The FCC needs to establish an all-IP pilot program to let the carriers turn off the Public Switched Telephone Network and make the transition to all-IP in a discrete set of wire centers, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told the Communications and Technology Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council conference Friday (http://bit.ly/1jvjshH). Pai said states should cooperate with the FCC and carriers that elect to participate in the trials. States should be proactive in reducing regulatory barriers to infrastructure investment, said Pai, using Google Fiber in Kansas City as an example. One of the reasons Google chose Kansas City was because the city committed to review all permits within five days and to let Google use an “approved third-party inspection firm” to assist the city in completing necessary inspections, he said. States should “make it easier” to use the Internet for over-the-top business models, said Pai. Mobile apps, such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar, provide “innovation and competition” that’s good for consumers and proves the value of mobile broadband, he said. But cities such as Los Angeles and Washington have made these “upstarts jump through many regulatory hoops,” and consumers and companies pay the price. “With the threat of new regulation in every city and county across the country, over-the-top companies are likely to shun smaller markets and slow their expansion into new territories,” said Pai. “So one step to improve this situation might be to secure at the state level the right to innovate for all over-the-top providers."

It’s “especially important” that the FCC continue the “planned rollout” of requirements that TV stations that aren’t ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates in markets smaller than No. 50 put online what’s on paper in political files, said public interest groups that have sought such rules. “Many of the most competitive races in the 2014 election cycle will take place in markets outside the top 50” said representatives of the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Free Press and Sunlight Foundation to Maria Kirby, media aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, and Special Counsel-External Affairs Gigi Sohn, according to an ex parte filing. “Important Senate races will take place in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, and Montana, none of which have top-50 markets.” It’s “imperative” the online political file rules extend beyond the existing stations by summer, said the filing posted Thursday to docket 00-168 (http://bit.ly/1dVpc4p). It said “inconsistent reporting and compliance by stations” now subject to the rules means there’s a “role for increased enforcement” by the FCC.

Three members of Congress asked the FCC to “suspend and investigate” AT&T’s recent special access filing. “We are concerned about AT&T’s recent notice of its intention to eliminate service plans for terms longer than three years and the effect this action, if approved, would have on prices and competition in the marketplace,” said Friday’s letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Mike Doyle, D-Pa. “By eliminating these plans, AT&T is effectively increasing rates in some regions by as much as 24 percent -- which would result in increased costs to users by hundreds of millions of dollars.” Several CLECs also criticized the AT&T filing (CD Dec 4 p3). AT&T framed the move in a November blog post as part of the IP transition. “The tariff changes filed today will grandfather DS1 and DS3 term plans greater than 36 months, including ones that have term periods as long as seven years,” Senior Vice President Bob Quinn wrote of changes that could become effective Tuesday. “The first step of that plan is to align the commitments we make to our customers with the goal of transitioning to an all-IP network. That is why today we have taken a step to make sure that multi-year commitments we enter into today for aging TDM-based services reflect the on-going transition to IP and do not extend beyond the expected completion of our transition in 2020.” The members of Congress lamented the “broken special access market” and said they're “pleased” the FCC is collecting data on it. They wanted AT&T’s filing suspended to allow more data collection and not “short circuit” that process.

The Satellite Industry Association urged the FCC not to allocate the entire allotment of 1 percent rise-over-thermal to a secondary Aeronautical Mobile Service allocation if it decides to proceed with such as allocation. Doing so would be inconsistent with an International Telecommunication Union recommendation, “which makes it clear that the 1 percent allotment is for all non-primary sources interference and not any single interfering service,” it said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-114 (http://bit.ly/IPF8qH). The filing recounts a meeting with members of the International and Wireless bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology on Qualcomm’s proposal to implement a new secondary AMS allocation in the 14.0-14.5 GHz band, it said. Since there are already other secondary services in various parts of the band, “and there is a realistic possibility of at least one future secondary service ... the proposed AMS should be allotted only a third of the 1% budget,” it said. SIA stressed the need for technical rules for any potential AMS service using realistic antenna gain-to-noise-temperature values for existing current and future fixed satellite services satellites, “and deriving actual and enforceable power limits on any new secondary service that are sufficient to keep the interference caused by this system below 0.33%,” it said.

Time Warner Cable began carrying Al Jazeera America Friday, said the channel in a news release (http://alj.am/18dOYyk). It said with that carriage, the channel reaches almost 55 million households.

An FCC oversight hearing of the House Communications Subcommittee will take place at 10 a.m. on Dec. 12, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told reporters Thursday. Walden met separately with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly this week, and those meetings included “good” discussion focused on public policy, Walden said. “We look forward to a productive relationship in the years ahead,” Walden said, citing this as important in the subcommittee’s oversight work. The hearing will feature all five FCC commissioners, who also will hold an FCC meeting later that same day from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Walden and House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., have been “passionate” about FCC process overhaul for three years, House Commerce Committee Republican Chief Counsel David Redl said during a Practising Law Institute event in Washington Thursday, pointing to the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act that unanimously passed the House earlier this year. But Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., “publicly stated that he does not intend to move those measures in the Senate,” said Committee Democratic Senior Counsel John Branscome during the same panel discussion. “In terms of FCC process reform legislation, Sen. Rockefeller will be looking at how this legislation ultimately strengthens the FCC’s consumer protection role. I think that’s how he'll judge any measure.” Redl and House Commerce Democratic Chief Counsel Shawn Chang, both pointed to the incentive auctions as a major concern and said they remain optimistic the FCC can meet its deadlines. Chang cautioned, however, that observers should be “mindful of the Healthcare.gov experience,” which was fraught with problems. “We've got to get this right.” Redl described various known “hurdles” and questions: “What’s the repacking process going to look like?"

Arts and culture contributed 3.2 percent or $504 billion to overall GDP in 2011, said a report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis released Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/ISasFW). The gross economic output for arts and culture production was $916 billion. Cable TV production and distribution accounted for $100 billion in output, while the “motion picture and video goods and services” added $83 billion, said the report.

NTIA is trying to “get to the bottom of what do people want, versus what they actually need,” on spectrum allocation, said Chief of Staff Angela Simpson at a Practising Law Institute telecom seminar Thursday. “It’s very difficult differentiating,” she said, especially when counsel is “sometimes advocating wants as needs.” NTIA is looking into what constitutes “effective” use of spectrum, said Simpson. The agency will meet with the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee next week to take the lessons CSMAC has learned on spectrum management and “turn them into a game plan,” she said. It’s “imperative that the government agencies and private sector continue to find innovative ways” to solve complex spectrum access issues, she said. Spectrum sharing needs to be a key tool, she said. As time goes by and more spectrum gets allocated, relocating spectrum users becomes more complicated, she said. Spectrum sharing is “not a pie in the sky proposition,” but is really possible now, said Simpson. NTIA is staying active in President Barack Obama’s ConnectED initiative, she said. The agency plans to work closely with the FCC, Department of Education and all other stakeholders to achieve Obama’s goal of connecting K-12 to high-speed circuits within the next 5 years, said Simpson. NTIA expects the lessons it learned from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program to play a role in this discussion, she said. BTOP projects connected 10 percent of U.S. schools to broadband, in a way that saved “significant amounts of money,” said Simpson. She said she hopes the FCC can use those lessons as it looks into E-rate overhauls. The multistakeholder process works, as can codes of conduct. NTIA plans to use such a process in consumer privacy issues, and NTIA will take the lessons it learned from 2013 and expand it to 2014, said Simpson. Facial recognition technology has the potential to significantly improve many services, but brings with it potential privacy concerns, she said. NTIA plans to explore the issue and see what progress it can make on those issues, she said. The agency plans multistakeholder discussions on facial recognition technologies, it said earlier this week (CD Dec 5 p11).

Several consumer groups objected to a CableCARD bill under consideration in the House Commerce Committee. Consumer Action, Consumers Union, Free Press, National Consumers League, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge sent a letter Thursday to Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., slamming HR-3196 (http://bit.ly/1cdjpjR). Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Gene Green, D-Texas, introduced the bill in September. The bill proposes ending the integration ban requiring cable operators to use CableCARDs instead of built-in security in set-top boxes. TiVo has strongly lobbied against the bill. It “would drive up cable bill prices, reduce consumer choice, and slow down video innovation,” the consumer groups said in their letter. They say it would undermine the existing CableCARD system. Latta’s “legislation stands on its own merit,” Latta Chief of Staff Ryan Walker told us when asked about the letter. Walker labeled HR-3196 a “bipartisan deal” and said the integration ban “went beyond congressional intent.” The bill now has six co-sponsors, with Jim Matheson, D-Utah, signing on Tuesday. Latta is seeking more cosponsors, Walker said.

The FCC is “in the process of seeking PRA approval” for its special access data request, Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach told the Practising Law Institute telecom seminar Thursday, referring to the Paperwork Reduction Act review performed by the Office of Management and Budget. The bureau is also building the information technology necessary to manage the data collection, from an internal logistical perspective, she said: “How do we house all this stuff in an extremely secure environment” that still allows the FCC to analyze it, while also providing a “portal, or a clean room” for parties in the proceeding to participate “in a meaningful way"? The bureau is “looking at it both from an IT perspective and a policy perspective and a legal perspective” to ensure everything is done with “utmost care” and in a way to “ensure our APA values,” she said, referring to the Administrative Procedure Act. The bureau is also “working to develop an order for the commission’s consideration at the January meeting that will address the next steps for the commission as we move forward with tech transitions.” The bureau plans to submit a report by the end of January about the ongoing trial on direct access to numbers by VoIP providers. The bureau hopes to ensure that “numbers are administered as the finite resource that they are” while still looking toward a future where numbers aren’t necessarily linked to geographic areas, Veach said. The commission is also very concerned about rural call completion problems, she said. The bureau hopes that its recent orders, including banning fake ringing tones, will give the commission “a much better handle at what’s going on,” and enable it to take more targeted enforcement actions, she said.