WASHINGTON, June 20 (Reuters) – The top U.S. communications regulator said on Monday that he will propose rules to combat unauthorized fees on consumers’ monthly phone bills.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said he will circulate a proposal to his fellow commissioners on Tuesday to protect consumers from “cramming,” the illegal placement of extra charges on phone bills.

Cramming likely affects up to 20 million Americans, the FCC estimates, adding anywhere from $1.99 to $19.99 a month to a customer’s phone bill. The charges can originate from the phone companies as well as from third parties.

The charges, often hidden in lengthy billing statements with difficult to decipher language, often go unnoticed but can add up to hundreds of dollars, Genachowski said.

“The FCC will not tolerate cramming and mystery fees, and we’re turning up the heat on companies that rip off consumers with unauthorized fees,” he said during an event at the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy institute.

The agency last week proposed $11.7 million in penalties against four companies that allegedly charged thousands of customers for long distance services they had not ordered.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau found that Main Street Telephone, VoiceNet Telephone LLC, Cheap2Digital Telephone LLC and Norristown Telephone LLC overcharged consumers about $8 million.

WASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) – Bloomberg LP, unhappy with the placement of its financial news channel in Comcast Corp’s (CMCSA.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) cable television lineup, filed a complaint with the U.S. communications regulator on Monday, accusing the cable operator of violating a condition of its merger with NBC Universal.

Comcast, the No. 1 provider of video and residential Internet service in the United States, acquired a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal from General Electric Co (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in January.

Approval of the merger came with a list of conditions to protect the public interest and prevent anti-competitive practices following a rigorous, year-long review by the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department.

In a complaint to the FCC, Bloomberg accused Comcast of violating a “neighborhooding” condition of the merger that it says requires Comcast to put like channels in the same place in the lineup.

“If Comcast is dragging its feet on a condition this clear, we can only imagine how they will live up to conditions that are potentially less clear,” said Greg Babyak, head of government affairs for Bloomberg LP.

The complaint suggests Comcast is discriminating against Bloomberg TV to increase viewership and advertising revenue for its affiliated programming, including CNBC, Bloomberg TV’s dominant competitor, and other news networks now controlled by the cable company.

Bloomberg has asked the FCC to require Comcast to comply with this condition within 60 days by putting Bloomberg TV in existing news neighborhoods on all Comcast systems in the 35 most populous U.S. markets.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday upheld communications regulators’ decision to bar cable operators from blocking access to some sports programing.

The Federal Communications Commission closed a loophole last year that allowed cable companies to deny access to channels delivered via terrestrial ground lines and not satellite feeds.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied Cablevision Systems Corp’s challenge that the FCC lacked the statutory authority to regulate the withholding of such programing.

“We see nothing in the statute that unambiguously precludes the Commission from extending its program access rules to terrestrially delivered programing,” the D.C. Circuit said on Friday.

But the court did vacate one part of the order, which the FCC will have to reexamine before any program access complaints can be addressed.

The D.C. Circuit said the agency “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” by concluding that exclusive terrestrial programing contracts are categorically unfair.

“Given the local and regional nature of terrestrial programing, such exclusives can be highly pro-competitive, particularly in markets like New York with as many as five video providers,” a Cablevision spokeswoman said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The communications regulator has been oddly slow in unleashing new powers to police the Internet, six months after finalizing the controversial rules.

The delay has kept the rules in a glass box, both preventing the Federal Communications Commission from cracking down on unwarranted blocking of Internet content and keeping legal challenges at bay.

The rules, adopted last December, give the FCC power to ensure consumer access to huge movie files and other content while allowing ISPs like Verizon Communications and Comcast Corp to manage their networks to prevent congestion.

It is the latest twist in the so-called net neutrality debate, which pitted content providers who wanted protection against the blocking or degrading of their services against Internet service providers that wanted to “control the pipeline.”

Some accuse the FCC of intentional foot-dragging on what it knows is a hot potato, because as soon as the rules are implemented they are sure to be challenged in court by corporations. In order for the rules to take effect, the agency must publish them in the Federal Register.

Industry sources and former regulators are scratching their heads about what they call an extraordinarily long time between the FCC’s adoption of the rules and publication to put them into effect.

The FCC, however, claims that any delay is not intentional.

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) – The U.S. communications regulator has been oddly slow in unleashing new powers to police the Internet, six months after finalizing the controversial rules.

The delay has kept the rules in a glass box, both preventing the Federal Communications Commission from cracking down on unwarranted blocking of Internet content and keeping legal challenges at bay.

The rules, adopted last December, give the FCC power to ensure consumer access to huge movie files and other content while allowing ISPs like Verizon Communications (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to manage their networks to prevent congestion.

It is the latest twist in the so-called net neutrality debate, which pitted content providers who wanted protection against the blocking or degrading of their services against Internet service providers that wanted to “control the pipeline.”

Some accuse the FCC of intentional foot-dragging on what it knows is a hot potato, because as soon as the rules are implemented they are sure to be challenged in court by corporations. In order for the rules to take effect, the agency must publish them in the Federal Register.

Industry sources and former regulators are scratching their heads about what they call an extraordinarily long time between the FCC’s adoption of the rules and publication to put them into effect.

The FCC, however, claims that any delay is not intentional.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate committee backed giving U.S. communications regulators authority to auction some airwaves currently used by broadcast television and to shift their use to mobile broadband.

The auction authority is seen as key to a Federal Communications Commission plan to free up additional airwaves to meet the booming demand for wireless services.

Incentive auctions, where some of the proceeds would go to the broadcasters giving up spectrum, are part of a bill to build a nationwide public safety network that was approved in a 21-4 vote by the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

Some 25 million Americans already watch video on smartphones and tablet computers like Apple Inc’s iPad, putting 120 times more demand on spectrum than older phones.

The FCC hopes to repurpose 120 megahertz of spectrum through voluntary auctions of television airwaves.

Broadcasters have been wary of the FCC plan, worried about the unintended consequences it could have on their TV signals and the 46 million viewers that still rely on over-the-air TV.

“As the process moves forward, NAB will work with policymakers to help ensure that broadcasters are able to deliver on the promise of free and local digital television made to tens of millions of viewers,” National Association of Broadcasters President and Chief Executive Gordon Smith said in a statement.

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) – The United States continues to lag behind other countries in broadband adoption and download speeds, according to a report released by the Federal Communications Commission on Friday.

Based on broadband data from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries, the United States ranked ninth out of 29 countries for mobile broadband adoption on a per capita basis, and 12th out of 33 countries for percentage of households with fixed broadband, the FCC said.

The United Kingdom, South Korea and Iceland were among countries to top the United States’ 63 percent broadband adoption rate.

Extending affordable Internet access to all Americans is a priority of the FCC. The agency released its National Broadband Plan last year, a blueprint for expanding coverage, making more airwaves available for mobile services and upgrading Internet speeds up to 25 times the current average.

Consumers in some large European and Asian cities reported faster download speeds than consumers in comparable U.S. cities, the report released Friday said.

For instance, average download speed was found to be 11.7 Mbps in New York with a population of nearly 8.4 million people compared with 35.8 Mbps for the 10 million residents of Seoul, South Korea, the report said.

But the agency acknowledged that gaps and variations in data collection methodologies across countries prevent any definitive conclusions from being made.

WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) – Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker will leave the agency for a new post at Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Comcast said on Wednesday that Baker will join the company as senior vice president of government affairs for NBC Universal.

The Republican commissioner will be lobbying for a unit that she, along with three of the four other FCC members, voted to allow Comcast to acquire four months ago.

The FCC and the Justice Department approved Comcast’s $13.75 billion purchase of a majority stake in NBC Universal from General Electric Co (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in January.

The announcement marks the second high-profile hire for Comcast; it snagged Kyle McSlarrow, former head of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, as president of Comcast/NBCUniversal for Washington, D.C.

Baker, who will leave the FCC on June 3, also will be the second former communications regulator to shift to lobbying for the industry they once regulated. Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell joined cable TV’s lobbying arm in March as president and chief executive of NCTA, replacing McSlarrow.

Public interest group Free Press blasted Baker’s move to Comcast as the latest and possibly most blatant “example of a so-called public servant cashing in at a company she is supposed to be regulating.”