House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., told a California crowd Tuesday that she'll battle for net neutrality rules. “As we meet here today to discuss the merits and methods of networking your businesses with the global marketplace, I want you to know that I'm fighting in Washington to ensure that the rug isn’t pulled out from under you,” Eshoo said at the Facebook Fit Small Business Workshop in Menlo Park, according to prepared remarks. “To compete and grow your small business, the free and open Internet must remain just that -- free and open.” She praised the role of small businesses and the “serious mojo” of Silicon Valley in that regard. “It’s hard to believe that it was just a few short years ago that Facebook was a small business,” Eshoo said. “But thanks in part to the power of a free and open Internet, Facebook has thrived.” The Internet is the “backbone of what will help your business flourish” and “knocks down barriers that have traditionally made it difficult to compete,” she said.

Daniel Lyons, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy, pushed back against the “rhetoric” of House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., in attacking usage-based pricing last week (CD July 30 p13). Eshoo had focused on the preliminary findings of a GAO study she requested and criticized the data caps practice, associating it with net neutrality violations. “It is worthwhile to review what the GAO actually said, and to set the record straight on the issue of usage-based pricing,” Lyons said in an AEI blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/1otNqpt). “There is nothing inherently anticompetitive about usage-based broadband pricing. Rather, it is one of many potential pricing strategies by which a broadband provider can distribute its fixed costs across its customer base.” The GAO preliminary findings offered no definitive look at the practice either way, he said, parsing the results.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, lampooned the Marketplace Fairness Act (HR-684) as merely a tool to “hold hostage” a vote on the Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act (ITFFA) (S-1431), which would permanently ban taxes on Internet access, on the Senate floor Thursday (http://bit.ly/1m5Y6Xc). The MFA would allow states to tax remote sellers with revenue exceeding $1 million. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked the Senate to consider S-2735 (http://1.usa.gov/1AI37ii), which would extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes (due to expire Nov. 1) another two months through 2014 (http://1.usa.gov/1qQ5DRw) (CD Aug 1 p9). Wyden is the original sponsor of ITFFA, which has 52 Senate co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/1jRXTeE). Cruz and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., objected to S-2735. The two-month extension would allow the Internet access tax moratorium to expire in a “lame duck” session of Congress, said Cruz: “We shouldn’t be holding the Internet hostage to the rapacious desire of tax collectors.” TechAmerica, state tech councils and industry groups expressed support for S-1431, in a Thursday letter (http://bit.ly/WRIL7e) to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The FCC’s sports blackout rule is “obsolete,” said Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y. The FCC will “vote finally at the end of this year” on the issue, but the National Football League has the final say, Higgins said on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators slated for telecast Saturday. He was one of three House lawmakers pressing for changes to communications law in separate interviews. Congress has “leverage,” however, with Higgins’ legislation (HR-3452) removing the NFL’s antitrust exemption for blackouts. “The economics all point to the elimination of the blackout rule,” Higgins said. Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, criticized the set-top box integration ban and said he hopes the Senate includes a provision repealing it in its version of legislation reauthorizing the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, as the House did in July. He also slammed the possibility of Title II reclassification of broadband: “All of a sudden innovation’s going to slow up,” Latta mused of the scenario. “We don’t want that to happen.” Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., made the case for less regulation in various instances, such as in the video space and at the FCC. He emphasized that traditional TV service is different from watching a Netflix movie on a phone. “The FCC will ultimately have to side with the consumers who do not want regulation of the Internet,” Gardner said of net neutrality. The proposed overhaul of the Communications Act “needs to be done,” Gardner added, stressing a focus on less regulation.

Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., introduced a bill Thursday “to prohibit universal service support of commercial mobile service and commercial mobile data service through the Lifeline program,” according to the longer title for HR-5376. The bill text is not yet online nor has Scott issued a news release on the legislation. It was referred to the Commerce Committee, where Scott is not a member. A spokeswoman for Scott was unable to provide the text or further details by our deadline.

President Barack Obama signed a cellphone unlocking bill into law Friday, at a signing ceremony for the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (S-517) in the Oval Office, according to his schedule. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted that the bill was signed shortly after the scheduled event was to have begun and said it “proves the power of public petition.” The House and Senate approved the final version of the legislation in July. “The most important part of this joint effort is that it will have a real impact,” said a White House blog post Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1sazX6H), written by bill author Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and National Economic Council Director Jeff Zients. “As long as their phone is compatible and they have complied with their contracts, consumers will now be able to enjoy the freedom of taking their mobile service -- and a phone they already own -- to the carrier that best fits their needs.” They said this is the first law directly emanating from a We the People petition to the White House. CTIA applauded the signing. “Even though the vast majority of Americans enjoy upgrading to new devices once their contract terms are fulfilled, we recognize that some consumers may want to unlock their devices to move to another carrier,” CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter said in a statement. “Like the voluntary commitment CTIA’s carriers entered into last December, this bill enables that process. Users should keep in mind unlocked does not necessarily mean interoperable, as carrier platforms and spectrum holdings vary.” Public Knowledge staff attorney Laura Moy also praised the signing: “As a result, competition in the wireless market will improve,” she said in a statement. “In addition, there will be more free and low-cost secondhand phones available on the secondary market. This is also an important first step toward reforming the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the overreaching copyright law that made it difficult for consumers to unlock their phones in the first place.”

A Senate vote on the Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act (S-1431), which would make permanent the ban on Internet access taxes, isn’t yet a “political reality,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman and ITFFA original sponsor Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in prepared remarks (http://1.usa.gov/1nX8zdc) on the Senate floor Thursday. Wyden recommended a temporary moratorium on Internet access taxes through the end of 2014 “while we work out the issues raised by those who believe that allowing localities to collect taxes across the country is more important than a ban on discriminatory taxation,” referring to a portion of the Marketplace and Internet Tax Fairness Act. MITFA (S-2609), introduced by Senate Finance Committee member Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., combines the principles of the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) (HR-684), which would let states tax remote sellers with annual revenue exceeding $1 million, and the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which would extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes through Nov. 1, 2024. Wyden voted against the MFA last year (http://1.usa.gov/1qHJcvn). ITFFA has 52 Senate co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/1jRXTeE); MITFA has 13 Senate co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/1mWMgTw).

More than 40 groups asked Senate and House leaders not to modify the latest version of the USA Freedom Act (S-2685). Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced the version last year, widely seen as a stronger surveillance overhaul than the one the House passed earlier this year. “The version of the USA FREEDOM Act introduced Tuesday is a substantial improvement upon the House-passed bill, and addresses many of our most significant concerns,” the Wednesday letter said (http://bit.ly/1o6gSSr). “While this bill does not include all of the necessary reforms to the government’s surveillance authorities, it is a good first step.” Signatories include the American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and TechFreedom.

NCTA pushed back against TiVo in the battle over the set-top box integration ban and Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization. NCTA CEO Michael Powell sent a letter Thursday to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., who are crafting their own STELA reauthorization bill to be considered in September. The House has included in its reauthorization bill (HR-4572), passed in July (CD July 23 p1), a provision that would repeal the integration ban. The integration ban rule “currently forces cable operators -- and cable operators alone -- to include a CableCard in all leased set top boxes even though this separate security module is completely unnecessary,” Powell said. He slammed “old arguments” and “spurious claims” that TiVo CEO Tom Rogers made in a letter to Senate Commerce leaders sent last week, the same day the House passed its STELA reauthorization bill. TiVo strongly opposes the repeal of the integration ban. Senate Commerce should include the House provision, which is narrow and focused and has bipartisan backers, Powell insisted. TiVo General Counsel Matt Zinn fired back in a lengthy statement. “Once again, NCTA twists the facts to suit its own narrative to continue to undermine the competitive retail environment,” Zinn declared. “TiVo remains confident that the Senate will recognize the damage that will be done to consumer choice and competition if the House language is allowed to become law.” Congress has no reason to intervene in this space of the market, which is moving forward as intended, he said. “If NCTA truly believes that ending the integration ban would save consumers money, why then in testimony before a House committee did Michael Powell say point-blank that consumers would not see any savings?"

All broadband access providers clearly provide a Title II telecom service, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told the FCC in a long ex parte filing from mid-July, released this week (http://bit.ly/1pqCjx7). He pushed for strong net neutrality rules that ban both blocking and paid prioritization and urged the agency to rely on Title II, with forbearance to keep unnecessary regulation light. “The red herring arguments about the legal risks of ‘reclassification’ of broadband access as a telecommunication service are simply distractions from the clear statutory framework set forth by Congress,” Wyden said.