The FCC is ready to start paying incentive auction winners, the Incentive Auction Task Force and the Wireless Bureau said in a public notice Thursday. The FCC “has directed the U.S. Treasury” to make payments to “every station subject to a winning bid in the reverse auction that has provided sufficient banking information to facilitate payment,” said the PN, which includes a list of the stations to be paid. The FCC “does not control the precise date on which the U.S. Treasury will make each incentive payment or when each incentive payment will be received,” the PN said, but for the purposes of rules pegged to stations receiving their payments, winning bidders will be considered to have received their payment in five business days. Winning bidders that gave up their spectrum in the incentive auction have to go off the air 90 days after receiving their payments, the PN said.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts gave USTelecom and others a 60-day extension to appeal a lower court's decision upholding the FCC Communications Act Title II net neutrality order. Cert petitions are now due Sept. 28, said a high court notice that Roberts granted the extension in USTelecom v. FCC, No. 17A54. Others on the application were AT&T, CTIA, CenturyLink, NCTA, the American Cable Association, Alamo Broadband, Daniel Berninger, Scott Banister, Charles Giancarlo, Jeff Pulver and TechFreedom. Attorneys expected the extension to be granted; there were more doubts about whether petitioners would seek another extension or could obtain one (see 1707140049).

T-Mobile continued to see strong growth in Q2, with 1.3 million net adds and 817,000 branded postpaid adds. Postpaid adds, a key measure, were slightly below Q1, when 914,000 were reported. T-Mobile noted it has now added more than 1 million subscribers for 17 straight quarters. Churn also improved to 1.1 percent, down 17 basis points from the same quarter last year and eight from Q1. T-Mobile expects to start to deploy the 600 MHz spectrum it bought in the TV incentive auction later this year, lighting up the first sites in August with several 600 MHz-capable handsets available for the holiday season. This was the first time the carrier went first among all the national carriers in releasing results. CEO John Legere said it was time to shake things up. “We’ve been breaking industry rules and dashing the hopes and dreams of our competitors,” Legere said. AT&T is focused on acquisitions and is OK with losing postpaid subscribers, he said. “Verizon’s massive marketing blitz on its unlimited plan looks like it might disappoint,” he said. “Sprint has been giving away phone service for free, like, literally, giving it away.” Legere said AT&T and Verizon have seen their networks slow under the weight of their unlimited offerings. “Their networks just can’t take it,” he said. The companies didn't comment. Legere also said T-Mobile has opened 1,000 company stores this year, with 500 on the way.

Federal judges dismissed an initial challenge to an FCC business data service order, which Sprint and Windstream filed to protect their legal rights due to uncertainty about a court deadline. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an FCC motion to dismiss the challenge (which Windstream and Sprint didn't oppose), said an order (in Pacer) in Sprint and Windstream v. FCC, No. 17-1126. Petitioners and others have timely challenges in the 8th Circuit.

Participants in an NTIA multistakeholder initiative to address IoT device security upgrades agreed to a final draft document that recommends what information manufacturers and vendors should convey to consumers before they buy a product. During a Tuesday virtual meeting, the group reached "consensus" on the draft, which recommended elements companies should consider in informing buyers about whether devices receive security updates; whether they're done automatically, by a user or professionally; and how long a device would receive such support. The draft talks about how a user should be notified about updates and what happens after a device is no longer supported. Harley Geiger, Rapid7 director-public policy, said that this document could become part of a larger government effort to deal with botnets and automated threats. He said the working group hasn't thought about a strategy for promoting adoption of the document but said it would be good to see it "in the wild" with some companies using it. The document was drafted by a working group in the NTIA-driven process, which has met three times since October. NTIA plans a Sept. 12 meeting in Washington to possibly reach consensus on other drafts presented by working groups on a catalog of existing IoT security documentation; technical capabilities of providing upgrades; and incentives for companies to provide updates.

Skyrocketing retransmission consent fees paid to broadcasters as local news viewership plummets show the need for the FCC to revisit its rules on retrans consent, must-carry and exclusivity since those regulatory advantages are responsible for the retrans fee growth, the American TV Alliance said in news release Tuesday. Pointing to Pew Research data about declining audiences for local TV news since 2007, ATVA said during that time, retrans fees grew 2,426 percent, topping $7.9 billion last year. It said broadcasters use the threats of blackouts to coerce higher fees. NAB said ATVA "is rehashing tired arguments favoring heavy-handed government intervention in a free market. On two previous occasions, the FCC has determined it has no authority to intervene in private negotiations between giant cable companies and local TV stations over the value of broadcast TV programming. ATVA should focus attention on fixing pay TV’s notoriously bad customer service issues rather than continue to fixate on a phony retransmission consent crisis.”

A California bill that would require ISPs to get express consent from consumers to use, disclose and sell personal data survived a Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee hearing Tuesday, despite opposition from industry. By a 9-1 vote with one member abstaining, the committee advanced AB-375 with several saying the legislation needs work before it reaches the Senate floor. The bill, which unanimously passed the Assembly in May, faces scrutiny by the state Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled to hold a hearing at our deadline (see 1707060052). A spokeswoman for the Energy Committee emailed that even if Judiciary votes down the bill, it would be held there and "is not officially dead."

Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen announced several changes to how the Bureau of Consumer Protection will conduct investigations in an effort to speed up information requests and enhance transparency, the commission said in a Monday news release. They will "reduce unnecessary and undue burdens" of probes but not affect consumer protection, Ohlhausen said. The changes are: (1) providing "plain language descriptions" of the "civil investigative demand" process, which is an investigation into possible unfair or deceptive acts or processes at an organization; (2) developing materials to help small businesses better comply; providing a more detailed scope and purpose of an investigation for companies, if appropriate; (3) limiting "relevant time periods" to lessen burdens on companies and reducing the length and complexity of instructions to provide electronically stored data, where appropriate; and (4) increasing the time for recipients to respond. The FTC said the changes were made in part after concerns were raised by congressional lawmakers and by a report from the American Bar Association Antitrust Section on investigational burdens to companies.

Dish Network and the FTC and states that complained about the company's telemarketing practices are at odds about a permanent injunction ordered against Dish last month as part of a judgment regarding Telephone Consumer Protection Act violations. Dish had years' worth of opportunity during the litigation to propose its own injunction but instead "put all of its eggs in the 'no injunction' basket" and now can't try to craft a new injunction that eases its burden, the federal and state TCPA complaint plaintiffs said in opposition (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Illinois. Plaintiffs said inclusion of inbound calls wasn't a mistake because such calls are related to outbound calling since they are how consumers ask to be added to Dish's do-no-call list and complain about telemarketing. They said exempting retailers' inbound call activity would let those retailers engage in the same conduct that resulted in tens of millions of illegal calls on which the court imposed liability. Dish separately plans to appeal the $280 million fine (see 1706270061). Separately, Dish is appealing (link in Pacer) a 2016 U.S. District Court ruling obviating Ace American Insurance from having to indemnify it from damages related to that TCPA litigation. In its brief (in Pacer) filed Friday with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Dish said U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn of Denver erred when he found the damages in the Ace policies to cover only actual damages, since insurance terms are to be interpreted broadly (see 1610140019). The insurer didn't comment Monday.

The FCC listed counties where some Lifeline providers will get forbearance relief from the duty to offer Lifeline-supported voice service, effective Sept. 15. By our count, 931 counties or county equivalents are receiving "conditional forbearance" in a list attached to a Wireline Bureau public notice Monday in docket 11-42. "This forbearance applies only to the Lifeline voice obligation of eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) that are designated for purposes of receiving both high-cost and Lifeline support (high-cost/Lifeline ETCs), and not to Lifeline-only ETCs," said the PN, which cited implementation of a 2016 overhaul order. The commission in 2016 "granted forbearance from high-cost/Lifeline ETCs’ obligation to offer and advertise Lifeline voice service in counties where the following conditions are met: (a) 51 percent of Lifeline subscribers in the county are obtaining broadband Internet access service; (b) there are at least three other providers of Lifeline broadband Internet access service that each serve at least five percent of the Lifeline broadband subscribers in that county; and (c) the ETC does not actually receive federal high-cost universal service support." The listed counties "meet the first two conditions; and for ETCs that are receiving high-cost support in these counties, the forbearance applies only in areas within the county where the ETC does not receive high-cost support," it added. "Forbearance does not grant relief from the Lifeline voice service obligation as to those Lifeline subscribers that the high-cost/Lifeline ETC serves as of the date of this Public Notice."