USTelecom opposed an American Cable Association FCC application for review of a Wireline Bureau April decision on the Connect America Fund cost model order that calculated costs of serving census blocks in price-cap telco areas. “USTelecom stands by its cost of capital calculation which resulted in a zone of reasonableness above 8.48% and below 9.52%, resulting in a point estimate of 9.00%” and other figures, said that association in an opposition filing to ACA’s request posted Monday in docket 10-90 (http://bit.ly/U1g5GM). “ACA presents no new information to contradict it. Yet ACA rejects the Bureau’s considered conclusion which adopted a cost of capital 50 basis points below the recommendation of the ABC Coalition.” The association said an FCC model used data from the coalition, a USF reform group of telcos that has included USTelecom members (http://bit.ly/1pXdWuo). ACA’s June 20 application for review said the bureau’s model, “for the key input of the cost of money ... adopted a cost significantly in excess of forward-looking market rates” and would mean price-cap LECs get more support than required (http://bit.ly/1vWPFSK). ACA plans to respond to USTelecom’s opposition, in reply comments, said ACA Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman. He declined further comment.
The FCC should reverse a Wireline Bureau order denying Securus the same waiver from interim inmate calling service rate caps as Pay Tel (CD Feb 12 p12), Securus said in an application for review posted in docket 12-375 Monday. The bureau “failed to give appropriate consideration to the extensive cost data that Securus provided, but “simply repeated the Commission’s unreasonable interpretation -- manipulation -- of that data to grossly understate Securus’s costs,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/1oeZl6J).
Transcom Enhanced Services Monday petitioned for a rehearing en banc on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold the FCC 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order (http://1.usa.gov/1r18uaa) (CD May 27 p1). While acknowledging such rehearings involving an entire court are rarely granted, Transcom attorney Scott McCollough said he was “hopeful.” The petition asks for rehearing on three points, including a panel ruling that “calls do not terminate with Transcom for purposes of the ‘intraMTA rule,'” the petition said. “The panel did not address this issue in the context of ‘wireline,'” the petition said.
Global Tel*Link asked for a 60-day extension on data collection on inmate calling rates, which are due July 17, said a motion posted in docket 12-375 Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1kjjrvp). CenturyLink also requested a 60-day extension, in a motion posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/1lCKEcb). Global Tel*Link “does not routinely maintain the data requested by the Commission, and does not keep its books and records in the format of the Commission’s template spreadsheet or detailed instructions for categorizing and classifying the data,” the company’s motion said. The data collection “calls for extensive, highly detailed information organized in a very specific way, and compiling it will require an enormous amount of work,” said CenturyLink.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau denied Patrick Keane’s request that the commission reconsider the $979,000 penalty it issued against him in 2013 for sending at least 100 unsolicited fax ads to consumers as The Street Map Company. The FCC had issued three Notices of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NALs) to Keane between 2010 and 2012 for sending the faxes, which advertised laminated maps. Keane didn’t pay the penalties prescribed in the NALs, prompting the FCC to issue its forfeiture order in 2013, the commission said. Keane responded with a handwritten petition for reconsideration based on his “inability to pay.” Keane’s arguments “do not justify reconsideration of the forfeiture,” the FCC said Wednesday. Petitions for reconsideration must usually be considered by the full commission, but a bureau can act if the facts presented in the petition “plainly do not warrant reconsideration,” the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1xnbEog).
FairPoint was given a 60-day extension to file its 2013 Automated Reporting Management Information System reports for its two study areas associated with Northern New England Telephone Operations and with Telephone Operating Co. of Vermont, said an FCC Wireline Bureau order(http://bit.ly/1q0gy6l) posted in docket 86-182 Wednesday.
NTCA is pleased with the FCC’s focus on funding connections within schools and libraries, because “adequate funding for this critical input remains insufficient,” association officials told an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel June 30, said an ex parte notice posted (http://bit.ly/TPABdt) Tuesday in docket 13-184. Any reforms to the E-rate program should not inadvertently limit the support available to small, rural schools and libraries, NTCA said. Many schools in areas served by NTCA members already have access to high-speed broadband, the group said. “Member companies have made a determined effort to provide these schools and libraries with the robust internal connections, including Wi-Fi technology, necessary to deliver broadband service to each individual classroom and student,” the group said.
A key presentation at a May 30 closed-door FCC workshop examined whether and how ISPs “can satisfy consumers’ interest in their operation as open and nondiscriminatory conduits, while also ensuring the timely and high quality transmission of video content,” said an ex parte filing Monday by Jonathan Levy, deputy chief economist at the FCC. The filing in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1o9uGsH) offers a few details from the workshop, also hosted by the Institute for Information Policy at Pennsylvania State University. Robert Frieden, a professor at the school, made the presentation and offered “a legal analysis confirming that ISPs can provide higher quality of service to promote the likelihood for speedy delivery of video content bitstreams without degradation caused by congestion and other factors,” Levy said. The opening part of the workshop was open to the public (CD May 30 p9).
AT&T’s IP trials “are not what they purport to be” and are “an effort to cast aside a significant number of people and render poorer service to many others,” NASUCA commented (http://bit.ly/1pGUxh9) Monday in FCC docket 14-28. AT&T’s plans should be rejected until it addresses the concerns, NASUCA said. “What AT&T is seeking is a post-transition network in which it can jettison the customers in higher-cost, lower-revenue areas within exchanges.” Four percent of the 4,388 occupied units in Carbon Hill, Alabama, where AT&T Is testing the IP transition, will be “abandoned,” and 41 percent of Carbon Hill customers will be migrated to AT&T wireless, said the group. “In the parts of the wire centers where AT&T plans to withdraw wireline service, it will simply abandon the copper wire that is located there, after trying to sell it to the CLECs.” NASUCA “appears to be ill-informed about our trials, as their letter contains a number of inaccuracies,” an AT&T spokesman said. “For example, we are on the record saying that we are responsible for ensuring customers are connected before discontinuing existing TDM services. AT&T will continue to work constructively with the FCC and other policy makers to understand the dynamics of the IP transition and how they will impact consumers."
Frontier Communications’ landline business phone customers can get text messages, the company said in a Tuesday news release (http://bit.ly/TAmvMB). It said messages are sent simultaneously “to the business’ Internet-connected devices” and users can reply from any device using the telco’s texting app run by Zipwhip, a cloud technology company.