Early 2016 may still be too ambitious of a schedule for the TV incentive auction, Credit Suisse said Wednesday in a research report. “Given the forward and reverse structure of the Incentive auction, it is the most complicated of the spectrum auctions so far,” the firm said. “These complications in addition to the broadcasters' challenges are likely to delay the auction further, in our opinion.” The FCC recently delayed the auction's start to early 2016 (see 1410240048). Mid-2016 seems more likely, the firm said. Credit Suisse also said there is a “moderate chance” the FCC will opt for a “full blown” Title II Communications Act reclassification of broadband. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “could look to apply Title II or some form of Title II to broadband services, but will face much less of a challenge if he can find some middle ground with the broadband providers,” the firm said.

Regulators shared several concerns at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference last week in Busan, South Korea, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a Friday blog post. Wheeler and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly attended the conference, FCC officials said. “Virtually every regulator emphasized how important it is to get broadband to rural and remote areas of their countries -- to promote economic development, education and effective healthcare,” Wheeler wrote. “They understand that broadband access can unlock the potential for individuals to prosper in their local communities instead of migrating to urban centers in search of a better quality of life.” Another shared concern is “the difficulty of freeing spectrum for more efficient uses,” he said. “African countries, for example, are facing a 2015 deadline for their DTV transition, and we had several lively conversations on the ‘lessons learned’ from our experience just a few years ago.” A third concern is how to change regulation as part of the move away from a circuit-switched world, Wheeler said. “There was a lot of interest in the tech transitions activities underway at the FCC.”

The FCC should complete its proceeding on updating the competitive bidding rules and policies for designated entities to give them time to get ready for the incentive auction, said the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council in an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-28 Friday. The FCC should finish the proceeding “efficiently," so DEs have time to "finalize their business plans and raise the necessary capital for participation, as mandated by Congress, prior to the incentive auction,” MMTC said.

The “complex nature” of Mozilla’s net neutrality proposal to classify broadband as a telecom service for edge providers “could create unexpected difficulties for enforcement" but should not disqualify it from consideration, Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld and Vice President Michael Weinberg told FCC Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan at a meeting Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1simO8r), said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 14-28. Any user-controlled prioritization “should truly be the result of user decisions and control, and should not involve payment from edge providers to ISPs for prioritization,” Public Knowledge said. Allowing a regulated service such as voice phone calling to operate within a specific specialized service could be permissible under strong open Internet rules, but would have to continue to operate under existing regulatory protections, they said. The commission doesn't necessarily have to address potential abuses under interconnection agreements, but open Internet rules should recognize the possibility and begin to take steps to address them, they said. The Mozilla petition is “legally riskier” than straightforward Communications Act Title II reclassification because it relies on untested definitions and relationships between ISPs and users, said Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, at a meeting Monday that included Feld, Weinberg and an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1sYNRJI) posted in the same docket. It said OTI and Public Knowledge said Title II reclassification with forbearance is the “soundest, clearest path forward.”

The FCC released an order at our deadline Friday that eliminates the Dec. 31, 2016, deadline for public safety licensees using 700 MHz narrowband spectrum to transition their radio systems from 12.5 kHz channel bandwidth technology to 6.25 kHz technology (http://fcc.us/1wmI1py). The order also redesignates the channels in the 700 MHz band that are currently licensed for secondary trucking operations as available for public safety aircraft voice operations. The FCC’s order allows voice operations on Data Interoperability Channels on a secondary basis and reallocates the Reserve Channels on the narrowband into General Use Channels. The order also gives T-Band public safety licensees priority for licensing of the former Reserve Channels in T-Band areas. The FCC encouraged manufacturers of 700 MHz public safety radios to obtain Compliance Assessment Program certification for new equipment to demonstrate the equipment meets P25 interoperability standards. APCO had urged the FCC in August to make a “rapid” decision whether to eliminate the Dec. 31, 2016, deadline (see 1408150028). FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson said during an FCBA event prior to the order's release that "we should have a resolution" on the deadline issue.

AT&T isn't concerned about the FCC Media Bureau decision Wednesday to stop the shot clock on its review of the telco's plan to buy DirecTV (see 1410220058), AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Wednesday on a call with analysts. “We’re still optimistic about the transaction,” Stephens said. “The stopping of the clock is not an uncommon or rare experience and it has something to do with other issues than the benefit of our deal or the merits of our deal.” AT&T still anticipates approval of the deal in the “originally announced one year kind of time frame,” he said. The companies unveiled the deal in May. AT&T earnings came in at 63 cents per share in Q3, a penny below analyst estimates, the carrier said. Net income fell 21 percent from the same quarter last year on higher operating expenses. Revenue was $32.9 billion in the quarter, a 2.5 percent increase over the previous year. Wireless made up 56 percent of total revenue, AT&T said. Headed into the AWS-3 auction, AT&T reported $3.5 billion in free cash flow. The company added 785,000 postpaid subscribers, more than twice as many as in Q3 last year. Connected device net adds were 1,275,000, which includes more than 500,000 connected cars, AT&T said (http://soc.att.com/1t70QuJ).

Correction: What the FCC Media Bureau shared with eighth-floor officials (see 1410220044) was information about a draft NPRM on broadening the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor, not the draft itself, which hasn't circulated, a commission spokeswoman said.

The incentive auction is “interesting” to broadcasters even if the values for stations involved are half the amounts projected in the FCC’s Greenhill & Co. price estimates (see 1410020029), said Meredith Local Media Group President Paul Karpowicz on Meredith’s earnings call Thursday. Though Karpowicz said he believed the auction would happen “no question,” Meredith CEO Stephen Lacy said he doubted the auction would happen during his working career and he wouldn’t hold his breath waiting for “bags of money” from the auction to come to Meredith. According to Karpowicz, the Greenhill estimates show a Meredith station in Phoenix as worth in the auction a fraction of the value of another Meredith station in Springfield, Massachusetts. Phoenix at No. 12 is a much bigger Nielsen market than the designated market area including Springfield (http://bit.ly/1xenP5R).

Section 706 would give the FCC authority to prohibit paid prioritization, as long as providers have “the flexibility to enter into other forms of individualized or differentiated arrangements with other edge providers,” Michael Glover, Verizon's senior vice president-deputy general counsel, Craig Silliman, senior vice president-public policy; and William Johnson, vice president-associate general counsel, told members of the commission’s general counsel’s office and the Wireline Bureau Oct. 15, according to an ex parte filing made available to us Friday but not yet posted Monday in docket 14-28. A 706 strategy would also limit “the universe of parties who could potentially challenge” the commission’s authority, while a Title II course “would be subject to significant legal challenges,” Verizon argued. Reinterpreting Section 706 to apply common carriage regulation to broadband Internet access would have “far-reaching consequences,” because a “wide range of Internet services” -- including streaming video, VoIP services and search engines also incorporate a telecommunications component, Verizon said.

Little will be known about the level of broadcaster participation in the TV incentive auction until the auction actually takes place, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday during a news conference after the commission's open meeting. "This is a marketplace that we're talking about here," he said. "We're creating a marketplace. We're trying to provide information that's relevant to that marketplace so that people can make decisions." Wheeler declined to say whether any incentive auction-related items will be on the agenda for the November meeting. The FCC is sticking with the "agenda" for the auction established by the FCC right after he took office, Wheeler said.