The Communications Workers of America criticized Sprint Monday for its recent decision to lay off about 1,550 call center employees and reduce operations at six call centers, saying in an emailed statement that the move shows that a Sprint bid for T-Mobile US could “prove costly for American workers and consumers.” CWA has called a potential Sprint/T-Mobile a “non-starter” that “raises deep concerns about what is in the best interests of U.S. consumers and workers at T-Mobile’ (http://bit.ly/OWWlS0). Sprint disclosed the layoffs last week, citing a reduction in the number of calls coming into the centers. The carrier also said in March that it would be laying off 330 technical consultants, closing 150 service and phone repair centers and would close 55 of its worst-performing stores. A Sprint spokeswoman said the carrier is “committed to growing its business and will also continue to look for ways to operate more efficiently and to offer customers options for managing their accounts without assistance from a customer service agent. Over the last five years, calls to our customer service call centers have dropped by 60 percent.” Sprint said in January that it planned to make additional cuts following a Q4 net loss of $1.04 billion. Sprint has laid off or announced plans to lay off more than 2,700 call center workers since Japanese telco SoftBank bought the carrier in July, said CWA. The employees laid off last week were to continue working through Tuesday, which CWA said violated federal law, which requires at least 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs. One of the affected call centers was in Elmsford, N.Y., where state law requires at least 90 days’ notice before mass layoffs, said the union. Sprint is “constantly assessing its workforce to meet the needs of our ever-changing, competitive landscape,” the Sprint spokeswoman said.

The Verizon board would issue a report by October detailing how the company “is responding to regulatory, competitive, legislative and public pressure to ensure that its network management policies and practices” promote net neutrality and an open Internet, under a shareholder proposal that’s up for a vote at the telco’s annual meeting May 1 in Phoenix. The board is urging that it be voted down. The Nathan Cummings Foundation, a think tank that owns just under 6,000 Verizon shares, is sponsoring the proposal, said the telco’s SEC proxy statement filed March 17 (http://bit.ly/1h2dEvG). “We are not seeking a report on legal compliance or the details of network management,” the proposal said. “Rather, we seek to ensure that shareholders have sufficient information to evaluate how Verizon manages this significant policy challenge,” including how the company “takes into account that network management decisions could potentially affect future regulatory developments,” it said. Verizon as a company has not been as transparent with the public as it should about its open Internet policies, the proposal said. Urging shareholders to vote the proposal down, the Verizon board “strongly disagrees” with the contention the company “has not provided its customers with evidence” of a commitment to open Internet policies, the proxy said. “As a leader in developing an open architecture for accessing and using the Internet, Verizon’s position on all aspects of the ‘network neutrality’ debate has been consistently and publicly conveyed in mainstream and industry-related media, through legislative and agency fact-finding processes and in applicable agency and court filings.” Verizon recently published on its website a statement of the company’s “commitment to broadband customers to support the Open Internet and to provide them with Internet access and use of the lawful online content, applications and services of their choice, regardless of their source.” Verizon in December sought but failed to gain SEC approval to strike the investor proposal from the annual meeting’s agenda on the grounds that the company, under Security Exchange Act rule 14a-8(i)(10), already has “substantially implemented” what the shareholder proposal is asking for in a net neutrality report by the board. The Nathan Cummings Foundation objected. In February, the SEC denied Verizon’s request to strike the proposal from the agenda. “It does not appear that Verizon’s public disclosures compare favorably with the guidelines of the proposal,” Norman von Holtzendorff, attorney-adviser in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, told Verizon in a Feb. 7 letter.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Eric Schmidt were two of several technology company CEOs that discussed surveillance and privacy with President Barack Obama Friday afternoon, according to company representatives and the White House daily schedule. The meeting came a week after Zuckerberg publicly criticized Obama in a Facebook post over the government’s surveillance methods (http://on.fb.me/1nVf2Cc). “The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat,” Zuckerberg said, saying he had called Obama to “express my frustration.” Obama previously discussed surveillance with top tech and telecom CEOs -- including AT&T, Comcast, Dropbox and Netflix -- in December (CD Dec 18 p13). Facebook and Google declined to provide details about Friday’s meeting.

Correction: The name of FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s wireless adviser is Louis Peraertz (CD March 21 p9).

The FCC Media Bureau asked for additional comment on issues of broadcaster reimbursement as part of the TV incentive auction, slated to start next year. The Thursday public notice builds on workshops held by the commission and a report by Widelity on “Response to the Federal Communications Commission for the Broadcaster Transition Study Solicitation” along with a “Catalog of Potential Expenses and Estimated Costs.” Widelity, a spectrum consulting firm, based its projections on “confidential interviews of a broad range of industry players, including TV broadcast group engineers, radiofrequency and structural engineers, suppliers, support companies, manufacturers, attorneys, and network engineers,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1gLG2SG). “The Widelity Report recognizes that the post-auction repacking process will be complex and that the complexity will vary from station to station.” The notice asks for comment on the report and the catalog of suggested prices. “We now seek additional comment from industry participants on these suggested prices, as well as any comments on the report and any further comments on the categories of costs included,” the bureau said. “A final Catalog of Eligible Expenses and Estimated Costs will be released prior to the auction, and we believe the Catalog will provide useful guidance to broadcasters and MVPDs as they navigate the post-auction transition.” Bureau Chief Bill Lake said in a blog post the issues raised are complicated but the FCC needs to “craft policies and procedures to transition the broadcasters with as little disruption to the industry and consumers as possible.” The FCC has already held two workshops on broadcaster reimbursement issues, he said (http://fcc.us/1nHl5NU). “The transition will be challenging, and there will likely be bumps in the road. But we pledge to work closely with all affected parties as we refine our thinking on these issues to make the transition as smooth as possible. Though the auction is not until 2015, we want to continue to engage stakeholders now. We hope all interested parties will carefully review the Widelity Report and accompanying catalog of potential expenses and give us their suggestions as we move forward.”

The still-open Title II reclassification docket saw a filing Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1j4FdHZ), as the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission refiled comments first made in 2010. “The PaPUC reiterates those filings” in the wake of the Verizon v. FCC decision that threw out much of the FCC’s net neutrality rules, it said. In the 2010 filings, the PUC said it supported it a “modified common carriage approach” for broadband ISPs “that preserves joint jurisdiction and the mandate of non-discrimination for broadband access to telecommunications and communications facilities and services.” It’s important for the FCC to not preempt state law or impose forbearance results “that prevent state commissions from resolving real ‘on the ground’ issues” like intercarrier compensation, interconnection between competing carriers, and protection of consumer interests, it said.

NAB urged the FCC to deny Cricket a waiver of protection criteria to deploy a lower 700 MHz A block license in the Chicago basic economic area. The carrier failed to satisfy the legal standard for a waiver of the commission’s rules, NAB said in a reply in docket 14-17 (http://bit.ly/OCos99). The association also asked the FCC to reject T-Mobile’s recommendation that TV licensees should negotiate in good faith with a wireless licensee interested in exploring operations near TV and DTV stations transmitting on channels 51-68 (http://bit.ly/1d0Oiib). The current rules impose no obligation on a broadcaster to negotiate with a wireless carrier seeking to short-space its operations, NAB said. A broadcaster’s refusal to negotiate “causes no hardship to the wireless carrier seeking to short-space its operations,” it said. What T-Mobile seeks isn’t merely a grant of the waiver Cricket requested, but “for the commission to treat Cricket’s request as a blueprint for widespread future waivers for operating outside the parameters” of the current rule, it said. The Competitive Carriers Association urged the commission to grant Cricket’s request. Granting the waiver would facilitate the deployment of unutilized wireless spectrum “when the demand for wireless services is at an all-time high and only expected to become more acute,” CCA said (http://bit.ly/1hCskzs). The broadcasters would have the commission completely ignore the interests of American consumers “who are clamoring for additional wireless capacity,” it said. Cricket makes a compelling showing “that even assuming a successor carrier has greater coverage and more subscribers, the interference potential is, at most, de minimis,” CCA said. NAB’s and 21st Century Fox’s Fox Television Stations’ misrepresentations of the purpose of DTV protection requirements reflect an unreasonable expectation of absolute interference protection “for broadcast signals that the commission has previously acknowledged is not the intent of the rule,” Laser said on behalf of itself and the successor in interest of Leap and Cricket (http://bit.ly/1gR2eXU). AT&T this month got FCC approval to buy Cricket and Leap, and completed the deal (CD March 14 p5). The parties haven’t effectively rebutted the strong evidence that only a de minimis number of viewers in Chicago are likely to be affected by enabling 700 MHz A block operations, it said. The Fox stations’ use of the Longley-Rice prediction model in its interference study isn’t applicable to wireless operations, Laser said. The FCC has long understood that the model was designed for that static environment of broadcast transmissions, “and does not accurately predict interference by mobile wireless transmitters or distances of less than one kilometer,” it said.

The FCC moved up the date of its April meeting a day, to April 23, said a public notice released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1j7JKoK). An FCC official said the change was tied to scheduling and would mean a commission-meeting free day April 24, which is unofficially “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler supports “a reinvigorated Tribal consultation process” to address communications issues in Indian country, he told the National Congress of American Indians. “From a policy point of view, my experience is that there’s generally no shortage of awareness around Tribal issues,” said prepared remarks by Wheeler, released by the FCC Tuesday (http://fcc.us/1cWwYLb). “But when it comes to closing the gaps in opportunity and infrastructure that plague many Tribal communities, there’s a persistent deficit of meaningful achievement.” Wheeler listed as his top concerns improved access to “world class” broadband, spectrum and ensuring a “diversity of voices” in tribal areas.” There “are of course other important issues that we will also work on together, but these are the priorities we have heard from you,” he said to the group March 12.

Seventeen computer and data scientists, mostly academics, filed an amicus brief Thursday to the U.S. District Court in New York on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union in its lawsuit against government intelligence officials over their phone metadata collection program (http://bit.ly/1fx9Aie). “It is not just metadata,” they said. “Telephony metadata reveals private and sensitive information about people.” Government assurances it’s not listening in on telephone calls “is cold comfort,” they said. The ACLU filed its lawsuit last year after NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed a trove of documents detailing government surveillance programs, according to an ACLU release (http://bit.ly/1dWxS8S).