Whether the FCC should classify VoIP and with it HD voice as a Title I Communications Act information service or a Title II telecom service depends on how stakeholders would be affected by the IP transition, and with it issues like required interconnection. Interviews with lawyers and executives on both sides of the issue this week found that those who believe interconnection rules are important want them to carry over to an all-digital future where calls no longer travel on traditional phone networks. The same with Title I classification, sought by those who believe interconnection will happen on its own in the market without federal or state requirements for it, or Title II classification, for some who think government mandates are needed for interconnection.

No reply opposed by comment deadline a startup nonprofit’s request that the FCC issue a notice of inquiry on making a transition to HD voice as part of the IP transition, docket 13-5 shows (http://bit.ly/1w2bIXZ). Supporters of VoIP, which commenter and NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay told us hasn’t been definitively classified as a telecom or information service, continued backing the NOI request. States should have a role in any transition from circuit-switched phone service that could also include HD voice, said NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Michael Romano.

Broadband download speeds of 10 Mbps, as a draft inquiry signals the FCC wants to be the new benchmark instead of 4 Mbps (CD June 4 p1), were described by experts in interviews as sufficient for most residential Internet uses. A notice of inquiry circulating at the FCC asks about raising the benchmark to 10 Mbps, which some called the new 1 Mbps, although others questioned if the threshold needs to increase.

The FCC would bolster its statutory authority to regulate net neutrality, and help undergird the ability to parcel out USF money for broadband, by deciding for another year that Web service isn’t being sufficiently deployed, said agency and industry officials. They said in interviews last week that a negative finding over reasonable and timely deployment of broadband service in the annual Communications Act Section 706 report wouldn’t likely be required for net neutrality and USF broadband authority. That’s under last month’s 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding FCC authority over broadband USF (CD May 27 p1) and January’s D.C. Circuit remand of net neutrality rules.

Upping minimum download speeds the FCC deems fast enough to be called broadband, as a new notice of inquiry asks about doing in the next broadband deployment report, could have practical consequences for ISPs and commission measurement, said industry executives in interviews Tuesday. Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office on Friday circulated an NOI asking about increasing the minimum download transmission speed from 4 Mbps to 10 Mbps, said agency officials. The annual FCC report measuring the availability of broadband under Communications Act Section 706 appears headed in that direction, based on the justifications presented for such a speed-threshold increase in the draft inquiry, said an agency official. The draft NOI also asks about bigger increases, to as much as a more-than 600 percent increase from the current floor, said agency officials.

The FCC approach to net neutrality is the right one, said Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei, hoping there’s no reclassification of broadband as a common-carrier telecom service. What some high-technology interests back in Title II or other more regulatory approaches isn’t the best way to proceed, he told executives and lobbyists for mostly old media Tuesday. “Very delicately the FCC has tried to balance between these interests.” The plethora of challenges faced by traditional media companies including cable operators mainly involve tech innovation, embraced more readily and successfully by upstarts that have bloomed into tech titans like Google, said Maffei in Q&A: Regulation hasn’t been a major hurdle.

Further FCC culling of a backlog of indecency complaints that exceeded a million at its peak (CD Jan 14/13 p1) hasn’t mollified critics on either side of the issue. The number of new consumer complaints about what’s on radio and TV plunged in recent years to a minuscule proportion of the highs after Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” agency records show. That happened because consumers grew discouraged feeling the agency won’t act on instances of on-air nudity and cursing they flagged, and also because of a lack of high-profile indecency on primetime broadcast TV a la Jackson, said groups that ask viewers to file FCC complaints.

The FCC signaled it won’t back down on a requirement that all TV stations post online all new materials that go into political files now kept on paper in main studios, said fans and foes of the rule in interviews Monday. The Media Bureau Friday issued what some on all sides of the issue called a relatively rare public notice reminding broadcasters of the political file requirement. It was rare because the PN appeared almost three months before the requirement takes effect July 1, and because when that requirement takes effect no materials need be uploaded to fcc.gov retroactively, said industry and public interest lawyers. Other parts of TV station public-inspection records already must be uploaded to the FCC’s website.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency weighed in on an FCC public notice (CD March 13 p10) asking whether the commission should make broadcasters switch to a “designated hitter” system to send emergency alert system (EAS) messages in languages other than English when the foreign-language station is off-air. A one-paragraph FEMA comment posted Wednesday in docket 04-296, 26 days before initial responses are due to the Public Safety Bureau request (CD March 31 p15), backed the Minority Media and Telecommunication Council’s work to extend EAS warnings to those who don’t speak English. FEMA cautioned that using text-to-speech (TTS) technology to send such non-English warnings of bad weather, natural disasters and other events has “limitations.” A designated hitter approach would have stations in the same market of one that’s off-air distribute alerts in the language used by the knocked-out broadcaster.

Expect more channels to be blacked out to broadband and TV subscribers of multichannel video programming distributors, as MVPDs increasingly say no to programmer requests to pay more for content, said subscription-video industry executives in interviews Monday. That was as a midnight deadline was nearing for all of Viacom’s cable channels to be carried on small- and mid-sized MVPDs that jointly bargain for a programming contract under the National Cable Television Cooperative (CD March 26 p16). NCTC said a blackout of channels like Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon would be a first in the co-op’s 30-year history. The down-to-the-wire talks between NCTC, representing MVPDs with about 5.2 million subscribers, and Viacom, one of the biggest cable programmers, may foreshadow what’s to come as other pay-TV deals with additional programmers expire, said cable and telecom executives.