The House Commerce Committee hit the ground running in its plan to update the Communications Act. Last month, House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., laid out plans to update the telecom law -- hearings and white papers in 2014, legislation in 2015. This week, the two Republicans announced their first hearing on the topic and introduced their first white paper, with questions for stakeholders.

Capitol Hill reaction may be limited, despite criticism AT&T is facing from net neutrality advocates over the introduction Monday of the carrier’s “sponsored data” plan, said industry experts in interviews. Other national carriers are likely monitoring the criticism from advocacy groups and the Hill and may use that to determine when -- and if -- they will introduce similar plans, the experts said. Net neutrality advocates said the plan violates the spirit of net neutrality but question the extent to which the FCC’s Open Internet rules would apply (CD Jan 7 p2). House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., raised some concerns Monday about the AT&T plan, which she said in a statement “puts it in the business of picking winners and losers on the Internet, threatening the open Internet, competition and consumer choice."

LAS VEGAS -- The Internet of Things (IoT) is really about connecting people rather than things, FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen said Wednesday during a speech at CES. Other speakers warned against regulatory hubris and said regulators must exercise a light hand as the Internet of Everything becomes a reality. And stakeholders told us that the FTC can play a significant role in the rapidly developing yet nascent IoT, but details of that involvement remain an open question.

AT&T withdrew an FCC tariff filing to eliminate long-term special access contracts, it told the agency. The telco plans to refile “with additional supporting material to address some of the feedback that we've already received from the commission,” a company spokeswoman told us Wednesday. The new filing will come “very soon,” she said. Some observers speculated that AT&T’s original filing might have been a way to test the agency’s response. The FCC suspended the tariff filing last month, having found in an order that there were “substantial questions” on whether AT&T’s revision -- which eliminated long-term discounts -- was just and reasonable (CD Dec 10 p1).

LAS VEGAS -- Safety should be one of the industry’s biggest concerns as the connected car becomes a reality, David Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told CES late Tuesday. Strickland, who’s leaving the agency, said he has come to CES repeatedly because he views it as one of the most important annual car shows in the U.S.

The FCC is looking for economists versed in microeconomics, econometrics and industrial organization theory. The agency is likely trying to beef up its team in advance of some mathematically complex actions it’s expected to take this year, such as retooling some USF cost models, and analyzing the state of the special access market, said economists in interviews. The real question, they say, is whether the new hires will be expected to justify decisions the agency has already made, or actually drive the decision-making process.

LAS VEGAS -- Mobility is everywhere was the theme of a packed session at CES Tuesday with top executives from Qualcomm, AT&T and Ericsson. There were long lines to get in and the crowd filled several conference rooms at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Halfway through, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel brought things down to earth, asking the executives whether spectrum can keep up with a world of driverless cars, drones and medical wearables.

The FCC should let network operators decide the best way to mitigate interference on the 3.5 GHz band, said a carrier, high-technology firms and other companies commenting on spectrum access systems for use on the 3550-3650 MHz band. SAS shouldn’t “directly control different aspects of the network,” T-Mobile said Monday (http://bit.ly/1ddo1fJ). Google and Microsoft also filed papers with the FCC on the technical aspects of the SAS in advance of a Jan. 14 workshop being hosted by the Wireless Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology. The FCC has targeted the band for shared commercial use.

LAS VEGAS -- AT&T is very optimistic about the direction the FCC is heading on the IP transition, with a rulemaking teed up for a vote at the commission’s January meeting, said Senior Vice President Bob Quinn. Speakers during a CES panel hosted by USTelecom said the transition to IP from a plain-old-telephone-service (POTS) world is one of the biggest issues facing the agency. “I'm pretty optimistic,” Quinn said. “One of the things they [at the FCC] really get is that this be voluntary. I don’t think they want to mandate people to participate in this trial. … They want telephone companies who are interested in conducting these test beds to come forward and say, ‘Where would [you] like to have these done and what is your timeframe, what is your plan.'"

Netflix is confident it will be able to stream native 4K content to subscribers with enough bandwidth efficiency to make it “practical” for any home with a broadband connection, CEO Reed Hastings told Sony’s CES news conference Monday. Hastings used superlatives repeatedly to tout 4K’s “stunning” picture quality and his company’s warm collaboration with Sony, but was short on specifics about the nature of that collaboration or when Netflix might debut its 4K offering. Mike Fasulo, newly named Sony Electronics president, introduced Hastings by saying: “Today, I'm really excited to announce that our relationship with one of the undisputed leaders in the content delivery space has taken a giant leap forward."