Members of Congress, consumer advocates and former FTC Commissioner Thomas Rosch applauded the news that Commissioner Edith Ramirez has been tapped to lead the FTC. Ramirez will assume the post that was vacated by Jon Leibowitz earlier this year. As a sitting commissioner, she won’t need Senate confirmation to be promoted to chair the agency. “I am deeply honored at the opportunity to lead” the FTC, Ramirez said in a statement Thursday. Ramirez thanked Leibowitz “for his strong leadership” and said she looks “forward to working with my fellow commissioners and the able FTC staff to continue the agency’s proud history of promoting vigorous competition and protecting consumers.” According to the agency, Ramirez will begin serving as chairman on March 4.

The USF/intercarrier compensation order remained intact after the sixth order on reconsideration, released Wednesday. In response to several petitions for reconsideration, the FCC declined to reconsider adoption of its high-cost universal service support rules for rate-of-return carriers, and declined requests to reconsider the monthly per-line cap of $250. The original order “represents a careful balancing of policy goals, equities, and budgetary constraints,” the commission said. The latest iteration did make what Chairman Julius Genachowski called “some modest adjustments” to simplify spending caps and give the Wireline Bureau more flexibility to “maintain certainty regarding year-to-year funding levels.” Commissioner Ajit Pai wrote separately to criticize unpredictable benchmarks he thinks will undermine efficient and prudent decisionmaking by rate-of-return carriers.

The FCC’s interim measures to prevent misuse of the IP Captioned Telephone Service (CTS) saw universal support from commenters, who generally urged that most or all of the interim changes become permanent. The commission adopted the measures in a January order. However, some commenters cautioned that further study is needed before making permanent a default “off” position of IP CTS devices and software to prevent inadvertent use, warning of harm to the hard-of-hearing community.

Reforms are needed to improve the quality of software-related patents that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) grants, said Suzanne Michel, Google senior patent counsel, Wednesday during a PTO-led forum. PTO held the forum as part of its “Software Partnership,” an effort to gather industry input on ways to improve the quality of patents. Current patent examination practices and rules have resulted in “vague, overbroad and invalid” patents that have driven the boom in litigation abuse led by patent-assertion entities (PAEs), Michel said. Software and Internet-related patents are litigated eight times more often than others, and account for 85 percent of all PAE lawsuits, she said.

The FCC recommended in a report released Wednesday that Congress create incentives for states to become “early adopters” of next generation 911. The FCC also said the states should be in charge of NG911 deployment but with a “federal regulatory ‘backstop’ to ensure that there is no gap between federal and state authority over NG911.” It said Congress should encourage all states to establish 911 boards. The report to Congress (http://fcc.us/Y14wtA) was mandated by last February’s spectrum law.

Remember the “TV Boss” public service announcements that ran in 2006 and 2007? They're coming back. The PSAs portrayed young parents telling recognizable TV character tropes -- the mobster, the killer, the junkie -- that while their shows were very entertaining they would be “blocked” in their homes with young children. Media industry groups said Wednesday they're reviving the campaign as part of a broader effort to educate the public about TV parental controls. Such a campaign had been expected (CD Jan 30 p1) after the media industry came under congressional scrutiny following the elementary schools massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Tempers flared Wednesday as members of the House Communications Subcommittee grilled NTIA and RUS administrators over their oversight of the government’s rural broadband deployment initiatives. Republicans repeatedly needled NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling over allegations that recipients of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had wasted the money on overpriced services and broadband connectivity in areas already served by private telecom companies. Strickling and Rural Utilities Service Acting Administrator John Padalino passionately defended their agencies’ oversight of federal funds granted by the stimulus bill and sought to clarify GOP accusations of wasteful spending in West Virginia and Colorado.

Proponents of imposing an interoperability mandate for the lower 700 MHz band are working behind the scenes to quietly press for an order before Chairman Julius Genachowski leaves office. The FCC launched a rulemaking asking questions about interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band in March 2012 (CD March 22 p2). Small carriers emphasize they are only asking the FCC to “restore” interoperability for the band.

Major ISPs are announcing their Copyright Alert System (CAS) implementation plans this week. They include mitigation measures -- to be delivered after multiple alerts -- that would slow Internet speed or temporarily suspend a subscribers’ Internet access, despite previous statements that the CAS would not result in users losing connectivity. The CAS, facilitated by the Center for Copyright Information, is a collaborative effort on the part of AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and copyright holders to educate and redirect subscribers who are accessing infringing content through peer-to-peer networks. Explanations company officials gave to us about their CAS implementation plans in some cases differed from what was posted on the ISPs’ websites. The system began this week, after a delay, the participants said Monday (CD Feb 26 p10).

Multichannel video programming distributors oppose a Department of Energy plan to devise methods to test the energy efficiency of set-top boxes, MVPD executives told a DOE meeting on the agency’s notice of proposed rulemaking, which DOE calls an “NOPR” (CD Jan 23 p14). The executives continued to differ with advocates who seek more savings in power consumption of home electronics over the need for an NOPR. Another disagreement at Wednesday’s meeting was whether to include newer devices that some MVPDs are beginning to provide subscribers that serve as home gateways for broadband, phone and video connections to smaller thin-client devices that are scaled-down versions of set-tops. An advocate wanted such all-in-one-boxes included in the test methods, while cable operators don’t, and a maker of consumer electronics thinks the inclusion may make sense. DOE’s January proposal would exclude such gateways, meeting participants said.