A group representing small cable operators and a broadcaster traded rhetoric. The American Cable Association said Nexstar was wrong to ask (CD Aug 1 p14) the FCC to not consider ACA’s comments about retransmission consent regarding a lawsuit the company filed against another broadcaster in the Fort Wayne, Ind., market. “Whether it likes it or not, or even admits it, Nexstar has filed an antitrust suit against a competing broadcaster that illustrates the point that coordinated action by TV stations to monopolize the local advertising market can produce largely identical anti-consumer harms as coordinated action in connection with retransmission consent,” ACA President Matt Polka said in a news release Wednesday. The broadcaster’s response “elucidates the position that ACA presented” that the suit “rests on the same basic economic argument as ACA’s filings in this docket urging the Commission to adopt a per se prohibition on coordinated” retrans talks by separately-owned stations in the same market, the group said. Its Wednesday filing is in docket 10-71 (http://xrl.us/bk4fsr).

Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry sharply criticized the Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation proposal formally filed by a U.S. Telecom-organized group of carriers at the FCC Friday (CD Aug 1 p1). He argued it’s a wireline-centric plan that largely leaves wireless in the cold. Berry called the proposal “a joke.” RCA represents small to mid-sized carriers. Satellite broadband companies, who also were not part of negotiations on the proposal, also criticized it Monday. Consumer groups and states’ rights advocates expressed concerns, while executives representing small and mid-sized cable operators expressed support for elements of the plan.

The FCC issued its first guidance on the net neutrality order’s disclosure rules. Among its recommendations, the commission said in a public notice Thursday (http://xrl.us/bkygdq) that the December order allows ISPs to comply with the point-of-sale rules by “directing prospective customers at the point of sale, orally and/or prominently in writing to a web address."

Broadband reclassification is once again haunting the FCC’s proceedings, this time as rural telcos seize on broadband’s Title I status to lobby on Universal Service Fund reforms. The commission elected to take a Title I approach in its net neutrality order (CD Dec 2 p1), but in recent weeks, executives of rural telcos have begun to argue that proposals to roll universal service cash into a Connect America Fund for broadband will raise “a host of legal and practical complications” under Title II (CD May 9 p13).

With less than four months to go before an FCC-promised deadline for Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, industry appears to be divided on how to fix the system. The American Cable Association, for instance, said its “diverse and interested membership” meant the association “has had to navigate and balance strongly competing interests, while ensuring any policy proposals are in the public interest.” The FCC’s proposed rewrites at least “provide a good starting point to bring broadband to unserved areas, and, through refinements and targeted rebalancing, there is the potential to adopt reforms this year to reorient the High-Cost fund to improve efficiency and achieve universal broadband service,” ACA said in its comments. All comments were posted to dockets 10-90, 09-51, 07-135, 05-337, 01-92, 96-45 and 03-109.

It’s “clearly inequitable” that phone companies get high-cost support from the Universal Service Fund in areas where cable operators Allegiance Communications and Metrocast have systems, their executives told an aide to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Thursday filing recounted. The American Cable Association, of which the companies are members, said in the filing that ACA wants the commission to focus on supporting broadband in unserved areas. That’s as the agency seeks to use USF money to fund broadband, in the Connect America Fund, said the filing in docket 10-90.

"Count on me to be that cop on the beat,” FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Tuesday on monitoring Comcast’s compliance with FCC conditions on its purchase of control in NBCUniversal. “I expect to hear from you of anything that escapes my attention,” she told the American Cable Association. “Operators like you needed certain protections in place and available remedies to utilize,” including baseball-style arbitration with Comcast over access to its programming, she told the conference. A curb that she pushed for requires the dispute resolution, in which an arbitrator chooses one of the sides’ final offers.

Few companies or groups are pushing the government to mandate a la carte for cable, although some of the conditions proposed for Comcast’s planned purchase of control of NBC Universal echo elements of dormant channel-unbundling proposals. The American Cable Association asked the FCC Thursday to require Comcast to negotiate separately from deals for other programming distribution agreements for its regional sports networks (RSNs) and for the NBC TV stations it will control after the deal closes. Talks on RSNs and stations should also be separate, ACA said.

The American Cable Association asked the FCC to put off for two weeks its Aug. 5 deadline for replies to oppositions by Comcast and NBC Universal to requests for the commission to block their deal. The association said in a filing Friday that it wasn’t due to gain access until that day to the unredacted version of an opposition filed Wednesday by Comcast, NBC Universal and NBCU parent General Electric (CD July 23). And the ACA said its economic consultant, William Rogerson, is to have surgery Monday. Meanwhile, Free Press, which opposes Comcast’s purchase of control of NBC Universal, said in a filing in docket 10-56 that the companies have failed to meet the test for FCC approval that their merger would be in the public interest. The group said that in a meeting with Commissioner Michael Copps and aides, Executive Director Josh Silver and other representatives of Free Press had “expressed skepticism that conditions would be effective in remedying the anticompetitive harms resulting from the merger.” On net neutrality, the group said paid prioritization must be banned to preserve an open Internet. Free Press representatives made a similar point (CD July 23 p11) last week to FCC Chief of Staff Ed Lazarus, who has been holding meetings on broadband reclassification. (See separate story in this issue.) Viacom executives asked Chief Bill Lake and other Media Bureau staffers about the commission’s timetable for reviewing Comcast-NBC Universal, said a filing Friday in the docket. Of the FCC’s inquiry on gateway devices that can connect consumer electronics equipment to any pay-TV provider, Viacom said, “we expressed concern that the Commission’s proposal will not achieve its intended result and pointed out that a failure to take into account critical provisions in content distribution agreements will harm consumers in unforeseen ways."

The FCC was flooded with more than 100,000 comments and other filings on its October rulemaking notice that would deepen the FCC’s oversight of net neutrality as well as expand the rules to cover wireless. There were few surprises, with lines long drawn in the battle. Some major industry players including AT&T and Verizon are hinting at a legal challenge if the rules are adopted as proposed. A few traditional opponents found room for compromise.