USTelecom promotes Trevor Jones to vice president-government affairs ... Analog Devices taps Janene Asgeirsson from Acacia Communications as senior vice president-chief legal officer and corporate secretary ... International Trade Commission promotes Monica Bhattacharyya from its Office of Unfair Import Investigations to administrative law judge for Tariff Act Section 337 patent infringement cases.

Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Danielle Forrest and Mary Schroeder asked about FCC preemptive authority after reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title I service, at oral argument Tuesday on ISP associations challenging a lower court denying preliminary injunction against California’s 2018 net neutrality law (case 21-15430). Judge Clifford Wallace asked why the 9th Circuit should bother with a preliminary appeal.

The cable industry’s 2021 Independent Show will be held online Oct. 5-6 instead of in person in Minneapolis as previously planned, said sponsors the National Cable Television Cooperative and ACA Connects Tuesday. A virtual event allows the industry to convene “in the safest possible manner amid lingering uncertainty over the appropriateness of large in-person events,” said the release. “It’s the correct decision, with broad support from both ACAC and NCTC members,” said ACA Chairman Patricia Jo Boyers. Despite COVID-19 safety measures, “NCTC and ACAC planners could not, in good faith, ensure that they could provide a safe environment due to the highly contagious Delta variant,” the release said. For a report on other conferences amid the pandemic, see here.

Nearly seven in 10 households getting the FCC emergency broadband benefit chose to receive mobile broadband services rather than fixed broadband. Experts said in recent interviews that the trend is likely because most enrolled households participate in Lifeline.

ACA Connects praised the FCC FY 2021 regulatory fee order for setting satellite MVPD fees to the same rate paid by other MVPDs (see 2108270072). “The FCC finally has made the regulatory fee amount it charges DIRECTV and DISH Network per subscriber equal to that imposed on cable and IPTV providers, closing the book on its seven-year phase-in process,” said President Matthew Polka Monday. Information Technology Industry Council Director-Policy Joel Miller expressed concern about the agency’s look at possible future changes to regulatory fees. “The law and process undergirding how the Commission allocates the burden of reg fees among regulated entities has been well-established,” Miller emailed Friday. “Any changes to this model of regulation could have far-reaching negative consequences and should be carefully considered.”

Industry disagreed whether the FCC should grant Edison Electric Institute's petition for declaratory ruling on pole attachment rate disputes, in comments posted Tuesday in docket 17-84. Comments were due Monday (see 2107230030). The petition "fails to offer any compelling reason for the commission to revisit either of the well-established policies that EEI seeks to overturn," said ACA Connects, which NCTA echoed. USTelecom agreed and said EEI's proposals "would further exacerbate the digital divide by creating additional barriers to broadband deployment by reducing the likelihood that electric utilities will charge just and reasonable rates." EEI's argument is "flawed" and an attempt to "reverse recent commission precedent," said Crown Castle Fiber. The Coalition of Concerned Utilities, which includes the Arizona Public Service, Exelon, FirstEnergy, the Hawaiian Electric companies, Minnesota Power and NorthWestern Energy, said EEI's petition is "simple to implement, practical from a dispute resolution perspective, productive because it encourages collaboration and settlement, and fair in that pole owners would be informed sooner rather than later of any potential disputes." Granting the petition would "[restore] business certainty to the relationships between pole owners and attaching entities," said Duke Energy, which American Electric Power echoed.

ACA Connects co-founder Dean Petersen died Aug. 8, two days before his 81st birthday, ACA said Tuesday. Peterson and Stan Searle founded the organization, then the Small Cable Business Association, in 1993. "When Dean stepped down from the ACA Connects board in 1999, he was given ACAC’s second ‘Eagle Award,’ recognizing his efforts in, and contributions to, our Members and the cable TV industry," said ACA CEO Matthew Polka. Survivors include his daughters, Christy Brown, Connie Anderson and Cindy Moehring, and a brother, Ron Petersen. Services were held Thursday. Memorial gifts are suggested to Circle of Life, Springdale, Arkansas.

The Competitive Carriers Association and NTCA urged caution as the FCC considers how to tighten secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) rules, with an eye on moving up by a year the June 30, 2023, deadline for smaller providers to implement the technology (see 2105200072). Replies were posted Tuesday in docket 17-97. ‘’Be careful not to inadvertently penalize carriers acting in good faith and earnestly seeking robocall mitigation solutions for their consumers,” CCA said: “Additional time to implement STIR/SHAKEN is vital for small carriers. The Commission should adopt an approach that is most likely to address the most culpable parties without inadvertently sweeping in those providers operating in good faith.” The record supports targeting “bad actor” providers that “knowingly enable (or turn a blind eye towards) parties using voice service to generate illegal robocalls and ‘spoofing’ caller-ID information,” said NTCA: “The record also highlights the importance of avoiding overly-inclusive and burdensome proposals that would sweep in innocent voice providers.” USTelecom supports keeping the current deadline for facilities-based providers, but shortening it for others. “Should the Commission move forward with the proposal, it should allow such nonfacilities based providers to seek the full two-year extension based on the same challenges the Commission cited when it first adopted the small provider extension,” the group said. “There can be no justification for imposing an accelerated deadline on small voice providers that are not prone to originating large volumes of illegal robocalls and that are operating in good faith to meet the June 30, 2023 deadline,” said ACA Connects. The rules should be “narrowly tailored to capture the most likely sources of illegal robocalls,” NCTA said.

Democratic senators are actively eyeing how to use a planned $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package to further boost broadband spending beyond the $65 billion in connectivity money included in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (HR-3684) the chamber passed Tuesday. Republicans told us they’re concerned about such an attempt to double-dip on broadband spending given the amount of money they already agreed to allocate via HR-3684 and a set of COVID-19 aid bills. HR-3684 itself still must clear the majority-Democratic House before it goes to President Joe Biden’s desk.

NTIA's Allan Friedman, who helped lead software bill of materials (SBOM) multistakeholder work, leaves for Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, where he says he will help CISA "focus on scaling and operationalizing" SBOM, "in the context of the vulnerability and security ecosystem" ... Also at NTIA, Aadil Ginwala begins as chief of staff; he had worked at Sandpaper Medical and Walla Technologies ... Forbes Tate Partners hires ex-AT&T Assistant Vice President-Federal Relations Kevin McGrann as senior vice president, working in Public Affairs and Government Relations practices.