Correction: Former FCC Chief Economist Tim Brennan has no clients involved in the net neutrality fight (see 1606290036).

The net neutrality order wasn’t exactly an “economics-free zone,” but the economic support for the order was suspect, said former FCC Chief Economist Tim Brennan in a Free State Foundation paper. Brennan said Tuesday his “economics-free zone” comment was widely reported and even referenced in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s decision upholding the order. “Economics was in the Open Internet Order, but a fair amount of the economics was wrong, unsupported, or irrelevant,” the paper said. “Even if broadband providers have market power because subscribers are slow to switch broadband services, as the FCC claims, the FCC incorrectly found such providers lack an incentive to provide high-quality service,” Brennan wrote. “Broadband providers, in the FCC’s scenario, will raise their prices up to where subscribers will consider switching.” In reality, ISPs will offer customers what they want, ‘including content ‘neutrality,’” he said. The FCC ignored potentially better alternatives to net neutrality rules, he said. If ISPs advertise content-neutral practices, they should be held accountable, but that’s a job the FTC could do as well as the FCC, Brennan said. He's professor of public policy at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Brennan told us he has no clients involved in the net neutrality fight.

A third of smart home owners experience problems with smart home devices, said Parks Associates, and nearly 10 percent report problems connecting a smart home device to the home network router. Nascent technologies increase the likelihood of problems with setup, interoperability and user error, said analyst Patrice Samuels. The number of connected products is expected to rise significantly this year, with half of broadband households intending to buy at least one smart home device in the next 12 months, and the most popular setup experience for these devices is plug-and-play, she said Tuesday: "The fewer the number of steps that consumers have to take to get their device up and running, the better."

AT&T completed an acquisition of over-the-top video partner Quickplay Media from private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, the telco said in a news release. The deal was announced in May (see 1605160025). Quickplay is the platform provider for AT&T U-Verse and its TV Everywhere and will support DirecTV streaming services to be introduced later this year, AT&T said Tuesday.

Writing rules of the road for autonomous vehicles is more akin to the Declaration of Independence than the Constitution, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Monday. Responding to a question about driverless cars during a live-streamed event, he said the agency needs more practical experience with driverless cars to ensure it isn't caught "flat footed." This also means thinking about the roles of state governments and industry in relation to the issue, he said. "We’re trying to write the equivalent of the Declaration of Independence with autonomous cars," Foxx responded. "We’re not trying to write the Constitution yet because we don’t know what we don’t know. So there will be more granularity over time. But we can build a basic framing around which that granularity comes into existence." Foxx, who spoke at the Department of Transportation's Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Volpe National Transportation Research Center, generally talked about the role of transportation in the U.S. and legacy of technology, including some comments about autonomous vehicles. Early in his speech, he asked whether drivers even need to be licensed since autonomous vehicles would be performing more of the driving. "So the question is who licenses this? Do we, in the course of approving the physical car, also approve the operational aspects of the software and does that take the place of what the states used to do? Do you need a driver's license to operate an autonomous car? These are questions that are coming faster ... than any of us know." He said the country needs to start making decisions about such transportation-related issues.

Twilio began trading at $15 per share Thursday, a few dollars above the $12 to $14 the cloud software developer proposed in an updated IPO prospectus last week. Twilio offered the shares (see 1605260045) on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “TWLO.” Its shares closed 93.9 percent higher Thursday at $28.79.

The most consistent theme at a one-day conference sponsored by Wells Fargo this week was “plumbing matters,” Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche emailed investors Wednesday. “You need the fiber to do every theme which convergence touches -- data centers, small cells, 5G, fronthaul, backhaul, the list goes on and on.” The timing of 5G remains a question, she wrote. “While Verizon has formed a 5G tech forum and expects fixed wireless tests sometime this year, most other participants expect 5G to have scalable deployments by the end of the decade,” she said. “While there was debate around the physics of millimeter wave's role, the commonly held view was that networks will only become more dense over time.”

Verizon is buying software-as-a-service company Telogis, adding Telogis' product line to its Verizon Telematics subsidiary, the carrier said Tuesday. “With a comprehensive enterprise product portfolio and partnerships with some of the world’s leading vehicle and equipment manufacturers, Telogis brings a world-class software platform and new distribution relationships to Verizon Telematics’ already expansive suite of connected vehicle solutions for consumers and enterprise customers,” said Andrés Irlando, CEO of Verizon Telematics, in a news release. Telogis is closely held. Verizon didn’t disclose terms.

Tower Cloud agreed to an acquisition by Communications Sales and Leasing, CS&L said in a news release Monday. The $230 million cash-and-stock deal is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by early Q4, it said. The deal expands CS&L’s backhaul network and entry into small-cell and dark-fiber businesses, said CS&L President Kenny Gunderman. In a separate news release Monday, CS&L said it plans to sell nearly 14.7 million shares of common stock. Before the sale, the company’s former parent Windstream will exchange the shares, which comprise its entire remaining position in the company’s common stock, for indebtedness of Windstream with certain creditors in a debt-for-equity exchange, it said. After that exchange, Citigroup will acquire the shares from creditors, it said.

Rural phone companies like UniTel lack the financial wherewithal to compete with New Charter, and the FCC's overbuild condition on Charter Communications' buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will particularly hurt the goal of universal service, UniTel said in a filing Tuesday in docket 15-149 in support of NTCA's petition to reconsider. That group is one of several parties petitioning the FCC on its New Charter order (see 1606100043). UniTel said it already competes with TWC and would be directly affected by any buildout since New Charter will put money into TWC efforts to pick up lower-cost customers of incumbent rural carriers, resulting in less UniTel ability to sustain universal service and capacity to invest in its network and services. It said the agency should expressly confine any buildout condition to areas not served by small rural phone companies.