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Despite calls from Democrats, the top House Republican on telecom issues isn’t planning to hold hearings on the proposed multi-billion dollar deals to combine giants in the telecom industry.

“It’s not really our intent to hold individual hearings on every merger,” Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, said. “You’ve got these agencies that have the ability to do an independent look,” including the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice, he said.

Democrats on the committee called on Rep Walden and the Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) to hold hearings on the recently-announced $45 billion deal to combine Comcast and Time Warner Cable as well as the $49 billion deal to merge AT&T and DirecTV. Rep Walden said he receives these requests regularly, but his subcommittee is “trying to focus on the bigger policy issues.”

Rep Walden noted that other committees, including the House Judiciary Committee, are holding hearings on the proposed mergers. He said he does have concerns that the FCC will use the hearings to achieve its regulatory goals, such as net neutrality, without going through agency process.

Comcast is pushing back on the tech industry’s opposition to the cable giant’s merger with Time Warner Cable. The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) -- which includes Google, Facebook, Aereo and T-Mobile -- is wrong to say that the merger will harm competition and consumers, Comcast Vice President of Government Communications Sena Fitzmaurice said.

"Every market Comcast operates in is highly competitive, and we compete actively every day against some of CCIA's members,” she said. Fitzmaurice criticized CCIA for its “inaccurate figures” about Comcast’s market share if the proposed merger goes through.

The federal consumer watchdog says mobile banking services present enormous potential benefits for low-income people. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said it will take a closer look at how mobile banking and financial services applications can empower unbanked and underbanked people to take better control of their personal finances.

"For the economically vulnerable, mobile (banking) can enhance access to safer, more affordable products and services in ways that can improve their economic lives," the agency wrote in the Federal Register.

The CFPB issued a request for information as it considers how to regulate mobile banking services. The bureau said 74,000 people each day signed up for mobile banking services in 2013, many of whom are low-income individuals whose only access to the Internet is through their phone, the agency said. According to a Federal Reserve study, 39 percent of underbanked people use mobile banking applications.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a bill to reauthorize the law governing the satellite television marketplace. Chairman Leahy noted the narrow focus of the bill, which he said “may not please all stakeholders.”

“My focus is on the consumers who stand to lose access to broadcast television content in the event that Congress is unable to pass a bill by the end of the year,” he said. The bipartisan bill from Chairman Leahy and Senate Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) reauthorizes the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) for five years.

Key provisions of that law are set to expire by the end of 2014, which would keep satellite television companies from providing broadcast programming to subscribers who are unable to get the broadcast programming otherwise.

“If Congress does not act by the end of 2014 to reauthorize the distant signal license, approximately 1.5 million consumers will lose access to the broadcast television programming that they are currently receiving,” Chairman Leahy said.

The Supreme Court is being called to weigh in on a years-long Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the high court to decide whether the Obama administration should hand over a secret memo allowing the FBI to obtain phone records without any judicial process.

"The public has a fundamental right to know how the federal government is interpreting surveillance and privacy laws," EFF senior counsel David Sobel said. "If the [Justice Department’s] Office of Legal Counsel has interpreted away federal privacy protections in secret, the public absolutely needs access to that analysis. There is no way for the public to intelligently advocate for reforms when we're intentionally kept in the dark," he added.

The disputed memo first came to light in a 2010 report from the department’s inspector general.

A coalition of media advocacy groups is pressing lawmakers to investigate the billing practices of cable and satellite companies. “Industry-wide practices, such as erroneous overbilling, equipment rental fees and inflated or unnecessary ‘extra’ charges, are the result of an uncompetitive market structure and all contribute to rising monthly cable and satellite TV bills,” the groups wrote to lawmakers.

The letters -- signed by broadcast advocacy group TVFreedom along with Media Alliance and the Hispanic Institute, which advocate for media diversity -- were sent to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Commerce Committee and Subcommittee on Communications and the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Subcommittee on Communications.

Lawmakers should examine the lack of competition in the television marketplace, which allows cable and satellite companies to charge high prices for television programming through difficult-to-understand bills loaded with unexpected charges, the groups said.

“The marketplace has failed to adequately address significant annual increases in consumers’ monthly pay-TV bills,” the letters said. “As a result, consumer choice for video service across the country remains limited and family budgets must bear the heavy financial burden of ever-escalating monthly pay-TV bills.”

A group representing tech industry giants is calling on regulators to block the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Responding to questions from Sen Al Franken (D-MN), who has vocally opposed the merger, the Computer and Communications Industry Association encouraged regulators and lawmakers to oppose the merger.

“Regulators should block this merger, not only for the good of innovation, the Internet industry and of consumers; but also for the sanctity of antitrust law itself,” Ed Black, president of the CCIA, wrote.

The CCIA represents companies in the tech and telecom sectors, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, TiVo, Aereo, T-Mobile and Sprint. Black said his group opposes the merger between two of the country’s largest cable companies and Internet providers because it would increase the company’s “bottleneck market power,” giving it too much leverage when dealing with Internet users and websites.

The CCIA “is concerned that this merger poses a significant threat to innovation and competition in many parts of the marketplace, including ... the websites, platforms and online services that the vast majority of Americans use everyday,” the letter said.

Amtrak is looking to upgrade the wireless Internet it offers along the 457-mile Northeast corridor. The train line has offered Wi-Fi to riders from Washington to Boston for a handful of years, but the service has been frustratingly slow and often cuts out at points through the trip on a crowded train. For some regular commuters, the poor service has become something of a recurring joke. Amtrak wants that to change.

The Wi-Fi connection along the popular route is currently 10 Mbps, but the company is looking for bids to boost that to at least 25 Mbps, which would be a significant upgrade. Web speeds could rise even further in the future, as technology permits, Amtrak said. Additionally, Amtrak would drop current restrictions that prevent riders from downloading large files and streaming music and video, which would allow people along the Northeast corridor to watch movies on Netflix and Hulu and stream songs on Spotify.

Amtrak has asked for a $260 million bump in federal money from Congress to deal with a surge of riders, especially along the popular Northeast corridor.

Sen Charles Schumer (D-NY) wants to make sure the tens of thousands of people voicing concerns about a new net neutrality proposal get heard. “While they may not be the businesses from whom you are accustomed to hearing, the fact that ordinary citizens would take time out of their days to weigh in on a complicated regulatory issue is a clear indicator of its significance,” Sen Schumer said. Sen Schumer sent a letter to Chairman Wheeler encouraging the FCC leader to take into account the tens of thousands of public comments the FCC has received since its vote in May. Chairman Wheeler should “give significant weight to the public input,” he said. Sen Schumer pointed to the “nearly 50,000 comments from concerned citizens who share my belief that it is the Commission’s responsibility to protect and preserve an open Internet.” He compared the public interest in the net neutrality process to less highly watched proceedings at the agency. "While the Commission is accustomed to hearing from businesses who are concerned with proposed changes to telecommunications law, I cannot recall a time when ordinary Americans have been so engaged in a regulatory issue," he said.

Public broadcasters are warning that some people could lose access to “Sesame Street,” “NewsHour” and other educational shows. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) denied the broadcasters’ request to ensure that every community has access to the free public TV after it redistributes the nation’s airwaves, according to the broadcasters.

“We believe the Commission’s rejection of this long-standing policy is a grievous error that risks breaking faith with the nation’s commitment to universal service for non-commercial educational television,” the heads of PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Association of Public Television Stations said.

The chiefs said they had “profound disappointment” in the decision, which rejects “one of public television’s most important policy goals” in the spectrum auction process. Under the Public Broadcasting Act, stations like PBS are supposed to reach every American in the country. For decades, the FCC has reserved chunks of the spectrum for non-commercial educational TV, but the public broadcasters accused it of ending that pattern with its new auction.