FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he saw broadband in action when he hit the road to the Midwest last week. Pai started the trip with an address in Pittsburgh (see 1703150020) and tweeted throughout. “I visited Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Cleveland, and Detroit. Some might not think of these as glamorous travel destinations  --  but that’s precisely why I went,” he said in a Monday blog post. Too many cities in those areas feel left behind, Pai said. “There’s a sense of hope in the places I visited, a sense driven by a determination to adjust to the changing economy and to pursue the opportunities presented by the digital age.” Pai said his road trip confirmed his top policy priority: “My primary focus at the FCC is ensuring that we use every tool in the toolbox to boost broadband deployment throughout our country. I know that consumers everywhere want better, faster, and cheaper broadband. And I know that there’s no limit to what Americans can achieve  --  from Detroit, Michigan to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Reno, Nevada  --  if they’re given the opportunity to take advantage of these next-generation networks.”

An FCC item on the federal-state joint board on jurisdictional separations of telco costs was sent to commissioners Wednesday, according to the agency's circulation list updated Friday. The item would appoint a new state member to the board, said a spokesman.

Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen is "heartened" by the support from some bar, business and conservative associations to become the permanent head of the commission, she said during a C-SPAN interview scheduled to have been televised over the weekend on The Communicators. The White House is "engaged" in nominating people to fill three empty seats on the commission, which is seen as an agency that's functioning "pretty well," she said. In the 30-minute interview, Ohlhausen also said she directed staff to think more deeply about what "substantial injury" means, citing the Vizio enforcement case (see 1702060042). She said if companies can collect "lots of little bits of nonsensitive data" to assemble a "mosaic picture" of an individual that reveals sensitive information, the FTC should be concerned. Ohlhausen also discussed being "nudged out" by the FCC's open internet order to oversee broadband internet service and what the FTC and FCC may do if the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refuses to rehear the AT&T Mobility case that the trade commission lost (see 1611020031).

Consumers Union, New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge share FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn's concerns about the proposed ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard's impact on the public, representatives of those consumer advocacy groups told her Chief of Staff David Grossman. Will consumers still be able to get HDTV via ATSC 1.0, asked CU, OTI and PK, saying they agree with Clyburn that "broadcasters’ public interest obligations, including the required number of hours of video description and children’s programming, should apply independently to both the ATSC 3.0 transmission and a station’s 1.0 stream." The commissioner made the comments when voting last month on a 3.0 NPRM (see 1702230060). Consumers could benefit from TV outlets broadcasting video content to smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, the advocates said, though they worry stations could try to use leverage over retransmission consent "to coerce" pay-TV providers to carry 3.0 programming. Broadcasters mustn't be allowed to use 3.0 to "foreclose open and unlicensed public access to the vacant TV band spectrum that is not licensed and in use for free over-the-air local broadcast content," said CU, OTI and PK. Don't "allow private licensees to foreclose the spectrum commons by demanding increased restrictions on TV White Space devices to purportedly protect non-free ancillary or ATSC 3.0 data services," the three said in a filing posted Friday in docket 16-142. NAB didn't comment Friday. The association has said the transition to 3.0 would be voluntary and offer many benefits.

FY 2018 funding details for the FCC and FTC “will be provided when the full budget is released in mid-May,” a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget told us. May is when the White House said it will release a fuller plan. The administration released a slim version Thursday, which showed cuts for the Commerce Department and a wholesale axing of the CPB (see 1703160060). That budget proposal also referred to a 9.8 percent cut to “other agencies,” not naming specific ones. The OMB spokesman said these unnamed agencies wouldn't receive such a cut across the board. Congressional appropriators have discretion on how much leeway they show the administration proposal. John Holdren, who directed the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration, issued a statement saying the budget outline's enactment would be a setback “for U.S. leadership in science and technology.”

NAB filed a petition at the FCC Friday formally asking the agency to revise key parts of its post-TV incentive auction transition plan. NAB said the auction itself was difficult and took many months to complete, but the hard work is just starting. The Media Bureau and the Incentive Auction Task Force still don’t acknowledge “the reality that the repack will present the most challenging transition the Commission has ever overseen,” broadcasters said in a petition in docket 12-268. “Unfortunately, the Commission has made a number of decisions that will make its job, and the job of the industry, considerably harder,” NAB said. The FCC declined to use the $1.75 billion relocation fund established by Congress as a repacking budget “and instead took an unconstrained approach to repacking, desperate to clear spectrum that wireless carriers ultimately did not even want for three full stages of bidding,” NAB said. “This means that the Commission will repack far more stations than necessary, and far more than can likely be fully reimbursed. This will result in the repack taking longer, and causing considerably more viewer disruption, than might otherwise have been necessary.” The FCC should direct the Media Bureau to grant reasonable requests for more time to move to another channel, NAB said. “If the Commission actually allows its 39-month deadline to disrupt service to consumers, it will have failed in its duty to carry out an incentive auction that treats broadcasters fairly by protecting their ability to continue to provide service during and after the repack,” the petition said. “We are eager to work with the Commission to revise the transition plan to ensure that the repack treats all stakeholders, including viewers and listeners, fairly.” The FCC also should direct the Media Bureau to adjust phase assignments to reflect the scope of the work repacking will require, NAB said. The FCC already sent letters to TV stations that weren't winning bidders in the auction telling them whether they'll be repacked “and, if they are, to which transition phase they have been assigned,” the petition said. “NAB continues to believe that waiting to assign stations to phases until the Commission has a better understanding of the repack would be more efficient in the long run.” The FCC also should direct the Media Bureau to limit repacking disruptions to FM stations and other broadcasters, NAB said. FM stations, which had nothing to do with the auction, may be affected, NAB said. “If a repacked television stations adds a heavier antenna or needs to mount its antenna at a different point on the tower, it may no longer be feasible for a collocated FM station to remain at its present location on that tower or even at any location on that tower,” NAB said. “FM and other broadcast stations that are collocated or on towers adjacent to repacked television stations may be asked to reduce power levels to allow workers to perform safely the work necessary to allow those repacked stations to move to their new channels.” FM stations may have to reduce their power levels for days at a time and on multiple locations, as work continues, NAB said. The FCC should also direct the Media Bureau to provide clarity on the international implications of the repack, broadcasters said. “The Bureau has already informed stations of their new channel assignments and operating parameters, as well as their transition phase assignments,” the petition said. “If the Bureau is not in a position to state definitively whether or not the channel assignments it has provided repacked stations will or will not require coordination then the Task Force has overstated the progress the Commission has made with respect to international coordination. Repacked stations along the border deserve to know now whether or not their channel assignments will require coordination.”

Telcordia said a change in its ownership mooted a key Neustar argument against an FCC decision to replace Neustar with Telcordia as local number portability administrator. In a letter (in Pacer) Thursday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Telcordia said its parent Ericsson announced March 7 that affiliates of U.S.-based private-equity firm Francisco Partners will become a minority investor in Telcordia. "Telcordia will no longer be a wholly owned subsidiary of Ericsson, thereby rendering moot one of Petitioner [Neustar's] primary arguments once the transaction closes," said the letter, which noted the transaction is subject to FCC approval and other customary conditions. "Neustar has argued extensively that Telcordia is not 'impartial' as required by law, because a wholly owned subsidiary shares a complete unity of interest with its parent company," Telcordia wrote. "Neustar misreads the relevant law. Nevertheless, Neustar’s argument has no application to a non-wholly owned subsidiary such as Telcordia." Neustar didn't comment. A D.C. Circuit panel heard oral argument Sept. 13 in Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080.

The FCC Connect2Health Task Force will continue to focus on "bridging the broadband-enabled health gap," with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn spearheading the effort, Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement Thursday. Pai called the health gap "yet another aspect of the digital divide, which I'm committed to closing." Clyburn in a separate statement said she was "thrilled" by the continuation announced by Pai, and the task force-supplied information will let the FCC "narrow the digital and opportunities divide to ensure much needed health and wellness solutions reach all Americans.” Pai learned about telehealth during a visit Thursday at the Cleveland Clinic, in his tour that began earlier this week in Pittsburgh (see 1703150020).

Sorenson Communications met separately with Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly to discuss points it made in a filing urging the FCC to explore "less regulatory" proposals for determining video relay service compensation rates than in a draft Further NPRM (see 1703150065). Commissioners are tentatively scheduled to vote March 23 on the draft FNPRM, orders and notice of inquiry (see 1703020070).The "transparency resulting from publication of the Draft Order and FNPRM was particularly helpful in facilitating detailed feedback as the Commission heads to its deliberations," said a Sorenson filing posted Thursday in docket 10-51.

Windstream and Granite Telecommunications urged the FCC to ensure wholesale access on reasonable terms as incumbent telcos seek to retire legacy TDM-based services. The FCC could act on related business data service (BDS) regulation in April or May, an industry official told us Thursday, echoing comments from others earlier this week (see 1703140046). The commission appears headed in a deregulatory direction, but the degree of relief for incumbent telcos remains unclear, the official said. Windstream voiced concern that small businesses could "be harmed by steps to scale back or even eliminate existing last-mile access guardrails." The safeguards include "regulation of TDM-based special access and the Technology Transitions requirement that ILECs, as a condition of discontinuing a TDM-based service, provide competitive carriers reasonably comparable wholesale access to the [IP-based] replacement service on reasonably comparable rates, terms, and conditions," said a company filing posted Thursday in docket 05-25 and others on a meeting with Chairman Ajit Pai and an aide. "Windstream reiterated that competitive providers need to purchase last-mile connectivity to many locations because it often is not economical to overbuild last-mile facilities, particularly to consumers with business data services demand at or below 50 Mbps." It said the last-mile access is needed to give many small businesses, government entities, rural healthcare networks, schools, and libraries competitive BDS options, and said it wants to work with the commission "to develop a solution that will not strand" such customers. In a filing on its discussions with aides to Pai and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, Granite "discussed the importance of maintaining a reasonable transition timeframe for the interim rule that incumbent LECs seeking Section 214 authority to discontinue a TDM-based commercial wholesale platform voice service that is currently used as a wholesale input by competitive carriers must provide competitive carriers with reasonably comparable access on reasonably comparable rates, terms, and conditions." A Charter Communications filing said its representatives met with FCC staff and repeated "private carriage" arguments and discussed the competitive landscape facing cable BDS providers.