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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.

Senators are concerned that an ongoing switch from traditional phone lines to Internet-based phone technology could leave some in the US without reliable phone service.

During a hearing held by the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, multiple Democratic senators expressed concerns that the new technologies would be less reliable than the traditional technologies, especially during emergencies.

“If there’s one thing that every person is worried about … its public safety,” Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said. “We need to make sure that these new technologies are functional,” especially when callers are trying to reach emergency services, she continued.

Sen Cory Booker (D-NJ) pointed to 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, which wiped out communications networks in parts of New York and New Jersey that had moved off of the traditional technology.

The so-called IP -- or Internet Protocol -- transition to Internet-based phone technology is being overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, which voted earlier to allow telephone companies to propose transition trials for areas where they intend to remove the traditional technology.

The Obama Administration has ruled out using internal administrative policy to reform controversial federal surveillance programs, a top Justice Department official said.

Officials have not tried to persuade the country’s surveillance court to change its understanding of the law, Deputy Attorney General James Cole told lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and do not plan to replace a National Security Agency (NSA) program with other ways to collect data about Americans.

“We think that our choices at this point really come down to what has been approved by the courts over a number of years, new legislation or else not having the tools at all,” he said.

Attorney General Cole’s statement came in response to a question from Sen Mark Udall (D-CO), a critic of the NSA's surveillance, who claimed that the administration “has the tools it needs” through other methods to protect national security while also not violating their privacy. Opponents of the NSA’s program to collect records about people’s phone calls say that the federal government could abandon the program and use other means, such as national security letters, to collect the data.

“The current law gives the government broad authority right now -- right now-- to obtain records quickly,” Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), another critic of the government surveillance, told Attorney General Cole. “The fact that this dragnet surveillance is taking place right now is unacceptable to me.”

Sen Tom Harkin (D-IA) wants US airlines to add closed captioning to movies that are shown during long flights in an effort to aid hearing impaired airline passengers.

Sen Harkin said he was considering adding an amendment requiring the airline industry to at least study the proposal to a $54 billion funding bill for the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development during a markup of the measure.

"I have been trying for some time to get the airlines to provide closed captions on the movies on their airplanes. I can't understand why they don't do it. It doesn't cost anything," Harkin said after the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to send the measure to the full of the floor Senate.

The chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee said that she would try to include the amendment addressing Sen Harkin's concerns in the final version of the transportation department funding measure when it reaches the Senate floor.

A coalition of privacy groups is pushing the Senate to pass a stronger surveillance reform bill than the USA Freedom House that recently sailed through the House.

“The result we seek is legislation that will protect constitutional and human rights and assure necessary oversight of the intelligence community’s collection of individuals’ personal information,” 30 groups said in a letter to leadership.

Signatories include the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Demand Progress and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is slated to take up the House bill, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has said he will turn his attention to NSA reform later this summer with an eye on strengthening privacy provisions in the House-passed bill.

In their letter to Senate leadership and the leadership of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees, the privacy groups pointed to eleventh-hour changes to the USA Freedom Act in the House before the final vote on the bill.

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of his first leaks about the National Security Agency, former contractor Edward Snowden is calling for Internet users and companies take up the reins on their own.

"One year ago, we learned that the Internet is under surveillance, and our activities are being monitored to create permanent records of our private lives -- no matter how innocent or ordinary those lives might be,” he said. “Today, we can begin the work of effectively shutting down the collection of our online communications, even if the US Congress fails to do the same.”

Snowden is throwing his support behind an online effort that Web companies and advocacy organizations are calling Reset the Net.

Google, Mozilla, reddit and other leading websites are teaming up with advocacy organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee for the push, which is aimed at increasing users’ privacy protections online. The campaign is looking for popular websites and online services to offer more online security in the absence of and in addition to any legislation from Congress.