine how it handles highly sensitive documents in review of pending transactions. The practices should be reexamined “to insure that all documents considered by the Commission staff are within the direct jurisdiction of the Commission and made part of the record,” said Andrew Schwartzman of the Georgetown University Law Center, in comments filed in dockets 14-90 and 14-57 in his personal capacity. Until the FCC changes the procedures to provide full transparency, interested parties “will not be able to participate fully in the Commission’s review of assignments and transfers, and the Commission runs the risk of judicial reversal in these or other future proceedings,” he said in comments. The FCC’s practice of “making house calls” to the Justice Department to review documents that aren’t included in the record before the commission is “fundamentally unfair and exposes the commission to great jeopardy on judicial review,” he said. There’s no need to adopt the proposed measures to give additional protection to sensitive documents, he said. The FCC has ample authority to modify its ordinary protective order process to impose a higher than usual degree of protection if circumstances arise, Schwartzman said.

Friday was the FTC’s 100th anniversary, which Chairwoman Edith Ramirez marked with a blog post (http://1.usa.gov/1BgyCxq). “In the years after President Wilson signed the FTC Act, then-cutting edge technologies like movies and radio dramatically reshaped U.S. commerce,” she said. “Our economy is now being transformed by, among other things, wireless communications services, the Internet of Things and big data.” The FTC’s role, however, has remained the same -- “promoting competition and the interests of American consumers using the tried-and-true tools of law enforcement, sound public policy, and consumer education,” said Ramirez. The commission is “on the cutting edge of rapid economic and technological changes,” she said.

DirecTV shareholders voted to approve AT&T’s proposed takeover of the DBS provider. More than 99 percent of votes cast were in favor of the deal at the DirecTV shareholder meeting Thursday, DirecTV said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1BcL7Kv). AT&T will work with the various regulatory agencies reviewing the deal to gain their approval as well, an AT&T spokesman said in a statement.

The Wireless Broadband Alliance said WBA will “take an active role” in encouraging community Wi-Fi network development, including hosting community Wi-Fi interoperability trials. WBA released a white paper Thursday in collaboration with Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable and 20 other major companies that discusses key challenges community Wi-Fi faces and benefits of deployment. The white paper includes multiple case studies of services like Comcast’s XFinity Wi-Fi service. WBA said it will submit the white paper to other industry groups for further review. WBA also plans to generate network management and device behavior specifications, as well as launch a community Wi-Fi compliancy program for devices and access points (http://bit.ly/1rgmTik).

A multibureau group of FCC staff is reviewing several options on net neutrality, Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach wrote in a blog post (http://fcc.us/ZcgwRD) Monday. Repeating Chairman Tom Wheeler’s comments before the House Committee on Small Business last Wednesday (CD Sept 18 p1) that all options, in particular Communications Act Title II reclassification, are still on the table, Veach highlighted a few options under either Title II or Section 706 commission “staff has identified as adding to the potential ways that an Open Internet can be preserved.” Of note, according to Veach, were proposals by AOL supporting Title II reclassification with substantive rules promulgated under Section 706, and AT&T’s proposal to ban paid prioritization under 706. A Title II-based approach proposed by Columbia University law professor Timothy Wu, also known for coining the term net neutrality, and Tejas Narechania, a Columbia University law school research scholar, is “an important proposal,” the post said, as was Mozilla’s proposal to use Title II to create a presumption banning all paid prioritization.

The tech industry should transform itself “to resemble the America that it serves, and hire diverse talent that increasingly represent a significant portion of their consumer base,” said the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in support of a Minority Media Telecommunications Council request that the FCC study diversity in the tech sector. MMTC President David Honig has represented Rainbow PUSH before the FCC in broadcast ownership proceedings. “The focus of diversity should be broad, focusing on all areas of business, from technical support to financial and professional services to procurement,” said Rainbow PUSH. The coalition said it supports MMTC’s call for the FCC to study the diversity of hiring among tech companies.