AFL-CIO backs the proposed AT&T buy of DirecTV. The deal serves the public interest and it serves the interests of the workers who will be affected by the deal, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a filing Friday in docket 14-90. The deal presents few antitrust concerns, and the combination will result in a stronger competitor to the dominant cable industry, “providing consumers with more options, putting pressure on prices and improving service in the video market,” the filing said. It will “improve the economics for high-speed broadband expansion, which is critical to economic growth and job creation in rural and urban communities across our nation,” it said. It also will bring benefits to employees, and AT&T respects the rights of its employees “to make their own choice about union representation,” it said.

The “steady increase” in the FCC USF contribution factor is “clearly disturbing and unsustainable,” said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a blog post Thursday (http://fcc.us/1rZpfDr). He reiterated his call for an overall budget cap on the universal service.

Policymakers “should be wary of those calling for significant changes to the regulatory environment and the imposition of telephone-style regulation on broadband service providers,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick wrote in a blog post (http://bit.ly/Zije8b) Thursday. Broadband providers invested $75 billion in 2013, up by almost 10 percent over the prior year, McCormick wrote. “When so much is going so well ... policymakers should be careful to avoid the harm that could result from injecting unnecessary uncertainty and negative pressures into the broadband investment equation,” he wrote.

The pro-Title II net neutrality protest on Wednesday spurred 286,192 calls and 2.1 million emails to Congress, protest organizers said Thursday. Another 722,364 comments were sent to the FCC, a release said. The FCC did not comment about the number of comments filed. The Internet Slowdown protest, in which icons with links to a site allowed people to send advocacy calls or emails, were placed on more than 1,000 websites and shared more than 1.1 million times on Facebook, the release said. Demand Progress, Engine Advocacy, Fight for the Future and the Free Press Action Fund organized the protest. “The FCC and Congress can no longer dismiss the overwhelming consensus of public support for real Net Neutrality protections,” Fight for the Future Campaign Director Evan Greer said in the release. More than two-thirds of Americans said Communications Act Title II laws written to regulate the phone industry are inadequate to address issues in the Internet age, in a poll by CALinnovates, a group that advocates a Section 706 approach to net neutrality. One in four said government policies can keep up with the pace of technological innovation on the Internet and the development of devices like smartphones, the group said in a news release Thursday. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed opposed paid prioritization, in which businesses can pay for “fast lanes,” the group said. Policymakers should listen “to Americans about the dangers of applying outdated laws to modern technology,” said CALInnovates Executive Director Mike Montgomery. “The FCC should be wary of applying so-called Title II regulations to broadband providers and potentially start-ups themselves. … The goal should be clear: policies that promote and protect a free and open Internet while at the same time ensuring that start-ups don’t face burdensome regulations that would put them at a disadvantage against established technology leaders.” The group’s members include executives at technology and startup firms, political leaders and entrepreneurs, the release said. Its partners include AT&T, according to the group’s website. The survey of more than 1,000 people was done Sept. 3 and 4, the release said. “Reclassification does not offer a clear way forward because it is legally tenuous, unduly burdensome and riddled with ambiguities that will take years to resolve,” the group said in reply comments it filed Thursday in FCC docket 14-28.

Dish Network and Frontier Communications launched a competition to stimulate growth and revitalization in small cities and towns across 27 states. “America’s Best Communities” will award seed money to help communities develop growth and revitalization plans, the companies said Wednesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1otaOk3). The top three communities will receive several million, it said. Municipalities with populations of 9,500 to 80,000 people, and located within Frontier’s service areas, are eligible to apply, and must do so by Jan. 12, it said.

Three Democratic senators filed amicus briefs Tuesday in a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case challenging the legality of NSA’s phone metadata collection program (http://bit.ly/1tL9Y95). The senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Mark Udall of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, are on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The trio said they “have seen no evidence that the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records has provided any intelligence of value that could not have been gathered through means that caused far less harm to the privacy interests of millions of Americans.” The government has also interpreted its authorization for the phone records program -- Patriot Act Section 215 -- in a manner that “could authorize bulk collections of information far beyond the call records at issue in this case, such as financial or medical records, or even records indicating the location or ordinary Americans,” they said. The senators urged the 9th Circuit to overturn a lower court ruling in the case, Smith v. Obama (case No. 14-35555). A hearing is expected in November, said an Electronic Frontier Foundation blog post (http://bit.ly/1rIHK93).

The FCC Media Bureau asked AT&T and DirecTV for information connected with AT&T’s proposed purchase of the DBS provider, said letters (http://bit.ly/1uwoQ9s) posted in docket 14-90 Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1uwoKP9). The request appears similar to information requests recently sent to Comcast, Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable for information related to the Comcast/TWC deal and divestiture to Charter. The pages of attached questions include detailed queries on subscriber data, information about disputes with multichannel video programming distributors and details about TV Everywhere services. AT&T and DirecTV have until Sept. 23 to provide the data, the requests said.

The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) formally requested the FCC’s opinion Tuesday on telcos’ legal ability to implement call-blocking technology. Thirty-nine AGs asked the FCC in the NAAG letter whether legal prohibitions against software like Call Control, NoMoRobo and Telemarketing Guard are “subject to change” if customers specifically request the use of the software. USTelecom had said last year that legal restrictions against those technologies prevented telcos from implementing the technologies, NAAG said. The group asked the FCC if carriers can legally block a call if technology identifies a call as coming from a telemarketer, provided the telco wants to block at a customer’s request. NAAG also asked the FCC to clarify the accuracy of USTelecom’s description of the FCC’s position as a “strict oversight” of the delivery of telecom traffic and that call blocking is an “unjust and unreasonable practice” under Communications Act Section 201(b). The telcos’ resistance to implementing call-blocking technology “raises important questions. If a solution to the nation’s illegal telemarketing problem is possible, it will require the private sector -- including telephone carriers -- to get involved,” NAAG said in the letter (http://bit.ly/Zg5uKS). USTelecom is “reviewing the letter” and continues “to work on this issue,” a spokeswoman said.

The FCC should enforce requirements mandating telecom relay service equipment be compatible with other such equipment, ASL/Global VRS Managing Partner Angela Valcarcel-Roth and Vice President Gabrielle Joseph told officials with the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Office of the Managing Director, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1q7PHcq) posted Friday in docket 10-51. Joseph and Valcarcel-Roth discussed last week’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision putting on hold stricter standards for how quickly VRS calls must be answered (CD Sept 4 p7), the filing said. The executives also provided information about expanding capabilities for deaf/blind users through video relay services. They also raised concerns about compensation rates under a competitive bidding process and the disproportionate financial impact of commission penalties on smaller companies, said ASL/Global, a provider of interpreting services.

A number of redactions in Neustar’s reply comments about the selection of the next local number portability administrator should be removed, Venable’s James Barnett and McKenna Long’s Jason Carey and Erin Sheppard, all representing Telcordia, told officials of the FCC Public Safety Bureau Thursday, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1Ar4H5i) posted in docket 09-109 Friday.