Ian Cohen

IP captioned telephone service providers asked the FCC to act on a new IP CTS rate plan (see 2406030062). CaptionCall said in separate meetings with aides to Commissioners Nathan Simington, Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks that the rate plan "should set the basic economic framework for the development of the most functionally equivalent IP CTS." The company also met with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. In addition, Hamilton Relay met separately with aides to Carr and Starks. It told the FCC that a new rate plan should "adequately compensate providers for the higher costs" associated with using a communications assistant (CA). Moreover, a plans should "require all certified providers ... to include an option for CA-assisted IP CTS."

The United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry asked the FCC to keep rates for incarcerated people's communications services (ICPS) "as low as possible" (see 2406120059), according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 23-62. In a call with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the group said safety, security and surveillance costs should be excluded from the rates because those functions "are not the appropriate financial burden of incarcerated people and their families." UCC Media Justice also asked the commission to remove the 50-person average daily population threshold required to provide telecom relay service-related and point-to-point video obligations.

A coalition of industry groups asked the FCC to modify its process for assigning costs to broadband serviceable locations (BSL) as part of the adjustment process for the enhanced alternative connect America cost model (E-ACAM) program. In a letter Wednesday in docket 10-90, the ACAM Broadband Coalition, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA asked the commission to use the "model-provided cost of a nearby BSL in the E-ACAM company’s study area to assign a cost to an uncosted BSL." The groups said the proposed adjustment "provides an equitable, simple to administer means to address" BSLs in the latest version of the broadband serviceable location fabric compared with the version used in the first ACAM program.

Securus urged the FCC to let providers of incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) recover the cost of safety and security features. In a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr (see 2307130070), the IPCS provider said that including such features as recoverable costs is "a long-standing precedent in the commission's IPCS rulemaking." Ending recoverable costs, Securus warned, has the potential of affecting budgets and practices at correctional agencies, according to an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 23-62. In addition, it said shifting costs will "put further strain on the budgets for providing services to incarcerated people" and cause providers to "compete for scarcer funding."

The FCC Wireline Bureau modified the effective date to July 1 on its approval of the National Exchange Carrier Association's proposed average-schedule interstate settlement disbursements. An announcement was contained in an order Wednesday in docket 23-415 (see 2405100062). A previous order set the effective date as July 2.

The FCC Wireline Bureau updated the list it uses for determining rural health care program eligibility to reflect the 2020 census. On Tuesday, the bureau also granted a waiver for FY 2025 of its eligibility rules for existing providers. In an order in docket 02-60 it said that it will "allow health care providers whose status has changed from rural to urban to continue to participate in the RHC program as if they were rural." The "once-per-decade update to areas identified as rural creates special circumstances justifying our action to ease impacted health care providers’ transitions," the order said. It noted that many sites "play an important role in delivering health care and a sudden change in eligibility due to the loss of a health care provider’s rural status could have a serious effect on its ability to deliver needed health care services to patients in a given area."

The National Association of the Deaf, Hearing Loss Association of America, and TDIforAccess asked the FCC to require that IP-captioned telephone service providers give users the option to select a live communications assistant "whenever the user finds [automatic speech recognition] performance to be unsatisfactory." The groups said in a petition for rulemaking filed Monday in docket 03-123 that the FCC shouldn't certify additional ASR-only providers of IP CTS "until a new rule requiring providers to give users the option to select CAs is adopted." The groups also asked the FCC to "expeditiously" complete its proceeding "on the establishment of clear, technology-neutral performance goals and metrics for IP CTS."

Comments on Wednesday by Diana Eisner, USTelecom vice president-policy and advocacy, that only 1.3% of ‘landline only’ Americans” use “expensive-to-maintain legacy copper networks" show the need for change, the Free State Foundation said Thursday on X, formerly Twitter. The group cited our report (see 2405290061). “It's wrong that, in such a radically changed market, @FCC is so slow to eliminate outdated regs!” FSF said. It would be “helpful to understand how much federal and state USF $$ is being expended to keep the copper going for the 1.3%, plus all the other households not using the copper for voice,” Lukas LaFuria’s David LaFuria responded.

NTCA asked the FCC to make changes in its broadband data collection process. Stronger reporting verification and "greater use of performance and subscription data" are needed to ensure proper challenges to the national broadband map, NTCA said in an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 19-195. The group met with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel (see 2405200065). It also asked the FCC to "consider changes to reporting standards to reflect proven technological capabilities on an objective engineering basis in lieu of accepting advertising claims."

Providers covered under the FCC's rules regarding line separation requests in the Safe Connections Act are required to comply with the provision by July 15 (see 2311160080). A Wireline Bureau public notice Wednesday in docket 22-238 said OMB completed its review of the rules May 3.