The FCC should reconsider its Dec. 19 CAF order (see 1412110060) changing the national average cost per loop support mechanism because it will “substantially reduce” funding for broadband deployment to tribal lands and tribally owned carriers, the National Congress of American Indians wrote in a petition for reconsideration posted Monday in docket 10-90. The agency didn't follow the commission’s 2000 statement of policy on establishing a government-to-government relationship with Indian tribes by not consulting with tribes before adopting the order, the letter said. The FCC didn't comment Monday.

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.

The “quiet period” on CenturyLink’s 2013 petition for forbearance from dominant carrier regulation for packet-switched and optical transmission services began Friday at 11:59 p.m., the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice posted in docket 14-9 that day. The ban on communications to the agency continues for the two weeks until the petition is deemed granted, in the absence of commission action, March 13. The company didn't comment Monday. Before the beginning of the quiet period, Comptel Chief Advocate Angie Kronenberg and Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Karen Reidy opposed the petition, in Friday meetings with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, said an ex parte filing posted Monday. The commission shouldn't allow the CenturyLink petition because of a pending petition for reconsideration asking the agency to overturn forbearance from the same regulations and tariffing requirement that had been granted to AT&T, legacy Embarq, Frontier, Qwest and Verizon, in non-TDM-based special access services, Comptel said.

The FCC plans to fine GPSPS, an Atlanta phone company, $9 million for allegedly switching consumers’ long-distance services without authorization, billing customers for unauthorized charges and submitting falsified evidence to regulatory officials, the agency said in a news release Friday. It said the Enforcement Bureau reviewed more than 150 complaints against GPSPS filed with the commission, the FTC, the Texas Public Utility Commission and the Better Business Bureau. GPSPS submitted to regulatory bodies “fabricated” recordings purportedly of consumers authorizing service from the company, the agency said. Consumers who listened to the recordings “adamantly denied” to the bureau their voices were on the recordings, the commission said. It “will hold companies accountable who prey on consumers by switching their telephone carriers and placing charges on their telephone bills without authorization,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said. The agency said it's taken nearly 30 enforcement actions for cramming or slamming and announced more than $90 million in penalties in the past five years. GPSPS didn't comment.

Allowing Ericsson to establish a voting trust for its interest in Telcordia doesn’t ease concerns about Telcordia’s ability to act neutrally as the local number portability administrator (see 1502100040), Neustar said in a letter to the FCC posted Friday in docket 09-109. The commission has “made clear” that voting trusts can't be used to address neutrality concerns, and federal procurement rules don't allow voting trusts, Neustar said. “To permit Ericsson to modify its bid -- while not providing the same opportunity to Neustar -- would be unlawful,” the letter said. Neustar had raised questions about Telcordia’s neutrality given Ericsson’s business relationships (see 1408250042). "Neustar's arguments are meritless," emailed Telcordia attorney John Nakahata of Harris Wiltshire. "There is no current neutrality problem and the potential structure was purely prophylactic. The order could be adopted without this trust. The important thing at this point is to finish the selection so that the transition can begin and consumers and carriers can begin to save money."

Comments are due March 30, replies April 13, on how issues raised in petitions seeking waivers from letter of credit requirements for rural broadband experiment funding could be relevant to Connect America Fund Phase II, said an FCC Wireline Bureau notice in Friday’s Federal Register. The Alliance of Rural Broadband Applicants, NTCA and National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp. sought waivers (see 1501300046).

The FCC should “stand up for taxpayers in North Carolina and Tennessee” Thursday by rejecting petitions seeking pre-emption of anti-municipal broadband laws in those states, said National Taxpayers Union President Pete Sepp in a statement Wednesday. The agency is expected to approve the petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and from Wilson, North Carolina (see 1502020037). There have been “numerous examples of failed municipal broadband networks,” Sepp wrote: “From Oregon to Florida, Utah to Vermont, hard-working" residents "have suffered -- paying higher taxes or bearing the burden of lower debt ratings -- when their local leaders decided to enter the broadband market.” Officials from Highland Springs and Holly Springs, North Carolina, as well as business and nonprofit leaders from North Carolina and Tennessee told Chairman Tom Wheeler aide Gigi Sohn and other agency officials in a phone call Tuesday of their inability to get high-speed broadband, said an ex parte filing posted in dockets 14-115 and 14-116 Wednesday. Matthew Shuler, Highlands town director, said small businesses are frustrated about broadband prices and speed limitations, according to the filing. It said Dukenet had offered faster speeds, but when the company was acquired by Time Warner Cable, "the service offerings went away." Comcast and TWC didn't comment.

CenturyLink was the only one of the top eight ethernet providers nationally that’s subject to dominant carrier and tariffing requirements, wrote Melissa Newman, senior vice president-federal policy and regulatory affairs, to the FCC, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-9 Wednesday. CenturyLink is seeking forbearance from tariffing regulations that are not required of other non-incumbents (see 1412170045). “There is simply no justification for this disparate treatment,” the letter said. The areas where the company is subject to the regulations are no less competitive than areas where other companies, including AT&T, Verizon and Frontier, have been granted the forbearance CenturyLink is seeking, Newman wrote.

The FCC should begin reporting Measuring Broadband America performance results for AT&T’s IP-based U-verse broadband subscribers separately from those of the company’s legacy ATMbroadband subscribers, the telco told officials from the agency and SamKnows, said an ex parte letter posted Friday in docket 12-264. AT&T has invested “significantly” in migrating ATM-based Internet customers to “more robust” IP-based U-verse technology, the company said. SamKnows is the FCC contractor on the project to measure wireline and wireless broadband speeds.

The municipal broadband networks run by the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and Wilson, North Carolina, demonstrate the First Amendment concerns with allowing more such networks, wrote Enrique Armijo, a member of the Free State Foundation's board of academic advisors and an assistant professor at the Elon University School of Law, in a paper released Monday. There is “good reason” to conclude free speech protections “are being sacrificed at the altar of the new," he wrote: That "certainly should give pause to those that want the FCC to preempt state restrictions on these networks and expand municipalities' power in the online communications space.” The FCC is expected to approve petitions from Chattanooga and Wilson Thursday to pre-empt anti-municipal broadband laws in those states (see 1502020037). Chattanooga’s acceptable use policy bars users from using the network to "’transmit, distribute, or store material" that is illegal, ‘obscene, threatening, abusive or hateful,’” Armijo wrote. It also bars users from posting messages on third party blogs that are ‘excessive and/or intended to annoy or harass others’ -- ‘regardless of [the] policies’ of the blogs on which the users post,” he wrote. Wilson has similar restrictions, said Armijo. “One does not need to be a free speech scholar, or even a lawyer, to be troubled by these provisions.” First Amendment "doctrine makes clear that outright government bans on protected speech -- even indecent speech, let alone ‘excessive,’ ‘derogatory,’ ‘harassing,’ ‘abusive,’ or ‘hateful’ speech -- are never narrowly tailored enough to survive strict scrutiny,” said Armijo. Chattanooga and Wilson officials didn't comment.