Modified FCC confidentiality orders protecting documents in the AT&T/DirecTV and Comcast/Time Warner Cable transactions aren’t enough for sensitive contract data, said CBS, Viacom and other content companies in a joint application for review (http://bit.ly/1voV5ZV) and a request for an emergency stay (http://bit.ly/1rJO7bt) posted Friday. “The Orders were promulgated in the face of both substantial public comment opposing disclosure and the Commission’s historical recognition that disclosure of these programming contracts would cause substantial competitive harm,” said the emergency stay, also filed on behalf of Disney, Discovery Communications, Scripps Networks, Time Warner Inc., TV One, 21st Century Fox and Univision. A similar application for review from a group of broadcasters objecting to the orders is likely to be filed soon, an attorney connected with the proceeding told us.

Independent programmers, mid-sized pay-TV companies and Public Knowledge disagreed with larger programmers and broadcasters on Mediacom’s requests for the FCC to restrict programmers and broadcasters in content negotiations, in comments posted online in docket RM-11728 Tuesday. The proceeding is about a petition submitted by Mediacom in July (CD July 25 p13) asking for new FCC rules that would restrict bundling, volume discounts and programmers’ ability to halt online access to their content to provide leverage during negotiations.

AT&T’s planned buy of DirecTV received support from independent programmers, state entities and labor organizations, while multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) again said the deal that is worth about $67 billion appears to hurt the video programming market. Dish Network and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association urged conditions and a showing that proposed commitments would be realized, if the FCC approves the deal. Initial comments on the proceeding were due Tuesday night.

Price cap carriers say they're willing to offer faster broadband with Connect America Fund Phase II money, but in return they want the funding to last longer, and to have the “flexibility” of not having to serve all areas of a census tract if it’s too expensive. The FCC-proposed changes in the program are resurrecting a long-standing battle, in which cable companies and others resent that cap carriers are eligible for the funds. The American Cable Association, Competitive Carriers Association and NCTA are opposing the changes, in filings submitted before Monday’s Further NPRM replies deadline, with ACA saying the changes would be a “windfall” for the price cap carriers.

An FCC proposal to tighten rules on broadcasters swapping network affiliations within a market might lead to a rulemaking but is unlikely to result in a final policy banning the practice, said attorneys who oppose the proposed rule, in interviews. FCC ownership rules already prevent a single broadcaster from owning two Big Four-rated network affiliates in a market, but the 2014 quadrennial review Further NPRM tentatively concluded in favor of extending those rules to keep broadcasters from coming into ownership of two Big Four stations in the same market through network affiliation swaps. Initial comments were recently due on the FNPRM (CD Aug 8 p7).

The FCC Wireline Bureau dismissed a petition Monday from the American Cable Association (ACA) and NCTA requesting reconsideration of the bureau’s Connect America Fund Phase II challenge process guidance public notice, saying the petition was untimely (http://bit.ly/1vz8jFa). ACA and NCTA had been opposed to the bureau’s decision to require that parties present evidence of current or former customers in a census block in order to challenge the determination that the block is unserved (CD Aug 5 p5). ACA and NCTA filed the petition July 22, one day after the 30-day window for filing a petition had elapsed, the bureau said. Had the groups filed the petition on time, the arguments they presented still don’t warrant reconsideration, the bureau said.

The petition for reconsideration filed by the American Cable Association and NCTA about protesting eligibility for Connect America Fund Phase II support should be denied, USTelecom said in comments posted to docket 10-90 Friday. ACA and NCTA had protested the Wireline Bureau’s decision to require that parties present evidence of current or former customers in a census block in order to challenge the determination that the block is unserved (http://bit.ly/WX2Dpu). “The reasonable evidentiary standard adopted by the Bureau will help ensure that residents of rural areas are not denied the opportunity to have broadband available to them based upon the type of thin assertions” made during the challenge process, USTelecom said.

The American Cable Association and NTCA want net neutrality rules to flow both ways, with content providers prohibited from blocking Internet providers from carrying their content as well as the reverse. The ACA backed two-way regulation in the past, and it said in its comments that imposing “one-sided regulation” would be a “mistake.” If the commission approves net neutrality rules, “the exclusion of Internet edge providers from them, will undermine the rules’ goals and effectiveness, and in turn, cause distortions in the multi-sided Internet marketplace,” ACA said in its comments (http://bit.ly/Wnu1Nc). Using Title II “would be excessively costly, disruptive and unnecessary,” ACA said.

USTelecom opposed an American Cable Association FCC application for review of a Wireline Bureau April decision on the Connect America Fund cost model order that calculated costs of serving census blocks in price-cap telco areas. “USTelecom stands by its cost of capital calculation which resulted in a zone of reasonableness above 8.48% and below 9.52%, resulting in a point estimate of 9.00%” and other figures, said that association in an opposition filing to ACA’s request posted Monday in docket 10-90 (http://bit.ly/U1g5GM). “ACA presents no new information to contradict it. Yet ACA rejects the Bureau’s considered conclusion which adopted a cost of capital 50 basis points below the recommendation of the ABC Coalition.” The association said an FCC model used data from the coalition, a USF reform group of telcos that has included USTelecom members (http://bit.ly/1pXdWuo). ACA’s June 20 application for review said the bureau’s model, “for the key input of the cost of money ... adopted a cost significantly in excess of forward-looking market rates” and would mean price-cap LECs get more support than required (http://bit.ly/1vWPFSK). ACA plans to respond to USTelecom’s opposition, in reply comments, said ACA Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman. He declined further comment.

ACA International, which represents credit and collection professionals, asked the FCC to clarify how predictive dialers are treated under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. While a predictive dialer, which dials a list of phone numbers and connects answered dials to people making calls, can be an Automated Telephone Dialing System (ATDS), it’s not necessarily one, ACA said. The TCPA prohibits automated calls to cellphones, emergency lines, a hospital emergency number, a physician’s office or a hospital room, among other protected phone lines. “That a predictive dialer can be an autodialer if it meets the statutory definition of an autodialer” does “not (and cannot) mean that it must be an ATDS under the TCPA,” ACA said (http://bit.ly/1vBaT8t). “Fundamentally, the statutory elements of an ATDS must be met in order for equipment to be considered an ATDS under the statute.” The filing, posted by the FCC Wednesday, was in docket 02-278.