Ian Cohen

Charter Communications is seeking "balanced reforms" to pole-attachment rules and processes. "Charter is uniquely positioned to discuss pole attachment reform as both an existing attacher and a new attacher," and it faced "extensive damage" in the former role, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-84 on a meeting with aides to all five FCC commissioners and Wireline Bureau staffers. It proposed: "(1) a reasonable 30-day advance notice period to give existing attachers the opportunity to move their equipment, (2) a requirement that, if existing attachers were unable to move their equipment within that 30 days, new attachers could use contractors on an existing attachers’ list of approved contractors to do any make-ready work, and (3) time for an existing attacher to inspect the make-ready work that was done and (4) indemnification by the new attacher for any damages." It also proposed rules to "encourage application transparency, create reasonable deadlines to complete pre-construction surveys and make-ready estimates, expand the use of pre-approved contractors, and facilitate attachments on jointly-owned poles."

The FCC updated census blocks eligible for a Connect America Fund auction of subsidies for fixed broadband and voice services in areas traditionally served by major telcos. It also released a revised list of census block groups and their associated reserve prices and location counts, and a new map showing the eligible blocks within those groups, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Tuesday in docket 17-182. The CAF Phase II auction of $1.98 billion of subsidies over 10 years begins July 24 (see 1801300032).

Rivals can now challenge locations that Alaska Communications Services listed as eligible for Connect America Fund Phase II "frozen support," said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice Monday in docket 10-90. It said unsubsidized competitors have until March 22 to show they offer qualifying voice and broadband service to any of 6,056 locations in partially served census blocks where ACS plans to deploy using the CAF II support.

The FCC authorized three rural telcos to modify "capped switched access charge rates to utilize different Rate Bands in the National Exchange Carrier Association tariff to efficiently implement mergers and consolidation." Butler-Bremer Mutual Telephone, Panora Communications Cooperative and Prairie Telephone were given waivers by a Wireline Bureau order in docket 10-90 in Tuesday's Daily Digest. It said the waivers would promote company productivity and cost savings that benefit consumers and encourage broadband deployment. The order denied Panora and Prairie’s request to waive an imputation rule: "By deciding to merge prior to receiving this waiver, the two companies voluntarily reduced the rate assessed on local switching in the Prairie exchange. ... Panora and Prairie must impute the local switching rate for the Prairie traffic at the higher rate from April 1, 2015, the date the merger was closed, to the effective date of this Order."

Many stakeholders backed hiking USF rural health care program funding support, while industry parties focused more on improving RHC efficiency and oversight. Dozens of comments were filed at the FCC Monday and last week in docket 17-310 on an NPRM on possibly increasing the program's $400 million annual cap and creating a prioritization mechanism if demand exceeds the cap, among other potential changes. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition urged increasing the cap to $800 million to reflect that potential participating providers more than doubled since 1997 when the current cap began. The American Hospital Association said the cap should be "significantly increased to keep pace with growing connectivity demand." Other healthcare interests and Alaskan entities, including tribal groups, backed an increase, citing the need to at least account for inflation. The NPRM "overlooks the significantly greater need for support on a per-location basis in Alaska's rural areas than in the rest of the nation," said Alaska Communications. USTelecom shared some FCC concerns with how the RHC program has operated in the lower 48 states, where "cases of waste, fraud, or abuse have come to light." The commission should focus on helping Universal Service Administrative Co. "detect and reject applications where federal universal service support is not needed" to meet statutory proposes, the telco group said. NCTA supported the promotion of telehealth in rural America "based on evidentiary data with a principal focus on defined needs and desired outcomes." NTCA said the FCC should provide better guidance to applicants, including on the specificity needed to describe requests for service support. "Ensure that satellite broadband services are eligible to equitably compete" for such money, said the Satellite Industry Association.

FCC staff updated a guide on the Connect America Fund Phase II subsidy auction planned for July 24. The Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force, Wireline Bureau and Wireless Bureau released the 22-page guide to provide "technical and mathematical detail on the proposed bidding, assignment and support amount determination procedures" for the auction, said a public notice in docket 17-182 Friday in the Daily Digest. Commissioners adopted final rules on reconsideration and procedures Tuesday that paved the way for the reverse auction of subsidies for fixed broadband-oriented services to unserved locations in the traditional territories of major wireline telcos (see 1801300032).

Google Fiber urged the FCC to reject AT&T objections to a one-touch, make-ready (OTMR) policy recommended last month by the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (see 1801230043). Google Fiber Head-Policy John Burchett and other attorneys met Tuesday with Wireline Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning officials, said a Thursday ex-parte letter in docket 17-84. AT&T’s alternative recommendations mainly benefit AT&T, the Google representatives said. AT&T proposals to require OTMR only for complex work and allow existing attachers to decide if it’s complex “would perpetuate the existing power imbalance, in which incumbent attachers … delay and even prevent deployment of new networks by competitors.” Letting a third-party contractor decide complexity would remove bias, Google officials said. OTMR still could be used for complex work -- just give longer deadlines -- they said. AT&T’s most “self-serving” request is that new attachers honor existing pole riders’ collective bargaining agreements because, in many areas, the only union workers covered by such agreements are AT&T employees, Google representatives said. That also would prevent new attachers from invoking self-help remedies under existing rules, they said. Also, the FCC should reject AT&T calls for broad indemnification by new attachers for losses from OTMR, they said. To spur broad adoption of OTMR, the FCC should remind states they’re not pre-empted from adopting one-touch policies, they said.

Broadband speeds of 25 Mbps don't appear to offer major economic gains compared to 10 Mbps, the Phoenix Center reported Thursday. "While higher speeds may be of private value to users, there appears to be no broader economic payoff from higher-speed connections, at least when that difference is between download speeds of 10 Mbps and 25 Mbps," said a release on the report by Chief Economist George Ford. The FCC's fixed service benchmark for broadband-like advanced telecom capability (ATC) is 25 Mbps, and its high-cost USF benchmark is 10 Mbps. Examining data from a national broadband map and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Ford compared employment, income and labor earnings growth rates of U.S. counties with predominantly 25 Mbps and those with predominantly 10 Mbps. Ford controlled for county differences in population, education and other factors, the release said. Telecom Act Section 706 report on ATC deployment is effectively due Friday (see 1801180053 and 1801230027).

Windstream said it will offer AT&T's DirecTV satellite-TV and internet streaming services to residential consumers across its service area. The DirecTV services "will provide a perfect complement to Windstream’s high-speed internet service -- Kinetic by Windstream -- that will give customers affordable, diverse options for getting the programming they want and watching that content whether they are at home or on the go," said a Windstream release Thursday.

The FCC released a public notice Thursday setting bidding and application procedures for a Connect America Fund Phase II auction of subsidies for fixed broadband and voice services in areas traditionally served by major telcos. The 111-page PN text in docket 17-182 was approved 5-0 by commissioners Tuesday (see 1801300032).