The California Public Utilities Commission asked the FCC for an extension of time to implement a third-party identification verification process for its Lifeline program (http://bit.ly/JIdsVK). An extension to May 1 would help the PUC comply with an FCC requirement that the state implement the verification process, it said. The FCC had made the verification requirement a condition on the PUC’s being able to opt out of the National Lifeline Accountability Database, said the PUC’s Tuesday petition.

Update the E-rate program now, 26 members of the House told all five FCC commissioners in a letter dated Wednesday. The House sponsors of the letter -- Reps. Jared Polis, D-Colo.; Chris Gibson, R-N.Y.; Jared Huffman, D-Calif.; Don Young, R-Alaska; and Suzan DelBene, D-Wash. -- sought colleagues’ signatures for a draft of the letter earlier in December (CD Dec 10 p10). “We ask the Commission for swift action to bring high-speed broadband to our students on an expedited basis,” said the final copy of the letter, advocating for school broadband speeds of 100 Mbps now and 1 Gbps by 2017. The letter included several recommendations, such as that the FCC should create an “update fund within the E-rate program to connect every school and library, particularly those in rural areas, to high-speed broadband.” The FCC should up its transparency and accountability and simplify its paperwork, the letter said. The agency has been in the process of updating the E-rate program in recent months, and President Barack Obama has also voiced support for updates, calling the initiative ConnectEd. A spokeswoman for DelBene told us the letter would have been sent to the agency Wednesday.

AT&T said Monday it closed its $4.83 billion deal with Crown Castle International (http://soc.att.com/1hi7zKb). The deal, announced in late October, gave Crown Castle control of more than 9,000 AT&T towers for an average of 28 years. Crown Castle will have the option to buy the towers for $4.2 billion at the end of that period. AT&T also sold the tower company about 600 AT&T towers as part of the deal. AT&T will lease back space on the towers for at least the next 10 years, but has the option to re-up its leases for the next 50 years (CD Oct 22 p5). AT&T said it will use the proceeds from the sale for “general corporate purposes, including opportunistic share repurchases and repayment of commercial paper."

Dish Network and Sprint plan to develop and deploy next year a fixed wireless broadband service trial in Corpus Christi, Texas, the companies said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1jeRERc). Depending on a customer’s location, Dish will install either a ruggedized outdoor router or an indoor solution, they said. Both solutions will feature built-in high-gain antennas to receive the 4G test-driven development long term evolution signal on Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum, they said. The companies plan to expand into additional markets in the future, they said.

President Barack Obama discussed surveillance with top technology and telecom CEOs Tuesday. They met for two-and-a-half hours, according to the White House press pool report. Eight tech companies -- AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo -- released an open letter to the White House and Congress last week outlining principles for an aggressive surveillance law revamp they desire. All those companies with the exception of AOL were scheduled to attend the meeting, according to a list of 15 CEOs and other top executives the White House provided us. “We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the President our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform,” a spokesperson for the companies that signed reform principles last week told us. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden both were scheduled to attend, as were AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. “This was an opportunity for the President to hear from CEOs directly as we near completion of our review of signals intelligence programs, building on the feedback we've received from the private sector in recent weeks and months,” the White House said in a readout of the meeting after its conclusion. “The President made clear his belief in an open, free, and innovative internet and listened to the group’s concerns and recommendations, and made clear that we will consider their input as well as the input of other outside stakeholders as we finalize our review of signals intelligence programs.” According to White House guidance submitted to reporters Monday night, the meeting was scheduled to “address national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures.” There were also executives from Netflix, Etsy, Dropbox, Salesforce, Zynga and Sherpa Global. AT&T, Comcast and Google declined comment. White House pool reports relayed that all 15 invited executives attended. They also said Obama joked with the executives about the Netflix show House of Cards during a group photograph but provided no additional details of the chatter.

The House bill known as the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act is a “promising vehicle for comprehensive free market reform,” Free State Foundation Adjunct Senior Fellow Seth Cooper said in a Tuesday blog post (http://bit.ly/19b9fp1). HR-3720 would “finally eliminate outdated legacy video regulations that rest on an early 1990s snapshot picture of the video market” and “repeal retrans consent regulations and allow negotiations for carriage of TV broadcast stations to take place in a deregulated and truly free market context,” Cooper said, calling it the “proper direction for reform.” The bill was introduced last week by Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., to a variety of reactions as to its strength and prospects for next year (CD Dec 16 p10). NAB opposes the bill.

The FCC Media Bureau granted a Comcast petition Tuesday to exempt the cable provider from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices for 39 communities in California, said a Media Bureau order (http://bit.ly/1bYgizW). Comcast’s petition cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects just under 600,000 California households, including the communities of Roseville, Salinas and Santa Rosa.

The Telehealth Modernization Act was introduced Tuesday by Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, to “provide principles that states can look to for guidance when developing new policies that govern telehealth,” said a joint news release from the members. The release did not say to which committee the bill, which has yet to be given a number, will be referred. Johnson and Matsui serve on the House Commerce Committee, which oversees healthcare and technology issues, the release said. “The Telehealth Modernization Act will create a nationwide telehealth definition to provide clarity regarding the scope of healthcare services that can be safely delivered via telehealth,” said Matsui. “Having worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, I know first-hand the benefits associated with technological innovation,” Johnson said. He cofounded Johnson-Schley Management Group, an information technology consulting company, and helped form J2 Business Solutions, where he provided IT support as a defense contractor to the U.S. military. “In rural districts such as my own, telehealth can increase access to quality care and lower costs,” he said. All 50 states have varying telehealth regulations, the release said. “Telehealth is a central component for creating a technology enabled healthcare system that will increase access to care and lower costs,” said Joel White, executive director of the Health IT Now Coalition, in the release. White supports the bill.

The administration’s nominee for Central Intelligence Agency general counsel does not personally believe phone surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment, she told the Senate. The Senate Intelligence Committee held an open hearing Tuesday reviewing the nomination of Caroline Diane Krass, currently principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, to be CIA general counsel. Multiple senators quizzed her on Monday’s Klayman v. Obama district court ruling that National Security Agency phone surveillance likely violates the Fourth Amendment (CD Dec 17 p3). Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, raised the question early on. “I haven’t had a chance to study it carefully,” but the decision reflects the battle over the “appropriate balance” being sought in surveillance law, Krass told him of the ruling. Congress appears poised for “legislative response” and she would follow any laws enacted, she said. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, followed up: “I want to ask your personal opinion of whether or not you agree with the judge’s decision.” Krass did not agree, she said. “I have a different view of the Fourth Amendment,” one in which phone metadata are not protected, Krass said, calling the 1979 Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Maryland “good law.” That case has lent legal backing to the U.S. treatment of metadata. She did say much has changed since then and some of those factors are “worth considering.” In written answers to Senate Intelligence questions submitted before the hearing, Krass said she’s not “personally familiar with the CIA’s Attorney General Approved-procedures” on the collection, retention or dissemination of data on U.S. citizens but would make the question a priority if necessary. At the hearing, Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reiterated an earlier statement. “I welcome a Supreme Court review,” Feinstein said. “It’s been more than 30 years” since Smith v. Maryland, she said, telling the nominee, “I think your position is really most important in this. … You are going to encounter some heat from us in that regard.” It’s hard to exercise oversight if the legality is murky, Feinstein said. King said “secret agencies tend toward abuse” and told Krass to be an advocate for the people of the U.S., not the director of the CIA or director of national intelligence.

Common Cause backed the FCC pulling a draft media ownership order circulated by then-Chairman Julius Genachowski that was a “bad idea to allow billionaire moguls to control even more of our media,” said the nonprofit on its blog Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jfr7Df). It said current Chairman Tom Wheeler deserves credit for saying the draft will be reworked. The order, which would have allowed some types of broadcaster-newspaper cross ownership while attributing some TV station resource sharing deals in a way that might have curtailed them, was yanked from circulation earlier this month (CD Dec 16 p1). “It was an ugly dinosaur still stalking the Commission’s hallways long after it should have been extinct,” said Special Adviser to the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative Michael Copps, a former Democratic commissioner. “Maybe, just maybe, the new FCC will go on from here to become a true protector of the people’s interest on the people’s airwaves.”