Frontier Communications said it continues to strongly support the Connect America Fund, saying its use of CAF Phase I funds in rural areas has connected 164,000 unserved and underserved households to broadband services. Frontier said it has invested $94 million in CAF funds in its infrastructure. The company accepted $72 million in CAF funding in 2012 and $61.3 million in 2013. “There is ample evidence that providing connectivity to rural America brings solid, lasting results,” said Frontier Executive Vice President-External Affairs Kathleen Abernathy in a Monday news release. “CAF Phase II is expected to enable even more rural Americans to connect to the Internet, and Frontier is looking forward to learning further details in the coming weeks regarding CAF Phase II support.”

Comments are due April 13 on applications from Frontier Communications and Verizon seeking FCC approval of the transfer to Frontier of licenses and authorizations held by several Verizon subsidiaries, said an agency public notice released Thursday. The transfers include assets in California, Florida and Texas. Reply comments are due April 28, according to the notice in docket 15-44. Frontier would pick up some 3.7 million voice connections, 2.2 million broadband connections and 1.2 million FiOS video connections, the bureau said.

The FCC can increase broadband deployment by tackling the “excessive and increasing costs for video programming,” the American Cable Association said in comments responding to January's Notice of Inquiry into improving deployment (see 1501290043). The commission should update its program access rules to preserve competition in video distribution markets, by taking steps to allow a multichannel video programming distributor buying group like the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) to bring a complaint against discriminatory rates, terms and conditions by a cable-affiliated programmer, ACA said in the comments posted Monday in docket 14-126. More than 900 small and medium-sized broadband and video providers nationally rely on the NCTC to negotiate the bulk of their programming agreements, ACA said. But because of the commission’s “overly-restrictive” definition of buying group, those that rely on NCTC “are without program access protections” and are “at risk of facing higher rates,” the filing said. The commission also should create a rebuttable presumption against allowing exclusive cable programming contracts, ACA said. The NOI had been issued in conjunction with the agency’s decision to increase the broadband speed benchmark to 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload, and the agency’s finding that deployment is not occurring in a reasonable and timely fashion. CTIA in its comments posted Friday objected to mobile deployment not being factored into the conclusion. To increase mobile broadband deployment, the agency should free additional spectrum for wireless broadband, and continue to facilitate wireless infrastructure deployment, through such steps as developing a programmatic agreement to facilitate the deployment of distributed antenna systems and small cells, CTIA said. The commission also should increase funding for the Mobility Fund, which the association called “relatively paltry” compared with funding for wireline providers. USTelecom and NCTA had also responded to the NOI (see 1503060064).

The FCC should add “additional safeguards” on provisions in the December E-rate order (see 1412110049) that allows schools and libraries to spend the program’s funds on using dark fiber to create connections and to build their own broadband facilities, Cox Communications said in a petition for reconsideration posted Monday in docket 13-184. Funding for such uses should be limited to cases in which other services are not available and be capped at $200 million annually, the filing said. E-rate funding also should not be used to match state funding, Cox said, because it could eliminate contributions from schools and libraries applying for funds. The agency also should reconsider its requirement in the order requiring high-cost support recipients to bid on E-rate projects at as-yet-undeveloped benchmarks, WTA-Advocates for Rural Broadband, NTCA and the National Exchange Carriers Association said in a separate petition for reconsideration posted Friday. Proper notice and comment procedures were not followed, the rural associations said. If the petition for reconsideration is denied, the agency should clarify the process and say when the new requirement will take effect, the associations said.

Claims by the Arizona Department of Corrections about the impact of eliminating the commission payments that inmate calling services providers make to correctional facilities are “alarmist" and “entirely misplaced,” wrote the attorney representing the late Martha Wright and others who had petitioned the FCC for action on ICS rates (see 1501200054). The letter was posted in docket 12-375 Friday. ADC had warned that the elimination of the payments would endanger inmate educational services funded with the commissions, said the letter from Lee Petro of Drinker Biddle. Based on budget documents ADC sent to the state’s legislature, funding for inmates education and other programs dropped from $3.2 million in 2010 to $1.7 million in 2014, Petro wrote. The amount ADC received in “’kickbacks’” from the commission payments rose from $3.6 million in 2010 to $4.1 million in 2014, and the surplus in the inmate education and programs fund grew from $1 million in 2010 to $8.8 million in 2014, Petro wrote. ADC referred us to the department's initial comment. Meanwhile, any interstate or intrastate inmate calling services rate cap set by the FCC should be higher than the average cost of providing the services for carriers, Securus CEO Richard Smith, Vice President Dennis Reinhold and Arent Fox’s Stephanie Joyce, representing the company, told an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai March 8, said an ex parte filing posted Monday. Providers should be able to recover commission payments they make to correctional facilities by going above the cap, the company said. The company representatives made the same arguments, also on March 8, to Wireline Bureau officials, another ex parte filing said. It said bureau officials urged the company to try to reach a consensus with law enforcement associations.

The draft FCC order under circulation authorizing negotiation of a local number portability administrator contract with Telcordia (see 1503040053) led to Standard & Poor’s lowering current LNPA Neustar’s credit rating, the ratings service said in a news release Thursday. Neustar’s corporate credit rating was dropped from BB to BB-, the release said. Neustar announced its current LNPA contract with the Canadian Local Number Portability Consortium was extended a year to Dec. 31, 2017. S&P’s downgrade “reflects our view that the likelihood that Neustar will retain the LNPA contract has diminished," said S&P credit analyst Christopher Thompson, in the S&P release. Neustar declined comment. The draft FCC order was placed Friday on the tentative agenda for the commission’s March 26 meeting (see 1503060068).

Covered long-distance voice service providers are required to begin recording and retaining rural call completion data April 1, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice posted in docket 13-39 Wednesday. Reports for the quarter covering April through June must be filed by Aug. 1, the notice said. The data collection became effective Wednesday after the Office of Management and Budget approval Jan. 29, the notice said.

Twelve more bidders were provisionally selected to receive $26.9 million of the up to $100 million in rural broadband experiment funding approved by the FCC in July (see 1407140040), the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice posted Wednesday in docket 10-90. The largest provisional bidder was Oklahoma’s Northeast Rural Services, which would receive $7.4 million for six bids, if it survives the agency’s post-selection review process, said the PN. The tentatively selected bidders submitted their technical and financial information Jan. 6. They have until May 4 to submit a letter of credit for the amount of support they would receive and until June 2 to submit FCC Form 5620 to document their designation as an eligible telecom carrier in all areas for which they will receive support, the PN said.

The FCC has not only “failed to pursue meaningful solutions” to making sure broadband is being deployed in a timely and reasonable fashion, but exacerbated the problem by “arbitrarily raising” the broadband benchmark speed and imposing Communications Act Title II regulation on broadband in the net neutrality order, NCTA said in comments filed Friday. Responded to the agency’s January notice of inquiry (see 1501290043) on improving broadband deployment, the comments hadn't been posted in docket 14-126. USTelecom also filed comments on the NOI Friday, which, according to its blog, focused on removing “outdated legacy regulations” and “restrictive local rules and regulations.” The commission failed to “effectively implement many of its own prior recommendations,” including adding broadband to Lifeline and implementing the Remote Areas Fund (RAF) to deploy broadband to unserved areas, NCTA said. The commission should immediately revoke offers to ILECs for high-cost USF support that don't meet the new 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload standard, it said. The funding should be offered on a competitively neutral basis to any qualified broadband provider willing to provide the new speed, NCTA said. The agency should also implement the RAF and issue an NPRM to create a broadband Lifeline program, the filing said. An independent third party should also examine why there hasn’t been more progress extending broadband deployment to unserved areas, even though more than $28 billion in federal funding has been spent on the goal since 2010, the filing said. USTelecom urged the agency to grant its October 2014 forbearance petition (see 1410070050), reforming state and local regulations “that impede a provider’s ability to roll out broadband services,” and ensure that broadband providers can deploy fiber in multi-dwelling units. The FCC should “promote efficient and carefully targeted broadband deployment in rural areas” through the Connect America Fund and develop “’sooner rather than later’ a long-term universal service solution for rate-of-return carriers,” USTelecom said.

Despite FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s remarks Thursday in approving net neutrality rules, small rural broadband providers are subject to Communications Act Title I, which regulates information services, not to Title II common-carrier regulations as Wheeler and Clyburn claimed, USTelecom Senior Vice President-Law and Policy Jonathan Banks wrote in a blog post Friday. In answering fears the agency would regulate broadband rates after reclassifying broadband under Title II, Clyburn said at the commission meeting that the agency hadn't regulated the rates of 700 rural broadband providers, even though they were subject to “full panoply of Title II regulation.” The “hideous complexities” of the commission’s telecom regulations, Banks said, led the companies to provide Title II wholesale transport services they “’sell’” to themselves, while providing Title I broadband service to customers wanting Internet access, Banks wrote. The Title II wholesale service “is fully and completely regulated by the commission, including rate regulation, down to the penny,” Banks wrote. The “misunderstanding illustrates the lack of clarity and understanding around the debate of Title II being a workable regulatory model for achieving an open and vibrant Internet,” Banks wrote. The rural broadband providers have to contribute to the USF based on their Title II revenue, he said. Clyburn noted that the rural providers make USF contributions, but said, “amazingly, the sky has not fallen and things are OK.” Clyburn’s office did not comment Monday. The Title II regulations Banks referred to don't include the forbearance in the "light touch" net neutrality regulations the commission approved, an agency spokesman said.