The FCC Enforcement Bureau (EB) said it's adopting new procedures for addressing industry and public safety complaints. The bureau said the FCC will launch a new portal for those otherwise unable to resolve interference complaints. “Once operational, the complaint intake system should allow such complainants to receive immediate confirmation of the FCC’s receipt of their complaints, as well as permit them to track the status of their complaints within the FCC,” the bureau said Thursday. The system will automatically transfer complaint information from the Web portal to the bureau’s case management database, “accelerating investigations and reducing the possibility of human error,” the bureau said. FCC field offices will contact complainants raising high-priority issues within a single calendar day, the bureau said. Low-priority complaints will receive an initial response within five business days of filing. “The public safety/industry interference complaint escalation process will improve complainants’ ability to stay informed of the status of their complaint,” the bureau said. “This process also will enable public safety/industry stakeholders to develop mutually beneficial relationships with the EB field agents in their area.” In July, the FCC approved a plan reorganizing Enforcement Bureau field offices, which includes shutting some of the offices (see 1507160036).

Ex-Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., will stop writing about cable and Internet issues in The Boston Globe due to conflict of interest concerns, Media Matters said Tuesday. It cited a blog post by Dan Kennedy, a Northeastern University journalism professor, who said that Globe Editorial Page Editor Ellen Clegg told him an understanding had been reached with Sununu that he would "not write about cable and Internet access." Sununu is a Time Warner Cable board member and an honorary co-chairman of Broadband for America, which Media Matters says is backed by broadband providers and the NCTA. Media Matters criticized the paper for allowing Sununu to complain about Internet regulation "without disclosing he has been paid over $750,000 by broadband interests." Broadband for America, the Globe's Clegg and Sununu didn't immediately comment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against the FTC in the agency’s case against the nonprofit organization Action, which had filed three Freedom of Information Act requests and said it should be exempt from paying the costs associated with the requests, said court documents released Tuesday. Judge Merrick Garland wrote the opinion for the court, on behalf of Judges Janice Brown and David Sentelle, and said Action’s claims it’s exempt from covering the costs of the FOIA requests were “not moot” because the information is in the public’s interest and the records aren't for commercial use. “The case must be remanded for reconsideration in light of the entire administrative record and our clarification of the standards for FOIA fee waivers,” said the ruling. The FTC didn’t comment.

The White House plans to unveil a broadband report and recommendations Sept. 21, said Jeffrey Zients, director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, in a blog post. Zients said Obama had created the Broadband Opportunity Council and directed all federal agencies "to think creatively and develop new ways to promote broadband investment, deployment, and competition." The White House has received the agency input, and Sept. 21 "will share a formal report and recommendations to improve broadband across the country," Zients said Friday. The BOC also received comments from other interested parties in June (see 1506120049).

Correction: The Prison Policy Initiative's stance on commission payments by correctional facilities to inmate calling service providers is that those payments shouldn't increase the cost of phone calls (see 1501280036).

The FCC IP technology transition order is unlikely to be shot down if challenged in court, said attorney Douglas Bonner of Womble Carlyle, who represents telecom, cable and VoIP companies in commission proceedings and related litigation. "I don't see obvious grounds for the FCC to be overturned," said Bonner, speaking Tuesday on a Law Seminars International telebriefing on the FCC's IP technology transition order. He said the commission "tried hard to at least balance the interests" of CLEC and ILEC stakeholders, and had substantial discretion under the court's Chevron standard, which defers to reasonable agency decisions when interpreting ambiguous statutory provisions. Section 214 of the Communications Act, which governs telecom service discontinuances and was a basis for much of the order, "delegates a great deal of authority to the FCC to act," he said. Bennett Ross, a Wiley Rein attorney who represents telecom carriers, manufacturers and others, said, "Unfortunately, the D.C. Circuit doesn't always hold the FCC to a rigorous standard in justifying its reasoning." He suggested the court often gives FCC explanations too much deference under Chevron. Both Bonner and Ross said they didn't know if there would be a legal challenge. Ross voiced concern that the FCC's order would slow the IP transition by introducing new layers of inter-related and sometimes imprecise notification and discontinuance regulation as ILECs look to retire "antiquated" copper networks and withdraw or modify related services or their rates, terms and conditions. The FCC order aims to ensure, among other things, that competitors continue to have affordable access to wholesale broadband and voice services as incumbents migrate to IP-based services over fiber networks (see 1508060044). "I think the competitors, CLECs, got much of what they wanted," Bonner said.

The FCC should hold multiple mock auctions in advance of the incentive auction, and hold them early enough to allow stakeholders to suggest changes, CTIA said Monday in a letter to Incentive Auction Task Force heads Gary Epstein and Howard Symons. “The most logical approach would be to conduct multiple mock auctions in the time leading up to the actual incentive auction” to let auction participants become familiar with auction software and the data they will receive, CTIA said. “A single mock auction will not provide interested stakeholders the opportunity to fully understand the novel incentive auction process.” The association instead wants three mock auctions, one held two months out from the auction start, one a month away, and one a week before the incentive auction begins. The mock auctions should include extended phases so the parties involved can become familiar with them, and the FCC should release examples of items such as bidding reports ahead of the mock auctions, CTIA said. The agency should release “example data” that would include “broadcast station impairments including broadcaster call sign, cell grid impairment data, impairment levels for particular forward auction license blocks (Category 1 and Category 2 information), information about international border impairments (at the cell grid level for both Canadian and Mexican impairments), and all other impairment data that the FCC intends to provide bidders,” CTIA said. “Mock auctions are a form of a soft-launch with actual users that provide feedback that would allow the FCC and auction bidders to uncover any needed adjustments prior to actual auction start,” said the letter to be posted in docket 12-268.

The FCC will have working email during its upcoming six-day IT outage over Labor Day weekend (see 1508200049), an FCC spokesman told us. Though some media had reported that the commission’s email would be down while the system is being upgraded, the spokesman told us that wouldn't be the case because the email recently was transitioned to the cloud. The FCC’s office voicemail will be down, but individual staff BlackBerry phones will still have operating voicemail, the spokesman said.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn again pointed to Telecom Act Section 257 on diversity, this time in a blog post Friday after the Office of Communications Business Opportunities fourth supplier diversity conference held the day before (see 1508200034) and where she appeared. The section tasks the FCC with identifying and removing barriers of entry for small businesses in the provision of parts and services to communications companies. Clyburn said both of the conference's panels "were inspiring and enlightening," and lauded A Unity System CEO Tonee Bell for his presentation to other small-business suppliers. Bell's company manufactures computers and smartwatches and recently landed a contract to supply his devices to Walmart, he said Thursday.

Blacked-out Washington state ABC affiliates KVEW Kennewick and KXLY-TV Spokane are back on Dish Network during the wildfire emergency in that state, Dish said Thursday. The stations were among four owned by Morgan Murphy Media that have been blacked out on Dish since Aug. 13 while the two companies are at loggerheads in retransmission consent talks (see 1508180065). In a statement, Warren Schlichting, Dish senior vice president-programming, said, "Now is the time to set aside business and give Dish customers access to local news and information as Washington battles fires in many parts of the state."