The key issue in any FCC preemption of state anti-municipal broadband laws is whether Telecom Act Section 706 would give the agency that authority, said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood by email Monday: “It doesn’t so much matter whether the Commission takes up that debate in the Open Internet or Technology Transitions proceeding.” Wood was responding to FCC plans to take up anticompetitive state bans and other barriers to broadband competition as part of the “managerial framework” to deal with issues around the IP transition (CD April 29 p3). It will not be included in the draft rulemaking on net neutrality rules. “The FCC has a lot of big issues to tackle, but the central question is whether it has authority over broadband communications networks,” said Wood. “The answer is the same in each case: Title II is the best and strongest authority for any meaningful FCC effort to prevent discrimination, promote competition and ensure the availability of affordable services for everyone."

Telecom customers “care very deeply” about personal information contained in their customer records, Public Knowledge told the FCC Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/S72QUv). “The FCC must clarify what constitutes individually identifiable [customer proprietary network information], and that individually identifiable CPNI includes non-aggregate customer information that has been ‘de-identified,'” PK said. “When Congress created Section 222 of the Communications Act, it did not do so with the intention that telecommunications carriers decide for themselves what constitutes individually identifiable customer proprietary network information ... and what does not.” The FCC should define individually identifiable CPNI “broadly,” PK said. “Once consumers have suffered the harm of having highly personal information about themselves released, that harm can never be undone.”

Fifth, and final, FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny began her new role Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1lpVPIT). After months of stalling since President Barack Obama said he would nominate her (CD June 24 p12), the Senate finally voted to confirm McSweeny April 9 by a 95-1 vote (CD April 10 p29). FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said of McSweeny: “Her considerable experience in the law and public policy will be an asset to the agency as it continues to pursue its missions of protecting consumers and promoting competition.” McSweeny comes to the FTC from the Department of Justice, where she was chief counsel for competition policy and intergovernmental relations.

Defense Department Chief Information Officer Teri Takai will leave the department at the end of the week, a DOD spokesman confirmed Monday. Takai took the job in 2010 and is widely seen as a key government official as carriers promote greater sharing of federal spectrum in some bands and clearing others to be sold at auction. No successor was named, the spokesman said. Takai also is on the FirstNet board. She’s formerly CIO of the states of California and Michigan.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act “was completely outdated” within “six months” of its original passage, said Secretary of State John Kerry at the Freedom Online Coalition conference in Tallinn, Estonia. As a senator at the time, “I helped write the law,” he said. “I actually remember distinctly when we wrote that law,” lawmakers were focusing on “telephony,” he said. That makes the law “inadequate” for today’s landscape, he said, without giving specifics. An update to that law is needed to help establish the “open, interoperable and inclusive Internet” that the U.S. and many countries desire. “Now we face a choice about how we organize ourselves as societies,” he said. “The choice is a choice between those who demand dignity and respect for rights and those who are prepared to deny it.”

The North American Numbering Council (NANC) submitted its recommendation for Local Number Portability Administrator to the FCC Wireline Bureau Thursday (http://bit.ly/1rrOjNB). A cover letter posted Friday said its recommendation was attached as an “accompanying letter.” That accompanying letter was not posted publicly. The cover letter confirms that NANC members agreed on the LNPA selection at its closed March 26 meeting. It also confirms that NANC responded to “all claims of potential unfairness,” including the claim that a bidder “has obtained confidential, non-public information about its competitive standing and price relative to other bidders.” Industry observers and attorneys have speculated that current LNPA Neustar learned its bid was far higher than competitor Telcordia. A Neustar spokesman has denied that allegation (CD Feb 7 p9). NANC also reviewed whether there had been any attempts to influence NANC representatives, and documented “irregularities” it had found, it said. The information in NANC’s attached letter should be exempted from any Freedom of Information Act requests under Section (b)(4), which protects “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person,” NANC said. The working group’s report to NANC on claims of potential unfairness should also be exempt from FOIA requests, the letter said, as well as any vendor selection process reports and associated documents.

Netflix again hammered away at the prospect of Comcast buying Time Warner Cable, this time in a response to Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. Franken last week had asked Netflix what it thought of the deal, and on Monday, Netflix announced it opposed the deal. “The proposed merger will result in online video content providers paying higher prices for access to Comcast customers or delivering poorer service to customers who depend on Comcast for broadband access,” Netflix Vice President-Global Public Policy Christopher Libertelli said in the letter to Franken (http://bit.ly/QIXQUV), dated Wednesday and released Thursday. “Ultimately, competition and consumers will suffer.” He questioned Comcast’s assertions at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the deal, particularly regarding the paid peering agreement between Netflix and Comcast announced earlier this year. “Netflix agreed to paid peering with Comcast to reverse an unacceptable decline in our members’ video experience,” Libertelli said. “Netflix developed an entire CDN [content delivery network] architecture, called ‘Open Connect’ based on settlement- free peering. This no- fee interconnection norm avoids the gamesmanship and blackouts that plague cable carriage and retransmission-consent negotiations in the traditional video space.” He said the paid peering agreement “is the first time that Netflix was forced to pay an ISP for what amounts to access to their subscribers.” He doubted many Americans have any “meaningful choice” in broadband providers. Comcast has insisted that the video marketplace is quite competitive and that its proposed deal would not hurt but in fact help consumers. It questioned the substance of Netflix’s opposition at length in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1hqw3mr) earlier this week.

Many broadcasters still have a very negative view of the planned TV incentive auction, Preston Padden, executive director of the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, said at a Mobile Future forum Thursday. (See related story in this issue.) “The only way I believe the FCC is going to punch through the negativity that’s out there is by signaling a financial guidance to the broadcasters as to what kind of starting prices they can expect to see in this auction and they need to do that now,” he said. “They can’t wait.” Padden said the auction offers big opportunities for broadcasters. “If you're lucky enough to own a station in a market, the few markets where the FCC will be looking to buy spectrum, and the commission comes in and offers you 10 or nine or eight times what your station is worth as a television station, the only sensible thing to do is sell,” he said. “If you want to stay in the industry go out and buy yourself … stations to replace the one you sold or move up in markets, you don’t have to leave the business.” Padden said members of his group raised concerns with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a meeting last week (CD April 21 p1). “The chairman was very open and direct,” Padden said. “I think of the five issues we raised he said what we wanted to hear on about four and a half.” For example, members asked Wheeler about something he had reportedly said to a station broker that the FCC “could get all the stations … needed in New York for a total price that implied a completely unrealistically low payment,” Padden said. “The chairman’s response when we put that number out to him was a single word that roughly equates to bovine excrement."

The FCC will take up a report and order providing a “limited expansion” of the class of wireless microphone users eligible for a license under FCC rules, the commission said Thursday. As expected, the agency is also set to vote on a net neutrality NPRM, services rules for the TV incentive auction and spectrum aggregation rules in what is shaping up to be a massive meeting for the agency.

Net neutrality will be a focus of the FCC May 15 meeting, Chairman Tom Wheeler confirmed Wednesday. As expected (CD April 23 p4), Wheeler plans to circulate a NPRM on the issue Thursday, he told reporters in a Q&A session after Wednesday’s commission open meeting. (See separate reports above in this issue.) The net neutrality redux comes three months after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the agency’s 2010 rules, finding them too close to prohibited common-carriage requirements. The NPRM will be consistent with the framework Wheeler laid out in February, an FCC official said, following the “blueprint” of the court opinion. Wheeler said then (CD Feb 20 p1) that he intended to enhance the transparency rule, and ensure ISPs don’t unfairly block or discriminate against Web services. Consideration of using Title II authority remains on the table, Wheeler said then. The D.C. Circuit decision gave the agency broad authority to regulate under Communications Act Section 706, and Wheeler has frequently indicated he would accept the court’s “invitation” to regulate.