CEA, CTIA and the Telecommunications Industry Association criticized NAB’s court challenge of the incentive auction order (CD Aug 19 p1), in emailed statements Tuesday. CTIA “would prefer to work together collaboratively to address NAB’s concerns rather than resort to litigation,” said Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann, though he said he was hopeful the court and NAB would work for an expedited result. The petition for review “has the potential to significantly disrupt the FCC’s plans, and the wireless industry’s ability to access much needed radio spectrum,” said TIA President Grant Seiffert. “Consumers don’t win if industries lawyer up and go to battle in court.” The NAB court filing is “discouraging,” said CEA President Gary Shapiro. “Litigating against the incentive auction undermines and delays innovation."

USTelecom slammed Free Press in a Friday blog post for its arguments in favor of reclassifying broadband as a Title II service. Reclassification “would create unambiguously negative pressures on broadband provider investment that would not exist absent reclassification,” wrote Patrick Brogan, USTelecom industry analyst (http://bit.ly/1nX9zbp). Imposing common carrier regulation on broadband “seems unnecessarily risky and potentially counterproductive for policy goals dependent on more investment, such as expanding deployment to all parts of the country and enhancing U.S. global competitiveness,” he wrote. “The post is full of mischaracterizations, and it still doesn’t hang together,” Free Press fired back in an email. “Getting the Facts Wrong might be a better title for it.” Free Press isn’t interested just in the “investment choices” of a few telcos, the group said. Internet freedom is good for the entire economy. “Avoiding common carriage principles and giving ISPs the green light to discriminate certainly is not going to promote investment by anyone —- neither the edge companies, nor the network providers who'd be able to profit from artificial scarcity in a world of access tolls,” Free Press said.

The FCC gave the public an extra five days, three business days, to file net neutrality reply comments (http://bit.ly/1t37W2o). The new deadline is Sept. 15. The FCC explained Friday that when original comments were due in July, it accepted “as timely filed” comments for an extra three business days after FCC servers had problems keeping up with the flood. The reply deadline is extended by the same amount of time.

Neustar responded to a Telcordia letter asking why Neustar redacted 14 pages of comments filed at the FCC last month citing national security concerns, saying the redactions “reflected the Commission’s cautious approach” on such issues. The filing was posted by the FCC Thursday in docket 95-116 (http://bit.ly/1qanVGY). The Telcordia letter was posted Wednesday (CD Aug 14 p1). Neustar and Telcordia are disputing which the FCC will designate as the Local Number Portability Administrator for the U.S. “Neustar is fully prepared to work with Commission staff to make more information available to the public, while ensuring that security concerns are adequately addressed,” the company said.

The FCC Technological Advisory Council will meet Sept. 23, 1-4 p.m. EDT, at the agency’s headquarters in the Commission Meeting Room, the regulator said Thursday in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1t4kNR0).

AT&T requested a rulemaking to amend FCC rules for the C and D blocks of the Wireless Communications Services (WCS) in the 2.3 GHz band. Mobile and portable stations should not be permitted to transmit in the 2315-2320 MHz and 2345-2350 MHz bands, “except that avionics stations may transmit in the 2315-2320 MHz band,” it said in a petition posted Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1sDuvMr). It suggested many other amendments on out-of-band-emissions limits, avionics stations and “specific requirements for coordination with Sirius XM,” it said. The amendments will allow AT&T to use its C and D blocks of spectrum for the air-to-ground component of its planned LTE-based in-flight connectivity service for airlines and passengers, it said. Adopting the proposals will put the WCS C and D blocks to use “in support of an innovative service and without causing harmful interference to adjacent bands,” it said.

The latest evidence from Europe suggests the FCC needs to impose net neutrality rules against blocking and application-specific discrimination, said Stanford Law School professor Barbara van Schewick in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1vHRXu1). “We also discussed how allowing ISPs to charge providers of applications, content and services for access to end users or for enhanced or prioritized access to end users (including paid prioritization and zero-rating) would change the economic environment for innovation and investment in Internet applications, content and services,” van Schewick said. The filing was posted Wednesday by the FCC in docket 14-28.

Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps and Free Press CEO Craig Aaron formally sought a meeting with President Barack Obama to raise concerns about the FCC’s net neutrality proposal. The proposal, approved by the FCC May 15, will “undermine Net Neutrality and imperil the future of the open Internet,” their Wednesday letter to Obama said (http://bit.ly/1mJMLwm). “The proposal would permit Internet service providers to bifurcate the network into fast lanes for the few who can pay and slow lanes for the rest of us.” Giving gatekeepers control over how information is accessed “makes a mockery of the dynamic nature of the Internet, stifles innovation, and jeopardizes our civic dialogue,” they said. The two said they're well aware the president is busy and they did not take lightly the step of seeking a meeting. “Our nation’s Internet future is on the line, and a wrong decision now will inflict irreparable damage to a platform that is central to our economic and social progress,” they said. “We request a meeting to discuss how to solidify open Internet protections.” Copps, a Democrat and member of the FCC from 2001 to 2011, heads the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause and is a member of the Free Press board. He was interim chair of the FCC at the beginning of the Obama administration.

A five-year program dedicated to paying for internal E-rate connect requests from schools should enable coverage of 10.5 million students in funding year 2015, compared with 3.8 million students without the multiyear program, said an FCC staff report released Tuesday. The FCC approved its E-rate modernization at its July open meeting (CD July 14 p1). The order will provide $1 billion annually for the next five years for Wi-Fi connections within schools and libraries. The report was authored by staff of the Wireline Bureau and the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis (http://bit.ly/1uoRcod). The FCC asked interested parties to comment on the data in the report as part of broader comments in docket 13-184 on a Further NPRM on the E-rate program (http://bit.ly/1kcJUAy).

Officials from the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute urged the FCC to reclassify broadband as a Title II service, in a meeting with FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet, said a filing posted by the FCC Tuesday. A “bounded, narrow approach under Title II would offer greater certainty and clarity for all stakeholders, and provides the soundest legal basis for strong open Internet protections,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/1AbuRL1) in docket 14-28. OTI also noted the international implications for U.S. publishers and edge providers if the FCC doesn’t clamp down on paid prioritization. “If the US codifies paid prioritization, almost certainly near-monopoly last-mile providers in other countries will quickly seek to extract additional fees from US companies,” the group said.