Comcast backs “open Internet protections similar to those” that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., outlined in legislation proposing a ban on paid prioritization deals, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen told Leahy in a letter. Leahy had asked that Comcast and other major ISPs pledge to forgo paid prioritization deals (see 1410230041). Cohen responded in a letter dated Oct. 24 that Leahy’s office released to us Thursday. Cohen reiterated his confidence that the FCC will have new net neutrality rules in place before 2018, when its net neutrality obligations enacted as a condition of Comcast's NBCUniversal acquisition will expire. The FCC should craft “stable” rules using Communications Act Section 706, Cohen said, saying reclassifying broadband under Title II would be “risky and unnecessary.” Cohen dismissed the idea of an ISP pledge. Net neutrality rules “will only be meaningful if they offer all consumers of all companies the same protections,” Cohen said. “Voluntary pledges by individual ISPs are not an adequate substitute for industry-wide rules -- whether promulgated by the FCC or enacted by Congress.”

The White House lent campaign help to Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., in his re-election bid for the 17th Congressional District seat. “Barack and I are counting on you to support Mike Honda and the Democratic ticket this November 4,” first lady Michelle Obama said in a call to voters that the Honda campaign released Thursday. “In an election this close, your vote is more important than ever before. We can’t risk having more out-of-touch folks coming to Congress just because a handful of Democratic voters stayed home.” Honda, a veteran lawmaker on the Appropriations Committee, is facing a fellow Democratic candidate next week -- Ro Khanna, an attorney who was deputy assistant secretary of commerce during Obama’s first term. Khanna has attracted the backing of many tech heavyweights in the Silicon Valley district that Honda has long represented. In their one debate, Khanna attacked Honda for not reaching across the aisle to Republicans and said he would (see 1410080037). Honda and Khanna align on many tech and telecom policy issues, such as backing strong net neutrality rules and urging overhaul of government surveillance policies. Earlier this month, the Honda campaign slammed Khanna for attacking Honda’s liberalism.

AT&T warned Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service would not give regulators the tools to ban paid prioritization, as some net neutrality advocates have recommended. Leahy has not specifically called for Title II reclassification but has long targeted paid prioritization deals and introduced legislation that would ban them. If the FCC reclassifies, “any attempt to ban paid prioritization would run headlong into decades of Title II precedent that make clear that generally available differentiated service options, including paid prioritization, are allowed,” wrote Tim McKone, AT&T executive vice president-federal relations, in a response dated Thursday. “Thus the Commission would be unable to prevent any Internet service provider that did decide to offer paid prioritization from doing so.” AT&T “has no plans to offer such capabilities to third parties,” McKone assured Leahy, referring to the possibility of entering “into arrangements with third parties to prioritize traffic over a consumer’s last mile broadband Internet connection without the knowledge and direction of the end user.” AT&T said that not all prioritization deals pose risks to consumers. Leahy had requested earlier this month that AT&T and other major ISPs pledge to forgo paid prioritization deals (see 1410230041).

NCTA released a blog post Thursday outlining why it thinks Congress must repeal the set-top box integration ban, a longtime lobbying priority the association has pursued throughout the last year. A provision repealing the ban is part of the Satellite Television Extensional and Localism Act reauthorization legislation the House approved in July as well as in the Senate Commerce Committee proposal -- “good news,” according to NCTA. The provision is the source of a fight between Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and the Commerce leaders who included it, with intense lobbyist speculation for how that battle may play out in the lame-duck session. STELA expires Dec. 31, and lawmakers hope to reauthorize the law before then. “While progress on this legislation is currently on hold because of the Congressional recess, we will continue to urge Congress to sunset this outdated FCC rule,” NCTA said. The group said it costs consumers more than $1 billion “in unnecessary costs” and wastes energy. NCTA would back “supporting CableCARDs to decrypt video signals in retail devices and in the 50 million leased devices already in service” if need be, it said. Cable operators have included more than 50 million CableCARDs as part of their set-top boxes since 2007, it said, giving rise to the blog post’s title -- “50 Million Reasons to End the Integration Ban.” NCTA said “this rule isn’t protecting third party device makers, it’s really just a burden on cable providers and customers.” TiVo has disputed NCTA's lobbying stance and argues there should be a successor standard in place before the repeal of the integration ban.

The FCC plans to deliver its Communications Act Section 257 triennial review to Congress “in the near term,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., in a letter released Thursday. “I recognize the concern you raise regarding timely reports and current data,” Wheeler said. “Since becoming Chairman, I have made it a priority to review and improve FCC processes, including our efforts to meet our statutory reporting obligations.” The agency is “actively working” on that review, Wheeler said. That section of the act refers to agency’s “mandate to identify and eliminate market-entry barriers for small businesses and entrepreneurs,” as Wheeler phrased it in the letter. Wheeler referred to his recent testimony before the House Small Business Committee and the efforts the agency has taken to address diversity issues in the media and wireless spaces. The commission's last 257 triennial report, the 2009 report, was issued in March 2011.

The FCC is “looking closely” at hybrid approaches to net neutrality legal authority, combining Communications Act Section 706 and Title II, Chairman Tom Wheeler told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and other lawmakers in a response released Thursday. “All options remain on the table, including Title II.” As part of the net neutrality roundtables, “we have heard views of experts on all sides of the issue, along with real-time input from the public,” Wheeler said. “A cross-Commission staff team is hard at work reviewing the many comments filed over the last four months.” Wyden is a strong backer of Title II reclassification.

Ritter Communications has begun lobbying Congress to revive the broadcaster-reviled broadcast a la carte proposal known as Local Choice. The company, a member of NTCA, has customers in Arkansas and Tennessee. Vice President-External Affairs John Strode spoke in a two-minute video touting Local Choice, as Ritter also asked customers to reach out to the Senate in support of such legislation. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., introduced the proposal this fall and initially tried to attach it to Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization. They ended those plans after broadcaster outrage. Thune wants to fight to enact Local Choice next year, he has said. “Since the price is hidden from you, [broadcasters] can charge higher and higher prices, and boy, do they,” Strode said of retransmission consent fees. Strode said TV blackouts are now “happening more and more frequently. ... We support a simple solution called Local Choice. … That kind of free market would be best for everybody.” Strode pointed out that Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., sits on a relevant committee of jurisdiction: “Let him and other lawmakers know that you’re a TV consumer and you’re for Local Choice.” The “Ritter On Your Side” website contains a form letter consumers can use, directed at the Senate and allowing consumers to say whether they are from Arkansas or Tennessee. “Congress should restrain abusive programming and retransmission consent practices and give my cable company the flexibility to offer a range of programming, allowing me to choose the tiers of services I want and not choose expensive channels I don’t watch or want, like expensive sports channels,” the form letter said. “Please join the fight to change outdated, unfair federal laws and regulations, and help me to stop these harmful programming tying and bundling practices. I urge Congress to begin rewriting communications laws immediately to better protect me, the consumer.” The form letter also urged lawmakers “to tell the FCC that you will hold it accountable for protecting consumers by finishing rulemakings on retransmission consent, media ownership and program access.” Ritter’s home page also prominently said TV consumers deserve Local Choice. Broadcasters argued forcefully that Local Choice would wreak havoc on their business models and unfairly singles out broadcasters.

Verizon dismissed fears of paid prioritization as “demagoguery,” responding to a letter from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Last week, Leahy requested pledges against paid prioritization from Verizon as well as AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast and Time Warner Cable (see 1410230041). “Unfortunately, the fever pitch over ‘paid prioritization’ and ‘fast lanes’ among advocates of greater Internet regulation is just demagoguery since no major ISP has expressed an interest in offering ‘paid prioritization’ and all agree that the FCC has a valid legal path to prohibit it,” Verizon General Counsel Randal Milch told Leahy in a letter Wednesday. “Verizon has no plans to engage in paid prioritization of Internet traffic.” He emphasized that paid prioritization is “theoretical” and a “phantasm,” without any history of an ISP even laying out the business case for crafting such deals. Milch bashed Title II reclassification and emphasized the FCC’s path to target paid prioritization deals under Communications Act Section 706. Verizon railed against Title II and restrictive regulation generally. “For example, some net neutrality advocates have attacked new business models, such as sponsored data or ‘zero-rating,’ that would save money for consumers,” Milch said. “Under these nascent arrangements, content providers could voluntarily agree to pick up the tab for usage-charges when consumers go to their sites. Or in other instances, such as T-Mobile’s Music Freedom plans, in order to differentiate its service a broadband provider could decide not to charge usage for certain types of traffic.” It would be “regressive” to ban potential “pro-consumer practices,” he said.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., worries the FCC’s proposed $10 million fine against TerraCom and YourTel America (see 1410240055) lacks “an appropriate deterrent effect,” he told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Tuesday. That proposed fine “may be seen merely as the cost of business to these carriers,” Nelson said. “Accordingly, I would urge the Commission to use all available authorities and penalties -- up to and including a revocation of the right to participate in the Lifeline program or provide other telecommunications services -- for companies that willfully fail to protect the PII [personally identifiable information] or other sensitive information of consumers.” Nelson praised the FCC for taking action against the companies and believes it has authority to do so. Nelson is widely expected to be the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee in the next Congress.

Scores of NTCA members spent Tuesday lobbing Capitol Hill offices on various priorities. They were in town for NTCA’s Telecom Executive Policy Summit. “After hearing yesterday from leading policymakers like FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly and FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen, followed by conversations with key stakeholders from the telecom, education and public interest sectors, more than 100 NTCA members fanned out today for meetings across Capitol Hill,” NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Michael Romano told us Tuesday. “In these meetings, NTCA members hope to convey the importance of near-term, targeted updates to essential universal service cost recovery mechanisms, the value of leveraging existing rural networks to serve critical public policy initiatives and the need to address outdated video content rules that hinder consumer choice and undermine broadband deployment and adoption.” NTCA members also joined the White House Rural Council for a meeting Tuesday to consider the Smart Rural Community Initiative, NTCA said in a news release. The event included remarks from executives heading the North Central Telephone Cooperative, Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative and Blue Valley Tele-Communications. “Expanding telecommunications is a central component of this administration's comprehensive effort to build jobs and economic security in rural America,” said Doug McKalip, White House Domestic Policy Council senior policy adviser-rural affairs, in a statement.