Prison calling reform has long been a top issue for acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, but Clyburn acknowledged Wednesday that taking action raises some tough questions for the agency. During a workshop at FCC headquarters in Washington, speakers weighed in from law enforcement, prison calling companies, the states and those representing the interests of prisoners and their families.

To ensure minorities aren’t left behind as the industry transitions to IP, the secondary market for spectrum must continue working properly, AT&T’s Jim Cicconi said at the Minority Media Telecom Council conference Wednesday morning. Minorities’ disproportionate use of wireless technology also demonstrates that the IP transition is “inevitable” and “happening today,” he said.

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s Space Subcommittee voted Wednesday 11 to 9 to advance a draft version of the NASA Authorization Act of 2013 reauthorizing NASA programs for two more years with a $16.8 billion budget. An amendment introduced by Ranking Member Donna Edwards, D-Md., aimed at maintaining funding at NASA field centers and sustaining earth science research funds, failed. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science also approved appropriations that would give $16.6 billion to NASA in 2014.

The FCC’s USF suffers from “spectacular abuses,” researchers concluded, provoking protests and dissent. A 54-page report from George Mason University Professor Thomas Hazlett, a former FCC chief economist, and Scott Wallsten, Technology Policy Institute vice president-research, points to billions of dollars in high-cost line subsidies, tying them to what the authors characterize as a history of problems. The FCC defended the fund, pointing to November 2011 reforms, and NTCA and the Western Telecom Alliance attacked the report’s claims.

Content delivery network operators are turning to CDN interconnection as a way to pursue faster and simpler delivery of increasing loads of over-the-top traffic and to maximize their global footprint, the operators told us. CDN interconnection can provide a more efficient, cost-effective alternative to traditional peering and transit relationships, they said, acting as a partial solution to what some see as increasingly contentious peering relationships (CD July 1 p1).

Congress should seek to limit telemarketing exemptions and permit enforcement officials to pursue third-party spoofing providers, FTC and FCC officials said at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance. The prevalence of call spoofing, the practice of displaying false phone numbers on caller ID displays, remains a big hurdle for enforcement officials, witnesses said. Subcommittee Chair Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., railed against the increase in robocall complaints and said “these shady companies … remain a serious annoyance and abuse to consumers.”

The Internet will have rules and backstops, but those should be handled by the FTC, Silliman said. “The FTC, for example, has plenty of jurisdiction to protect consumers to deal with competition issues, but we feel the FCC should not be creeping its jurisdiction into these areas.” As the FCC takes an expansive view of its jurisdiction on the Internet using an ancillary theory, that “concerns” Verizon, he said: For instance, the Open Internet order said the FCC would forbear from applying its rules to Wi-Fi in coffee shops. That forbearance itself is an “implication that it could apply the FCC’s jurisdiction to Wi-Fi in coffee shops,” he said.

The FCC should revisit rules barring foreign investment in broadcasting and relax regulations on AM radio to promote minority media ownership, said FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai at a Minority Media & Telecom Council breakfast Wednesday, part of the MMTC’s Access to Capital conference. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel also attended the breakfast, and also suggested possible rule changes to favor minority media ownership. Pai called the foreign investment rules “an anachronistic relic,” and said changes to them would help minority businesses by increasing the availability of capital, which he called “the lifeblood of a business."

Transparency and copyright limitations and exceptions are needed in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), advocates told negotiators during the first round of negotiations this week in Washington. Civil liberties advocates also discussed the importance of ensuring user privacy as data travels across the Atlantic.

Governments and the European Commission, Council and Parliament faced many critical questions at a European Court of Justice hearing Tuesday in Luxembourg on the possible violation of EU fundamental rights by the EU data retention directive. The 2006 directive obliges member countries to provide for telecom operators to retain communication traffic and mobile users’ location data.