Ian Cohen

FCC data "appears to overstate the extent to which broadband is actually available throughout the nation," said Microsoft, noting the data "underpins" Form 477 and an annual Telecom Act Section 706 report. "In some areas the Commission’s broadband availability data suggests that [ISPs] have reported significant broadband availability (25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up) while Microsoft’s usage data indicates that only a small percentage of consumers actually access the Internet at broadband speeds in those areas," said a filing posted Monday on meeting an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks in docket 18-238. Improve broadband measurements "by drawing on the FCC’s subscription data, along with other broadband data sets from third-parties," it added: Change "survey instructions to focus more narrowly on identifying where broadband is actually being used, without including where it could be used, as is required today."

FCC intermediate provider registry rules and service-quality standards don't apply to non-U.S. intermediate providers on calls terminating outside the U.S., the commission clarified in footnote 83 of a rural call completion order. Friday after commissioners approved the move, Wireline Bureau staffers said there was a clarifying footnote in the order adopted unanimously (see 1903150051).

CLECs urged the FCC to deny ILECs relief from an "avoided-cost resale requirement," at least for TDM-based phone service over copper loops, as USTelecom requested in a forbearance petition targeting Telecom Act wholesale network-sharing duties. USTelecom hasn't met its burden to demonstrate that the public and competition "will be advantaged by forbearance from that requirement," and a Dec. 28 AT&T letter "provides no basis for the Commission to conclude otherwise," filed Granite Telecommunications, Manhattan Telecommunications and AccessOne, posted Thursday in docket 18-141. They derided "baseless" AT&T arguments attempting "to explain away the inadequacy" of petition information and data by asserting the FCC need not analyze relevant TDM service geographic and product markets, where ILECs have "substantial and persisting market power." WorldNet discussed its opposition to the petition as applied to Puerto Rico, it filed, posted Friday, on meetings CEO David Bogaty and others had with Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Mike O'Rielly, their aides, aides to other commissioners and Wireline Bureau staffers. Incompas said a Feb. 21 AT&T letter and a Feb. 27 USTelecom letter "further demonstrate that USTelecom’s original Petition fails to meet the basic procedural requirement that forbearance petitions must be complete as-filed." The FCC should grant a petition dismissal motion of Incompas and others, filed the CLEC group, posted Thursday. USTelecom and members "discussed publicly available data and data in the record" supporting its "request for a finding that Section 251(c) unbundling and resale mandates are no longer necessary," filed the ILEC group on meeting an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. The data "demonstrate significant competition for voice and broadband service for consumers and businesses."

Alaska Communications said FCC rural healthcare program rate guidance in a Feb. 15 Wireline Bureau public notice "appears to overlook ... pragmatic realities" of the USF mechanism. "To the Bureau’s credit, it is attempting to improve predictability and transparency," filed the carrier Wednesday in docket 17-310. "But such efforts will not succeed until the Commission modernizes its rules and puts the program on solid footing, with clear rules and processes announced in advance, a predictable funding schedule, and accountability for all." Alaska Communications noted seemingly "elementary" guidance that service providers should determine the rural rate before responding to a healthcare provider's request for bids and ensure the rate is sufficiently documented. That "overlooks the challenges faced by service providers in determining the rural rate under the current rules, and fails to account for the role of [Universal Service Administrative Co.] and the Commission in making this determination," the carrier wrote. Because "rules provide a series of options for determining the rural rate that must be applied sequentially, the service provider often has no assurance when it places a bid ... whether or under which option the rural rate will satisfy USAC."

The FCC announced legacy USF amounts available to price-cap telcos and fixed competitive eligible telecom carriers after authorization of Connect America Fund Phase II auction support. Carriers declining the "phase down support" have until April 11 to provide notice, state by state, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest and docket 10-90. A CAF transition order adopted Feb. 14 (see 1902140032) decided "price cap carriers receiving legacy CAF Phase I frozen support prior to the CAF Phase II auction will continue receiving such support in areas won at auction until the first day of the month following the authorization of CAF Phase II support in the same areas," said the PN. "In auction-eligible areas not won at auction, price cap carriers will continue receiving legacy support for an interim period. Fixed competitive ETCs, however, will begin receiving two-thirds of their total frozen legacy support beginning the first day of the month following the first authorization of any CAF Phase II auction support nationwide, and will receive one-third of their support the following year, before their legacy support is eliminated." A Wireline Bureau PN Tuesday in docket 10-90 and others said certain high-cost USF waiver petitions filed 2006-2013 would be dismissed unless petitioners state their intention within 45 days to pursue them.

CenturyLink asked FCC staff to not enforce USF withholding penalties and reporting rules, pending resolution of its petition to reconsider a staff determination and Universal Service Administrative Co. broadband deployment findings. A Feb. 22 Wireline Bureau letter notified CenturyLink it's "subject to these penalties and enhanced reporting requirements based on the Bureau’s determination that CenturyLink missed its 40 percent interim deployment milestone for Connect America Fund ('CAF') Phase II in Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, and Wisconsin," said the telco's stay filing in docket 10-90 posted Wednesday. Saying the bureau has no timetable for acting on that petition and USAC will begin withholding $4.45 million monthly in CAF support later in March, the carrier sought expedited consideration of its stay request: "These losses could well be unrecoverable. If CenturyLink’s support is withheld as ordered in the Noncompliance Letter, this may interfere with the company’s ability to continue to deploy broadband to additional locations. Under the CAF-II rules, the company is subject to graduated deployment milestones with each passing year, and significant penalties if it does not complete at least 95 percent of its total required deployment by the end of 2020." USAC auditors declined to verify certain locations as served "because of purported mismatches between the geocoordinate and address information in CenturyLink’s records and the coordinates and address information CenturyLink reported to USAC," said the recon petition. It cited "industrywide discussions" with regulators on multi-dwelling unit locations and "shortcomings" in USAC's high cost universal broadband (HUBB) system, and additional locations it reported Feb. 27 in the HUBB. The additional locations combined "with the Mismatch Locations alone, are sufficient to bring CenturyLink’s total locations served above the 40 percent compliance milestone," it said, suggesting recognition of other served locations would further increase compliance.

Comments are due April 15, replies April 28 on an FCC Further NPRM seeking IP captioned telephone service program changes, according to a proposed rule for Thursday's Federal Register and a timetable. It proposes to require providers to add user account identifiers to call records submitted for compensation, allow new users to receive service for up to two weeks while their identities are verified in a user registration database, and simplify processing of 911 calls by users who connect to a provider over the internet. The FNPRM and an attached order were adopted unanimously Feb. 14 (see 1902140032).

The FCC should end price caps on large telco business data service transport, incumbents said in replies posted through Tuesday on a Further NPRM proposal. A 2017 commission decision to end such ex-ante regulation, remanded by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for lack of notice, "was backed by strong evidence and a rational policy choice," replied USTelecom and ITTA in docket 17-144. "Nothing in the record of the current proceeding should alter the Commission’s prior conclusion." AT&T said no party disputes "key facts" showing BDS transport competition was "essentially ubiquitous" in price-cap regions as of 2013 -- even with cable deployment understated -- and it cited "substantial" competitor investments since then. "Reversing course at this juncture would upset industry expectations, disrupt carriers and their customers, and strain the overall [BDS] regulatory framework," said Verizon. In initial opposition (see 1902110027), Incompas and Sprint "just recite arguments" the FCC rejected in 2017, said CenturyLink: "These parties appear to have forgotten that the Eighth Circuit denied all the CLECs’ substantive challenges to the BDS Order and remanded that order solely to cure a single procedural error. ... Given that court decision, the Commission’s key findings in the BDS Order are on even firmer ground today." The 8th Circuit's substantive affirmation of the 2017 order "is in many ways the end of the inquiry," said Frontier Communications. As USTelecom and ITTA said previously, the "FNPRM leaves RLECs wishing to elect price cap regulation for their transport elements in limbo," said NTCA. It backed an "ITTA/USTelecom recommendation that the same policy considerations that the Commission found justified moving price cap carriers’ TDM transport services to incentive regulation equally apply to RLECs’ TDM transport services."

The deadline is April 1 for inmate calling service providers to file annual reports and certifications, the FCC Wireline Bureau reminded in a public notice Tuesday in docket 12-375.

FCC staff granted two domestic requests to transfer control under Section 214 of the Communications Act: of HCI Telcom to IdeaTek Equity Group in docket 18-399, and of Locus Communications to Telrite Holdings in docket 19-4. The effective date for both was Sunday, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Monday.