The FCC is focused on encouraging more broadband competition, said Gigi Sohn, counselor to Chairman Tom Wheeler. In a speech Tuesday at a European Competitive Telecommunications Association event in Brussels, Sohn said competition is the most effective way to achieve the agency’s goals of promoting communications innovation and investment while upholding public interest values as technology changes networks. She said the benefits of competition are well known in the long distance, wireless, consumer device and information services markets. “However, in the broadband market, more work needs to be done for consumers and industry alike to realize the full range of benefits that competition can provide,” she said. Sohn highlighted FCC decisions on the IP technology transition, municipal broadband, net neutrality, USF support and broadband speeds, and its concerns that helped thwart Comcast's takeover of Time Warner Cable. She also outlined the commission’s efforts to stage a “historic incentive auction,” carry out further USF reforms to help rural and low-income consumers, and ensure “reasonable” rates, terms and conditions for special-access services in the business data market. Sohn said she recognized that the FCC values of competition, universal access, consumer protection and public safety were basically shared by the EU in its digital single-market strategy. "While our commercial markets differ and may, at times, require different policy solutions, these common values unite us," she said. Sohn said mobile networks now reach about 95 percent of the world's population, with about half having access to mobile Internet service. She noted the international Global Connect effort of governments and private parties to connect another 1.5 billion people by 2020. There are about 15 billion Internet-connected devices, she said, along with projections that number could grow to about 50 billion in five years. "McKinsey estimates that the emerging Internet of Things could generate up to $11 trillion in economic value over the next decade," said Sohn.

The FCC is developing a cognitive accessibility pledge for carriers, service providers and government stakeholders, Chairman Tom Wheeler said at the Association of University Centers on Disabilities. In October, the FCC held a summit on communications issues for people with cognitive disabilities, at which Wheeler also spoke (see 1510280037). “The Summit identified two pressing challenges: first, the lack of equipment and services that meet the unique and varied needs of people with cognitive disabilities; and, second, the lack of awareness across government and the private sector about accessibility rights and enforcement mechanisms,” Wheeler said Tuesday, according to prepared remarks. “Drawing from these lessons learned, we have charted out next steps.” The FCC will start with a more comprehensive “needs assessment to determine the types of accessibility features needed,” he said. Next, he said the agency will start “targeted outreach efforts in early 2016 not only to educate individuals with cognitive disabilities about their rights to communications products and services, but also to engage individuals who can help.” Wheeler said the commission has received numerous complaints about the unique problems faced by people with cognitive disabilities. “One individual may not be able to use email, because he has difficulty remembering a unique password,” he said. “Another may face challenges in using new telephone equipment or understanding service plans or pricing. Some are unable to navigate the confusing menus of service providers’ web sites. Others complain of service personnel who are insensitive, refuse to address their concerns, and who even make fun of their disabilities.”

FCC rules on the methodology to be used during the incentive auction to predict interservice interference between broadcasting and wireless services and on a cap on the aggregate amount of new interference a TV station may receive from other TV stations in the repacking process take effect Dec. 17, said a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register. Parts of the rules still being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget don't take effect until the review is complete, the FCC said. Rules approved by the FCC in August allowing wireless mics to use new bands and share spectrum in the TV band (see 1508060050) also take effect Dec. 17, except for parts still being reviewed by OMB, said a second notice in the FR.

The Justice Department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay a ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who last week ordered the NSA to stop collecting the call records of attorney J.J. Little and his law firm (see 1511090049). "Given that the government’s bulk collection of telephony metadata under Section 215 will terminate in less than two weeks, thereby mooting plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive relief and the injunction entered by the district court, this court should stay the district court’s injunction pending appeal, the Monday DOJ filing said. Little and his law firm were two of the five plaintiffs in Klayman v. Obama that are seeking to end the government's spying program, saying it's unconstitutional. The government will shift to a new program on Nov. 29 but wants to continue the current telephony metadata collection until then.

The FCC and the FTC released a memorandum of understanding on their respective roles in protecting consumers in the communications sector. Both agencies posted the MOU on their websites Monday. “The memorandum is designed to formalize the existing cooperation between the agencies, outlining how the FTC and FCC will coordinate consumer protection efforts,” the FTC said in a statement. The agencies said they have had a similar MOU in place on telemarketing enforcement issues since 2003. “The FCC and the FTC will continue to work together to protect consumers from acts and practices that are deceptive, unfair, unjust and/or unreasonable,” the MOU said. They agreed to regular meetings to review current marketplace practices and their observations on the “evolution of communications markets.” The agencies committed to “coordination on agency initiatives where one agency’s action will have a significant effect on the other agency’s authority or programs” and “consultation on investigations or actions that implicate the jurisdiction of the other agency.”

USTelecom filed a legal challenge to the FCC IP technology transition decisions adopted in August that were intended to safeguard competition and consumers as telcos switch from copper-based traditional services to IP-based services over fiber networks (see 1508060044). USTelecom filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1414) against FCC orders that grew out of a 2014 FCC NPRM, declaratory ruling and subsequent USTelecom petition for reconsideration. "In the Order and Order on Reconsideration, the Commission not only denied USTelecom's petition for reconsideration of the Declaratory Ruling, but also took a number of final actions in the rulemaking it initiated in the Notice, including: adopting new rules governing the retirement of copper facilities; declaring that a carrier must seek Commission approval under § 214(a) if a change in its service will cause a wholesale customer of that carrier to discontinue, reduce, or impair its own retail service offerings; and adopting a new rule under which it will condition its approval of § 214(a) applications for certain services on the applicant's provision of a reasonably comparable, wholesale Internet Protocol service, on reasonably comparable rates, terms, and conditions," USTelecom said. Incompas General Counsel Angie Kronenberg emailed us Monday: “First, the Bells tried lobbyists. Now they will try the lawyers, but they cannot fight the future. Competition is the answer, and it’s driving new networks.” Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld emailed us: "This is not unexpected. USTA and its members have made their opposition to the FCC's order fairly clear. We believe the FCC acted entirely within the scope of its authority and in a manner reasonably calculated to protect and advance the pro-consumer and pro-competition goals of the Act -- and that the court will ultimately affirm the Commission." FCC spokesmen had no immediate comment.

Larry Klayman, chairman of Freedom Watch, requested oral argument from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after the court granted an administrative stay to the U.S. government of last week's ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. He had ordered the NSA to stop collecting the call records of attorney J.J. Little and his law firm (see 1511090049). They were two of the five plaintiffs in Klayman v. Obama. "Appellants cannot -- and should not be able to -- rely on the failed argument that it may be burdensome to avoid obeying the Constitution," wrote Klayman in his appeal.

Correction: Counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Gigi Sohn was responding to a fellow panelist's comment when she addressed divisiveness at the FCC, which she said used to occur between members of the same political party (see 1511120043).

The FCC's February decision to reclassify broadband as a common carrier service was purely political and ignored how well the Internet has done under light-handed regulation, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said Thursday in a speech to the Bill of Rights Institute’s Kansas Public Lecture in Wichita. ISPs are already spending billions of dollars less on their networks due to the new rules, he said in his remarks posted by the FCC Friday. The dynamic of what the FCC did can be simply stated, Pai said. “It means regulating broadband like the Ma Bell telephone monopoly of the 20th century or the railroads of the 19th century,” he said. “It means subjecting Internet service providers to pervasive public-utility regulation. It means putting the federal government at the center of the digital world.” The FCC’s moves on net neutrality are part of a broader administration agenda, Pai said. “It was about government control,” he said. Most people would celebrate a free-market approach to the Internet, he said. “But some disagree. They disdain a free-market approach to the Internet because they believe that every major sector of our economy should be subject to extensive government regulation. And in particular, they believe that the Internet is too big and too important not to be subject to government control.” Pai said when the FCC imposes rules on ISPs, it risks stifling investment in networks. “Broadband networks don’t have to be built,” he said. “Capital doesn’t have to be invested. Risks don’t have to be taken.” The evidence already shows lower investment, he said. “During the first six months of 2015, there was an 8 percent decrease in major U.S. broadband providers’ capital expenditures,” he said. “And numerous smaller broadband providers told the FCC earlier this year under penalty of perjury that the agency’s regulations were leading them to cut back on infrastructure investment and broadband deployment.” The rules can still reversed by a later FCC, Pai assured the audience. “I am still optimistic that these regulations’ days are numbered,” he said. “The longer that these rules are in effect, the clearer it will become that these regulations are harming competition and consumers.” Pai said his parents, who live in a small town in Kansas, have a “healthy skepticism of government.” He joked that when he got the call to be a commissioner three years ago his mother had questions. “Was being an FCC Commissioner a full-time job? Did it pay? If it didn’t work out, could I go back to being a partner at my law firm?” he said. “Thankfully, after more than three years as a commissioner, my mother is confident I won’t be moving back into my old room.”

The FCC delayed the short-form application window for the incentive auction, giving prospective auction participants extra time to sign up, said a public notice released Thursday. The window for filing a reverse auction application -- Form 177 -- will now open at noon EST Dec. 8, and close at 6 p.m. EST Jan. 12. The window for Form 175, the forward auction application, is from noon EST Jan. 26 to 6 p.m. EST Feb. 9. The reason for the extension is the release of revised opening bid numbers, the PN said. Though the FCC released opening bids for all broadcasters a few weeks ago (see 1510160065), those numbers have had to be recalculated, the PN said. Since the auction order requires broadcasters to have 60 days notice of their opening bids before the deadline for participating, the window had to be moved when those prices changed, the PN said. The revised price numbers “correct a handful of files” for accuracy, the PN said. “For 99 percent of stations, the change to the opening bid prices using the corrected data is minimal -- less than one percent.” One station, WNJU Linden, New Jersey, had its information changed because it changed locations to One World Trade Center in New York, making it the highest-priced station in the auction, displacing WCBS in that role. WCBS' opening price in the auction dropped from $900,000,000 to $888,687,000 as a result of the change, according to the PN. The changed application date won't cause other delays in the auction, an FCC official told us. The changed window doesn't affect other auction processes, and the original auction schedule was created with enough cushion to allow for such adjustments, an FCC official told us.