USTelecom Vice President-Law and Policy Kevin Rupy testified before Congress Wednesday about the association’s efforts to tackle phone scams. “Our industry has ramped up a concerted, broad-based, public-private effort focused exclusively on the issue of telephony abuse,” he said in written testimony (http://1.usa.gov/1zJDj4Z) before the Senate Special Committee on Aging. “Our member companies continue to work with government and industry stakeholders to develop more secure forms of caller identification authentication to more effectively address a practice that facilitates fraud, caller-ID spoofing.” The telcos are working to offer services to cut the number of fraudulent calls, he said. Rupy also raised the challenges of robocalls. USTelecom members “will initiate legal actions against robocallers when they can be found,” he said.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced the Wi-Fi Innovation Act Wednesday. It’s a companion bill to one that Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced earlier this summer. Its backers in the House are Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio; subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.; and Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif. “The Wi-Fi Innovation Act paves a pathway to maximize the use of spectrum and examine ways to expand the deployment of wireless networks and services across the country, so all can benefit from this next-generation technology,” Latta said in a statement. The legislation “directs the FCC to determine the extent to which unlicensed spectrum can be shared and utilized in increasingly innovative ways to benefit consumers and our economy,” Eshoo said. The bill says the FCC should run tests on possible interference in the 5 GHz band, and prompts a study on different barriers to Wi-Fi deployment in low-income areas.

The National Governors Association is “disappointed” in House passage of the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (PITFA) (HR-3086), NGA said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1rgRBI3) Tuesday. PITFA, which bans any taxation on Internet access, passed the House by a voice vote Tuesday (CD July 16 p12). No changes were made to the bill before or during its consideration, said a House Judiciary Committee spokeswoman. NGA said “this federal prohibition on state taxing authority is contrary to federalism and the sovereign authority of states to structure and manage their own fiscal systems.” Congress should instead “address the disparity between Main Street retailers and online sellers regarding the collection of state and local sales taxes,” it said. House passage of PITFA “protects millions of Americans across the country who use the Internet daily to look for employment, participate in online courses or access government services from state and local taxes on Internet access,” said Internet Tax Freedom Act Coalition Executive Director Annabelle Canning in a statement (http://bit.ly/1naI8jB) Tuesday. The coalition encouraged the Senate to pass its version of PITFA (S-1431) before Nov. 1. The coalition’s members (http://bit.ly/1tRqQMh) include Amazon, AT&T and Verizon, and those two telcos also backed passage in separate statements. S-1431 has 51 co-sponsors.

Congress must update the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to counter the rising threat of botnet attacks, said Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general for the criminal division, at a Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing Tuesday, according to her prepared testimony (http://1.usa.gov/1l0sMZm). The government must also continue to fund research and development and to encourage intra-government and private sector collaboration, said Joseph Demarest, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, according to his prepared remarks (http://1.usa.gov/1mHIeyd). Congress has updated the CFAA several times since its 1986 passage, but not since 2008, Caldwell said. “The intervening years have again created the need for the enactment of modest, incremental changes,” he said, pointing to an administration legislative proposal in 2011 (http://1.usa.gov/UbeqP0). “We continue to support changes like these that will keep up with rapidly evolving technologies and uses.” Caldwell also said “the availability of legal investigative process” granted by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) has been “essential to the success of our anti-botnet initiatives, and to our efforts against cybercrime as a whole.” Lawmakers, and ECPA update advocates have blamed the administration for stymieing efforts to pass legislation requiring the government to get a warrant before accessing emails stored remotely (CD July 14 p9).

Five more House members signed on as co-sponsors to the Local Radio Freedom Act (H. Con. Res. 16), said an NAB news release (http://bit.ly/1juGLeS) Tuesday: Reps. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio; Bill Foster, D-Ill.; Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash.; David Jolly, R-Fla.; and Derek Kilmer, D-Wash. The resolution has 231 co-sponsors in the House (http://1.usa.gov/1ksHOam). The resolution would oppose “'any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge’ on local broadcast radio stations,” said NAB. The musicFirst coalition is targeting Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and David Price, D-N.C., to condemn their support of the act (CD July 11 p13) .

Municipal advocates lashed out Tuesday against perceived national legislative threats. The National League of Cities, National Association of Counties and NATOA wrote House members (http://bit.ly/1reyNZV) urging them to oppose “any amendment to HR 5016 that would hamstring the [FCC] from taking any action on -- indeed, even discussing -- the issue of state laws that prohibit or restrict public and public/private broadband projects,” referring to the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act the House was considering Monday and Tuesday. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance included the letter in a blog post Tuesday. “The amendment most damaging to local telecommunications authority is expected to come from Rep. Marsha Blackburn,” R-Tenn., wrote Lisa Gonzalez, a research associate with the institute (http://bit.ly/1wrNF52). “The amendment’s purpose is to remove authority from the FCC to preempt state laws preventing local broadband infrastructure investment. By restricting the FCC’s use of its funding, the legislation will choke the agency’s ability to explore its plan to influence anti-muni state barriers so local communities can decide their own fates.” A Blackburn spokesman did not comment. Tuesday morning, Gonzalez told us the advocates expected the amendment language to be introduced Tuesday afternoon or possibly Wednesday. No such amendments appeared to have been introduced by our deadline, and House Republican aides were largely unfamiliar with this suggested action. Gonzalez had said Monday in a different blog post that House Republicans would advance on Title II reclassification legislation that Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, had introduced, which his office denied (CD July 15 p11). Latta Chief of Staff Ryan Walker told us Tuesday that the groups’ allusions to the Latta bill were a “scare tactic” and reiterated that no Title II amendments to the appropriations bill had yet been offered. Electric Power Board in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is considering filing a petition with the FCC to pre-empt a state law that prohibits existing municipal networks to serve adjacent areas upon their request, but hasn’t made any final decisions, an EPB spokeswoman told us Tuesday.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., lauded the FCC saying it’s creating a USF strike force to target fraud and abuse (CD July 15 p10). “Identifying and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse to protect taxpayer dollars has been a top priority for House Republicans,” Walden said in a news release Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1qcXdDF). “As the USF has continued to grow, it has become an increasing cost on consumers’ monthly phone bill. The FCC has a responsibility to ensure any dollars being spent are being spent wisely and efficiently.”

The House Commerce Communications and Health subcommittees plan a joint hearing on “21st century technology for 21st century cures,” Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn. Witnesses are Qualcomm Senior Director-Government Affairs Robert Jarrin; Amazon Vice President-Global Public Policy Paul Misener; McKesson Connected Care and Analytics Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Niloff; Health Fidelity founder Dan Riskin; and LyfeChannel CEO Dave Vockell. “The ability to access real time data through the use of wireless sensors could allow clinicians to improve the quality and efficiency of clinical trials, help researchers design targeted therapies, and inform research and development efforts,” the GOP memo said (http://1.usa.gov/1zGiUxI). In announcing the hearing, Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., had framed it as allied with the goals of the committee’s broader effort to overhaul the Communications Act (http://1.usa.gov/1r0xOMF).

Congress shouldn’t put the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) (CD June 23 p9) in the “hands” of the Obama administration, said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., at a Heritage Foundation-sponsored congressional briefing Tuesday. “We need to keep our oversight,” and Congress should review the transition proposal “before any final decision is made,” he said. “Can you imagine turning over the stewardship of the Internet” to Russia, China and other “bad actors?” Kelly asked. The IANA transition isn’t as “problematic” as some “have suggested,” said Eli Dourado, research fellow at the Technology Policy Program at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. The timing of the announcement by NTIA and its failure to brief members of Congress beforehand was a “boneheaded mistake,” but the announcement itself wasn’t “out of left field,” he said. The transition is a “long-run alternative to giving oversight” of IANA to the ITU, and a “continuation of the trajectory of the Internet” from a “military experiment to a private civilian enterprise,” he said. Dourado said he was “inclined” to give the transition the “benefit of the doubt,” but “Congress should take a look” at the transition proposal.

AT&T plans to paint the video marketplace as intensely competitive, one in which the acquisition of DirecTV will only help the combined company offer more competitive bundles, according to written testimony for AT&T Chief Strategy Officer John Stankey. He will testify Wednesday before the Senate Commerce Committee at its 2:30 p.m. hearing on the future of video in 216 Hart. “Companies that provide bundles of broadband and video will foster, rather than impede, the emergence of over-the-top programmers,” Stankey’s prepared testimony says. “Only by embracing the reality that over-the-top services are complements of their own services, just as traditional video can be a complement, will broadband providers retain and grow their relationship with their customers.” AT&T’s acquiring DirecTV would be “good for consumers,” he plans to say. Dish plans to counter, however, with Deputy General Counsel Jeff Blum outlining “competitive concerns” about that deal: “Among other things, AT&T and DIRECTV will also be able to combine their market power to leverage programming content, to the potential detriment of consumers,” says Blum’s testimony. He also plans to slam Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable as “too much power in the hands of too few.” But “consolidation may be necessary for the traditional” multichannel video programming distributors “to compete with the Googles, Netflixes, Amazons, and Apples of the world,” University of Nebraska College of Law professor Gus Hurwitz, another witness, told us, describing his testimony. “Probably the biggest thing that Congress could do on this front is modernize the broadcasting-related portions of the Copyright and Communications acts, to bring them into the Internet era. In their current form, they create uncertainty and barriers both for new entrants and innovation by existing firms,” Hurwitz said. Other witnesses, as expected (CD July 14 p13), are Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, Public Knowledge CEO Gene Kimmelman and Writers Guild of America, West member Shawn Ryan.