CTIA President Meredith Baker questioned whether the FCC can develop a definition for “reasonable network management” that will protect the wireless industry if the same basic net neutrality rules are imposed on mobile broadband and fixed. Baker spoke Monday at the GSMA 360 North America conference in Atlanta (See related story), saying she would have rather focused on a topic other than net neutrality. “Parity for the sake of parity is nonsensical, and should never be the FCC’s objective or governing principle,” Baker said, in her prepared remarks. “Our differences cannot be simply defined away.” Net neutrality advocates haven’t offered a definition of reasonable network management “broad enough, or adaptive enough to capture today’s … mobile broadband experience, or provide broadband providers the certainty they need to invest billions more in networks and spectrum,” she said. The FCC is exploring the issues, including at a net neutrality roundtable Friday (CD Sept 22 p1). Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter, meanwhile, sent FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler a letter Monday questioning the wisdom of imposing tough new regulations on mobile. “A framework that would subject each and every management decision made by a mobile broadband provider to legal scrutiny under fixed-in-time administrative rules is particularly unworkable and unwise,” Spalter wrote. Mobile networks are unusually complicated, he said. They “rely increasingly on adaptive, self-optimizing and predictive algorithms in their management,” he said. “Mobile broadband networks must accommodate multiple generations of wireless service, hundreds of device types, and numerous operating systems, while also accounting for ever-changing demands within each cell site and constant reallocation of network resources to address users’ movements during any given communication."

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee offered the FCC an “open invitation” to hold one or more net neutrality roundtable discussions in his state, saying in a letter posted by the FCC Monday that he believes it’s unfortunate that all of the roundtables have been or will be held in Washington, D.C. The Pacific Northwest has “a large stake in the outcome” of the FCC proceeding on new net neutrality rules, Inslee said, noting more than 150,000 Washington state residents work in the information and communications technology sector. Those residents’ employment “is premised on the assurance that they will be able to operate and thrive by virtue of an open internet, subject to reasonable and balanced conditions that ensure nondiscriminatory treatment of their platforms, traffic, and e-commerce offerings,” said Inslee, a Democrat, and former member of the U.S. House (http://bit.ly/1uyokq1). The FCC held its most recent roundtable Friday (CD Sept 22 p1) and has more scheduled for Oct. 2 and Oct. 7.

AT&T’s comment in the Communications Act Section 706 notice of inquiry that wholesale obligations could deter it from making broadband investments is an “absurd argument,” Comptel said in a reply filed in docket 14-126 at Friday’s deadline. AT&T argued in Sept. 4 comments (http://bit.ly/1Af6UAO) that legacy regulations, like the wholesale obligations in sections 251 and 271, “may require carriers to maintain legacy TDM-based networks even after their IP networks are in place.” The claim that the obligations deter broadband investment “has never been proven,” Comptel said. The commission found in the IP transitions order that in the 15 years before deregulation in 2001, “the industry experienced ‘a torrent of new investment deployed over 200,000 miles of trenches and approximately 18 million miles of fiber -- enough fiber to circle the equator 750 times,'” Comptel said. AT&T’s claim of being required to maintain two networks “is nonsense,” Comptel said, because “the same physical infrastructure that has supported TDM-based services over the decades supports IP-based services.” The commission failed to provide “adequate support” for its proposal to increase the broadband download speed threshold to 10 Mbps, AT&T said in its reply made available Monday. The proposed increase “is not based on a reasonable analysis of how customers’ actually use broadband services,” said AT&T, which also criticized Public Knowledge and Netflix’s backing of a 25 Mbps benchmark. Public Knowledge’s comments were “based on a hypothetical average household that watches three HD movies simultaneously while using other basic device and online services,” while Netflix’s was “based on streaming super and ultra HD content,” AT&T said. There is no evidence “latency prevents consumers from using the applications listed in section 706, and thus there is no basis for the Commission to include it in evaluating broadband,” AT&T said. Replies filed Friday hadn’t been posted on the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System by our deadline. But major wireline players which filed initial comments -- including Fiber to the Home Council Americas, NCTA, Netflix, NTCA, Public Knowledge, TechFreedom and USTelecom -- told us they did not file replies. Some industry observers said the absence of filings in a proceeding that asked questions on topics such as increasing the broadband speed benchmark (CD Aug 6 p5). There’s a sense that the commission intends to move ahead regardless of the comments, said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka, a view shared by some others. That telecom attorneys are “completely overwhelmed by the absurdly intense series of deadlines the Commission has imposed” played a role, Szoka and others said. Spokespeople and attorneys for some of the groups said a sense the commission plans to move ahead with its proposal, including raising the broadband speed benchmark, was not a factor in why they did not file. They were too busy meeting a spate of deadlines on such other proceedings as on net neutrality and E-rate modernization, and felt their initial comments expressed their viewpoint, the sources said.

FTC-enforced privacy and data security standards in the FTC Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) can apply to residential broadband Internet services, the FTC said in comments filed Friday to the FCC (http://1.usa.gov/1rhjJbF). The comments, filed in Docket No. 14-126, are in response to the FCC’s inquiry on the role privacy and data security play in consumer broadband adoption, the FTC said (http://1.usa.gov/1odLXkf). Broadband providers must uphold any privacy or security commitments, which are regulated under the FTC’s Section 5 authority, it said. But broadband providers are also subject to less obvious laws, such as FCRA. “Although best known for regulating the activities of credit bureaus, the FCRA also applies to companies that provide information to credit bureaus ('furnishers') and companies that use credit reports ('users'),” the FTC said. “Broadband providers often are both furnishers and users under the FCRA.” In these situations, broadband providers must ensure the accuracy of information provided to credit bureaus and give consumers notice when it’s changing its offerings to consumers based on credit report information. The FTC pointed to a 2013 case against Time Warner Cable as an example of FCRA’s application (http://1.usa.gov/ZCQAyt). The commission also cautioned that any broadband service provider that “knowingly” collects personal information from children under 13 is “subject to COPPA’s privacy and security requirements."

Several parties that urged the FCC to reject Comcast’s planned buy of Time Warner Cable support AT&T/DirecTV with conditions, noted a Guggenheim Partners analyst. Analysts expect both deals to be approved, but the AT&T/DirecTV comments may suggest a more manageable approval path for that deal than for Comcast/Time Warner Cable, said analyst Paul Gallant. Dish Network, Public Knowledge and Netflix took a more even-handed position on the AT&T transaction than they did the Comcast deal, he said Friday in a research note. “This is noteworthy and suggests to us that AT&T/DirecTV is likely to face less strident opposition than Comcast/TWC.” Those entities will probably be among the “leading voices” at the Department of Justice and FCC on both deals, he said. Their moderate tone on AT&T/DirecTV “is incrementally positive for that merger and introduces an additional note of caution on Comcast/TWC,” he said. Initial comments in the AT&T/DirecTV proceeding were due Tuesday (CD Sept 19 p3).

Correction: The name of the Department of Defense facility that partnered with Cascade County, Montana, on a land-use study map was Malmstrom Air Force Base (CD Sept 18 p19).

The FCC received more than 800,000 net neutrality comments in the six days before the Sept. 15 filing deadline, including 244,374 on Sept. 11, and another 169,847 on the last day to file, the agency said on its blog (http://fcc.us/1o6JKam). “Throughout the two rounds of public comment, and despite the age of the Commission’s IT systems, the FCC IT team worked around the clock and implemented workaround solutions to scale the large volume of comments in order to keep the system up and running, ensuring the public could submit feedback to the Commission leading up to Monday night’s comment deadline,” said FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray in the post.

A new standard that allows users of the IEEE 802 set of wireless standards from the IEEE Standards Association to effectively use the TV white spaces is available. IEEE 802.19.1 “is intended to help achieve fair and efficient spectrum sharing,” said the IEEE Standards Association Wednesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1yi0Qvv). The standard is intended to specify a coexistence discovery and information server, specify a coexistence manager, and “define common coexistence architecture and protocols,” it said.

The Competitive Carriers Association filed a motion for leave to intervene in support of the FCC in the NAB’s court challenge of the TV incentive auction rules, CCA said Wednesday. “CCA supports the FCC’s decision to use updated software and data to implement the repacking process of the incentive auction, and is hopeful the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will quickly resolve this matter in the Commission’s favor,” the group said in a news release. NAB had said the commission’s use of the TVStudy software would unfairly disadvantage stations.

The FCC should have its Diversity Committee study “troubling” employment practices in the technology sector, said the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and all four FCC members Wednesday. The tech industry’s “abysmal failure” to employ African-Americans, Hispanics and women hurts the FCC’s ability to follow congressional directives to “regulate EEO and promote employment and ownership diversity,” said the MMTC of equal employment opportunity. “Industry convergence and stark employment gaps” should merit a technology sector investigation by the Diversity Committee, and a follow-up by the FCC, another federal agency or Congress, the letter said. The FCC should focus on the tech sector because with the rise of over-the-top video, cord cutters and streaming apps, “the media jobs of the future will look more like technology jobs than traditional TV/radio production, advertising sales, and on-air occupations,” MMTC said. The tech sector has addressed this change in the past by asking for lowered restrictions on bringing in overseas workers though H-1B visas, a move MMTC said may be premature without a stronger effort to recruit domestic minorities and women. “An inquiry by the Diversity Committee would shed light on the extent to which technology companies recruit on campuses with high minority enrollments, actively mentor minorities for careers in the technology sector, and select diverse candidates who are U.S. citizens or residents,” MMTC said. Because of media convergence, diversity within the tech sector will increasingly fall within FCC EEO authority, MMTC said. “The digital divide cannot be closed when a sixth of the economy so profoundly and uniformly excludes African Americans, Latinos and women from equal employment opportunity."