Members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will join Verizon employees from the mid-Atlantic region to rally outside Verizon headquarters in New York City Saturday, a CWA news release said Thursday. The rally is in response to ongoing contract negotiations (see 1507200062) between the carrier and the CWA and IBEW, which collectively represent about 39,000 Verizon employees. The contract is set to expire Aug. 1, and the CWA has begun voting to authorize a potential strike if negotiations aren't successful by the expiration date, the union said. CWA said that it plans to announce the results of the strike vote at the rally. "Verizon is an extremely profitable company," said Ed Mooney, CWA vice president-district 2-13, "yet this company is making outrageous demands for concessions from the workers who have made Verizon so successful." Rallies "are old news," a Verizon spokesman told us. "They've been held in the past and are only truly distractions. Verizon has presented the CWA and IBEW with a solid proposal that recognizes the changing communications landscape and offers a path towards success."

Frontier submitted additional information to the FCC in a letter meant to address questions posed by the commission in June (see 1506180038) about the company's proposed takeover of Verizon's wireline services in California, Florida and Texas. The letter posted Friday in docket 15-44 follows a joint response to the questions by Frontier and Verizon (see 1507020046) filed earlier this month and highlights Frontier's broadband expansion efforts after its 2010 purchase of portions of Verizon's wireline services and 2014 purchase of AT&T's incumbent LEC operations in Connecticut. In the filing, Frontier touted broadband projects it completed in California, Connecticut, New York, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The company also provided information about its use of savings from the previous transactions, saying it exceeded the $500 million operating savings that it planned in the 2010 purchase and is on track to meet its projected operating savings total of $200 million from the 2014 AT&T asset purchase. The company said in the letter it doesn't estimate "a specific percentage of these savings to be used for network investment," but the money saved "permits Frontier to engage in a balanced, flexible approach of investing in its network infrastructure."

West Corp.'s proposed takeover of HyberCube and West IP Communications in a corporate restructuring was teed up for comment, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Monday in docket 15-163. Initial comments are due Aug. 3, replies Aug. 10. HyperCube provides wholesale tandem switching and transport services, termination services and other services to telecom and information service providers, and West IP primarily provides VoIP service to business customers, the PN said. Publicly traded West Corp. provides a broad range of communications and network solutions to business customers through its direct or indirect control of several subsidiaries -- including HyperCube, West IP, Intrado Communications and InterCall -- and its primary shareholders are funds managed by Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL Funds), the Quadrangle Group and Gary West and Mary West, the notice said. In their application to transfer control of FCC licenses, West Corp., HyperCube and West IP said the "THL Funds and the Quadrangle Funds have agreed to act together on certain matters with respect to West [Corp.] and its subsidiaries," the PN said. The applicants also said the THL Funds and Quadrangle Funds propose to reduce their shares of West Corp. common stock, which "may materially reduce" their total holdings below 10 percent of the outstanding voting shares of West Corp. and thereby eliminate their "ability to exercise substantial influence over the policies and actions of West [Corp.] and its subsidiaries." That's according to the notice, which noted the applicants assert their transaction is entitled to streamlined regulatory review.

Scores of rural LECs and others objected to proposed FCC sharing of sensitive company data with outside parties under confidentiality safeguards as part of the agency's review of rules governing special access services in the wholesale and retail business market, according to filings posted Friday and Monday in docket 05-25. The objections were filed by Brown County C-LEC, Jason Tole, JSI, Parker FiberNet, Service Electric Cable, Transworld Network, US Signal Co. and Vantage Point Solutions. JSI represents 126 RLECs, small cable companies and rural wireless carriers, including C-Spire and units of Knology; Vantage Point represents 12 RLECs or affiliated entities. Some appear to object to any sharing of their confidential and highly confidential information with outside parties, which could include competitors -- even subject to a protective order. US Signal said sharing "sensitive financial data, network configuration, and other proprietary information" with rivals in a highly competitive market "may disadvantage" the company. Other objectors cited the extreme sensitivity of the information, combined with the lack of details about outside parties seeking data access -- which were listed in an FCC public notice on who signed confidentiality acknowledgements -- despite previous assurances the commission would divulge such details. "Some of the parties do not identify who they represent or what the intended purpose for their requests for accessing the data is," Vantage Point said. "It's hard to determine if there are any legitimate purposes, if the requests are competitively motivated or the parties are just fishing for information." No objections were filed by major telcos or cable companies. AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon have widespread special-access services that are the focus of CLECs, some wireless companies and business users seeking further FCC regulation. The Bells oppose such regulation on legal and policy grounds, including that CLEC and cable entry has arguably made the business market competitive.

The FCC Wireline Bureau approved Birch Communications' proposed buy of Sage Telecom Communications, said a bureau public notice Monday in docket 15-139. Both companies are CLECs, with Birch offering or certified to offer telecom or data services to residential and business customers in all 50 states and D.C., and Sage offering telecom or data services to residential and business customers in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin, a previous public notice said (see 1506220025). Birch would obtain certain Sage "customer accounts and receivables, certain customer agreements and contracts, certain vendor agreements and contracts, certain equipment and certain intellectual property," that PN said. The bureau also approved an application in docket 15-138 to transfer control of Broadvox-CLEC to Onvoy, said Monday's PN.

Global Tel*Link asked the FCC to impose sanctions on Darrell Baker and the Alabama Public Service Commission for violating a protective order by posting confidential information from the company and other inmate calling service (ICS) providers in the federal agency's electronic comment filing system (ECFS). Baker, director of the Alabama PSC Utility Service Division and a frequent filer in the ICS proceeding, acknowledged his mistake, attributed it to ignorance and apologized. In a filing in docket 12-375 Thursday, GTL said Baker previously acknowledged that he had understood and would abide by the terms of the protective order, but it said he nevertheless filed confidential information from GTL and other ICS providers that was made publicly available in the ECFS July 9. "The detailed data included for various providers the numbers of calls, minutes of use, commissions broken out by types of calls, and other competitively sensitive information stratified by categories based on size of average daily inmate population," said the company. GTL said it alerted the FCC, which removed the information three hours after it was posted, but it wasn't aware of anything Baker had done to notify the FCC or other parties about the problem. "This is a serious breach of the Protective Order," said GTL, which argued Baker acted with "deliberate indifference" or "willfully violated" the order. GTL noted various possible sanctions -- such as suspension or disbarment from FCC practice, fines and denial to further access to confidential information -- but said it trusted the commission would "fashion appropriate measures." In a response Friday, Baker said he had never before filed confidential information and thought he was following proper procedures by submitting both a redacted version of his analysis and an unredacted version marked "CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION, SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE ORDER." Baker said he assumed the FCC would post only the redacted version for public consumption, but he subsequently learned he was supposed to have filed it by hard copy, not electronically. He said there was no intent to violate the confidentiality protections. "However, ignorance of the rules is no excuse," he said. "I should have more thoroughly researched the filing procedures and acknowledge my mistakes." Baker apologized twice to the seven affected ICS providers and the FCC, and said the error wouldn't be repeated. GTL's filing anticipated that Baker would claim the breach was "due to a simple oversight or misunderstanding on his part," but it said "Baker acted with contempt for the Protective Order." The FCC had no comment Monday.

The FCC Wireline Bureau invited nominations by Aug. 17 to occupy 12 board seats on Universal Service Administrative Co., a public notice in docket 96-45 said Thursday. Board members have fiduciary duties to protect the interests of USAC -- which administers USF programs for the FCC -- consistent with federal and state laws. The list includes six seats with terms that expired Dec. 31, 2013, and six that expired Dec. 31, 2014, but all but one of the seats are currently filled, the PN said. The FCC already solicited and received nominations for the first six but is seeking any new nominations to refresh the record, while it's seeking nominations for the second six for the first time. The slots to be filled are for representatives of Bell operating company ILECs, non-Bell ILECs with less than $40 million in annual revenues, libraries eligible for E-rate discounts, state consumer advocates, mobile wireless providers, cable operators, schools eligible for E-rate discounts (two slots), low-income consumers, CLECs, rural healthcare providers eligible to receive USF support and interexchange carriers with annual operating revenue of $3 billion or less.

A federal court took a short timeout from its briefing schedule so it can consider an FCC motion to suspend substantive judicial review of an AT&T challenge to a commission order on price-cap telco USF duties, pending regulatory action on related issues in other proceedings. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday granted an FCC request to file the motion to hold the case in abeyance and the court suspended its current briefing schedule. The court didn't rule on the FCC motion to hold the case in abeyance, which already has been submitted. In its motion, the FCC noted that AT&T and others in August had asked the FCC to relieve price-cap carriers of eligible telecom carrier (ETC) obligations to serve rural areas where they would no longer be subsidized if they elected to receive USF support under the agency’s Connect America Fund Phase II overhaul of the high-cost program. AT&T and others also had urged the FCC to permit, but no longer require, high-cost ETCs to participate in the Lifeline USF program subsidizing low-income telecom consumers. Separately, in October, USTelecom petitioned the FCC to forbear from applying related high-cost and Lifeline rules. The FCC in December partially granted USTelecom’s petition, relieving price-cap carriers of their ETC duty to offer voice service in census blocks determined to be “low-cost,” served by an unsubsidized competitor, or where a competing ETC is receiving USF support to deploy fixed broadband/voice networks. AT&T then challenged the FCC order in the D.C. Circuit, arguing it didn't provide enough relief and was arbitrary and capricious (AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1038). But the commission motion said that the agency made clear in December it wasn’t addressing all the issues raised in USTelecom’s petition or by commenters in the high-cost and Lifeline proceedings -- all three of which remain open. The FCC thus asked the court to hold the case in abeyance until (a) the agency finalizes its USTelecom forbearance review -- which must occur by Jan. 4 -- or earlier if it acts on the high-cost and Lifeline issues AT&T is targeting; and (b) AT&T petitions for review of the resulting orders, assuming it does so. The FCC said its prospective actions in the open proceedings could moot or alter AT&T’s current challenge, and even if they don’t, it made more sense for the court to consider all the issues at one time, rather than piecemeal. AT&T Tuesday opposed the FCC motion. “There is no reason for delay,” the telco said. “At bottom the FCC promulgated a rule it knows it cannot defend,” AT&T said. “That the FCC might, in a future order, grant AT&T relief from [unlawful] obligations is no reason to hold the case in abeyance.”

Pay Tel offered specific proposals for overhauling FCC rules for inmate calling services, in a meeting with agency officials, according ex parte filings submitted by the provider in docket 12-375 Monday. Pay Tel discussed the following elements it believes are necessary for "comprehensive, lasting ICS reform: (1) a tiered rate structure that recognizes structural cost differences between jails and prisons and that differentiates between jails by size so as to ensure service to the ... [nation's] small and medium jails; (2) a facility cost recovery fee added to ICS rates; (3) the elimination of many ancillary fees and reasonable caps on select, permissible payment fees (and on single call programs); (4) ensuring that ICS consumers do not pay for integrated services out of ICS rates; and (5) an appropriate transition period for implementation of reform that minimizes potential 'gaming' of Commission action." One of the filings contained a two-page outline of the proposals. Meanwhile, the National Sheriffs' Association responded to two other proposals for setting ICS compensation and urged the FCC to factor in institutional differences, according to NSA ex parte filings Tuesday. "While a formula or proxy-type method to determine compensation for correctional facilities may have merit, it should take into account the differences between prisons and jails and between small and larger jails," the NSA said. "As demonstrated in the record, there are a number of differences between jails and prisons which result in a higher cost to Sheriffs and those operating jails to provide the security and administrative duties necessary to allow ICS in jails. Among those differences, jails are typically operated by local jurisdictions that are under the authority of the county government or an elected sheriff and they do not have the economies of scope and scale of state or federal prisons."

If Frontier's acquisition of Verizon's wireline services in California, Texas and Florida (see 1502050059) is approved before the start of 2016, it will use money allocated from the FCC through Phase II of the Connect America Fund to facilitate broadband deployment in high-cost areas of California and Texas that it will acquire, the company said in an FCC filing. Frontier told the commission in the filing it "has aggressively pursued federal and state broadband support in its current service areas, and will continue to do so in [Verizon's transferred] service areas." The company also said it plans to use about $32 million of CAF Phase II support annually through the next six years for broadband deployment in Verizon's high-cost service areas of California it's in the process of buying, and $16.5 million of CAF Phase II funds throughout the next six years to deploy "high speed broadband to around 37,000 locations in high cost areas" of Texas. "Although Frontier has not yet formulated detailed plans for enhancing broadband deployment and services in the transferring companies' service areas, it anticipates that it will start with the CAF Phase II projects, which would result in significant builds in both California and Texas," it said in the filing. The CAF Phase II projects also will improve its network speed and service, Frontier said, and will require an investment of "substantial amounts of its own capital, in addition to CAF Phase II funding" to complete the high-cost builds.