The FCC released the details of an Oct. 14 workshop by the Wireless Bureau and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on curbing deaths and injuries for workers on communications towers. The session starts at 9 a.m. EDT at FCC headquarters. Among the topics are methods “for addressing specific risks and potential safety system failures,” industry best practices and ways to “build a proactive, creative, and comprehensive culture of safety,” said the Wednesday FCC notice (http://bit.ly/1uec14x). Among the speakers is Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman and David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez are to offer concluding remarks.

Correction: An FCC declaratory ruling said that in the incentive auction process the agency will permit only 0.5 percent interference to another station’s viewers (http://bit.ly/1vxTOOR) (CD Oct 1 p1).

The FCC unlicensed devices rulemaking notice approved by the agency Tuesday (CD Sept 1 p6 or CED Sept 1 p4) asks questions about how to improve white spaces databases, as well as dozens of other often highly technical questions. The FCC posted the notice, which runs 87 pages without commissioner statements, Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1vxJFBU). The NPRM says the FCC is examining whether it should allow white spaces devices to operate in the whites spaces that remain in a larger part of the broadcast band than is now permitted. “We believe that it is appropriate to revisit the Commission’s previous decisions to prohibit personal/portable device operation on channels 14-20 and below channel 14,” the FCC said. “Since the time the Commission made these decisions, it has designated multiple TV bands database administrators and has had extensive experience working with their databases.” Comments are due 45 days after publication in the Federal Register, replies 20 days later. The size of guard bands and the duplex gap will depend on how much spectrum is recovered in the auction, the agency said. The guard band between wireless downlink services and TV spectrum could be 7, 9 or 11 MHz wide, the notice said: “The duplex gap will be 11 megahertz wide under all spectrum recovery scenarios, but its frequency location will depend on the amount of spectrum recovered."

Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) issued a draft decision Tuesday that would approve Frontier Communications’ proposed $2 billion purchase of AT&T’s broadband, video and wireline assets in the state. PURA proposed to accept the deal in conjunction with the public interest settlement agreement Frontier reached in August with the offices of state Attorney General George Jepsen and Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz, along with additional commitments Frontier made after PURA rejected the initial settlement (http://bit.ly/1wVtPRE). Jepsen’s and Katz’s offices had urged PURA to accept the settlement with Frontier’s additional commitments (CD Sept 22 p9). PURA denied as “untimely” the Connecticut Internet Service Providers Association’s (CTISPA) request that the regulator require Frontier to begin offering DSL service to ISP users separately from phone service when ISPs buy wholesale DSL transport. PURA said CTISPA can petition the regulator to consider the issue. PURA also denied Connecticut Light and Power’s (CL&P) request that it require AT&T to pay for $9.25 million in storm cleanup costs before the Frontier deal closes, saying the regulator doesn’t have statutory authority to interpret the issue. PURA suggested CL&P seek relief in court or through another state agency. The settlement terms and additional commitments will be incorporated into a final decision that PURA plans to issue Oct. 15. Written exceptions to the draft decision are due at 4 p.m. on Oct. 7, while oral arguments on the draft decision are to be at 10 a.m. Oct. 14 in Hearing Room 1 at PURA’s New Britain headquarters.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said he will chair a forum on Internet regulation Oct. 21 in College Station, Texas. The event is to be hosted by Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and will focus on the FCC net neutrality proceeding, Pai said Tuesday. “The FCC needs to go beyond the Beltway,” he said. “We need to listen to members of the American public who would be impacted by the commission’s proposed rules.” The event kicks off at 10 a.m. CDT at the Hagler Auditorium of the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler declined to shed further light on whether he plans to push for reclassification of broadband as a Title II service or to impose similar rules on mobile and fixed broadband, during a news conference after Tuesday’s open meeting. Wheeler was asked about both, saying in each case he would let his past statements speak for themselves. “I'm not going to respond to hypotheticals,” he said. “I said Title II was on the table. Period.” The FCC received “3.7 million different ideas” when it took comments on net neutrality, Wheeler said. “We're looking at a lot of things that were suggested.” Wheeler said a Sept. 22 blog post by Julie Veach (http://fcc.us/1nGmDJ6), chief of the Wireline Bureau, accurately reflects where the agency is on net neutrality.

Correction: Where long lines formed last week for the iPhone 6 was at Apple stores (CD Sept 29 p3).

Friday was the FTC’s 100th anniversary, which Chairwoman Edith Ramirez marked with a blog post (http://1.usa.gov/1BgyCxq). “In the years after President Wilson signed the FTC Act, then-cutting edge technologies like movies and radio dramatically reshaped U.S. commerce,” she said. “Our economy is now being transformed by, among other things, wireless communications services, the Internet of Things and big data.” The FTC’s role, however, has remained the same -- “promoting competition and the interests of American consumers using the tried-and-true tools of law enforcement, sound public policy, and consumer education,” said Ramirez. The commission is “on the cutting edge of rapid economic and technological changes,” she said.

The FCC Media Bureau extended the comment deadline in a proceeding on requests from programmers and broadcasters to expand protections of highly confidential documents involved in the review of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal and AT&T/DirecTV. Comments are due Sept. 29, the bureau said Friday in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1u3pzQu). Comments were originally due Sept. 26, after the bureau issued a public notice Sept. 23 (CD Sept 25 p7). A public interest attorney had urged the FCC to reexamine how it handles highly sensitive documents in review of pending transactions. The practices should be reexamined “to insure that all documents considered by the Commission staff are within the direct jurisdiction of the Commission and made part of the record,” said Andrew Schwartzman of the Georgetown University Law Center, in comments filed in dockets 14-90 and 14-57 in his personal capacity. Until the FCC changes the procedures to provide full transparency, interested parties “will not be able to participate fully in the Commission’s review of assignments and transfers, and the Commission runs the risk of judicial reversal in these or other future proceedings,” he said in comments. The FCC’s practice of “making house calls” to the Justice Department to review documents that aren’t included in the record before the commission is “fundamentally unfair and exposes the commission to great jeopardy on judicial review,” he said. There’s no need to adopt the proposed measures to give additional protection to sensitive documents, he said. The FCC has ample authority to modify its ordinary protective order process to impose a higher than usual degree of protection if circumstances arise, Schwartzman said.

A third FCC commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, backs issuing the Further NPRM on inmate calling services being circulated by Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (CD Sept 26 p10), a Rosenworcel aide told us Friday. “Commissioner Rosenworcel supports asking more questions to continue the goal of reforming inmate calling services and doing so without further delay,” emailed Valery Galasso, special advisor to Rosenworcel. Though three members would constitute a majority of the commission, it was not immediately clear when the item would be formally approved. The FNPRM prepares for taking “the next critical step toward reducing the high price paid by inmates and their families to communicate,” said Wheeler and Clyburn in a statement (http://fcc.us/1BgnReG) Thursday. The commission’s 2013 order (CD Aug 12/13 p3), which included interim price caps on interstate inmate calls, reduced those rates by as much as nearly 40 percent, the statement said, but “many families of inmates still face exorbitant rates for in-state calls, not to mention punitive and irrational fees -- all of which make the simple act of staying in touch unaffordable.” The proposed FNPRM would make permanent the interim caps, create permanent caps on intrastate calls, bar the commissions ICS providers pay to correctional facilities, and cap ancillary charges placed on top of the rates (CD Sept 25 p1). The proposed FNPRM “proposes a simple, market-based solution to address all these problems. It proposes rules that will ensure that ALL Americans -- including inmates and their families -- have access to phone service at rates that are just, reasonable and fair,” said Clyburn and Wheeler. The 2013 order was approved on a partisan vote, and some elements were stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (CD Jan14 p3). A spokesman for Commissioner Ajit Pai, who dissented to the 2013 order, said in an email to us, “we hope that the agency will reach a bipartisan consensus that heeds the limits of the law.” Arent Fox’s Stephanie Joyce, representing Securus, said the ICS provider would file comments if the FNPRM is issued. The circulation of the item was praised by Clarissa Ramon, Public Knowledge government affairs and outreach associate (http://bit.ly/1qChuw3): “The families of prisoners deserve relief from high fees and phone costs that result from the commission system in many states. We believe this is a step in the right direction for families of incarcerated individuals.”