Consumers have access “to a range of services designed to aid them in managing annoyances and harms” from unwanted phone calls, USTelecom said at the end of the FCC reply period on a petition by the National Association of Attorneys General seeking guidance on robocalls. NAAG had asked the agency for a formal opinion on whether legal or regulatory prohibitions prevent phone carriers from implementing call-blocking technology. Technologies that use “black lists” may not be able to distinguish between legal and illegal calls, USTelecom said in its reply posted Monday in docket 07-135. Consumer outreach and education can play an important role in preventing unwanted calls, the association said. It said the industry is doing “important work” to deal with robocalls, caller ID spoofing and secure phone number authentication, and the commission “should support these various efforts including by identifying areas where additional research and developments may need to be emphasized.”

Telcordia and parent Ericsson would be willing to discuss steps to deal with future issues that could compromise neutrality requirements for the local number portability, Telcordia counsel John Nakahata told FCC officials, including Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach and an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, said an ex parte filing posted Monday. Rival Neustar has raised questions about Ericsson’s ability to provide LNPA services neutrally given Ericsson’s business relationships (see 1408250042). Telcordia and Ericsson meet neutrality requirements but would be willing to consider such steps as instituting a voting trust for a portion of Ericsson’s interest in Telcordia, with any trustees approved by the FCC, Nakahata said.

President Barack Obama’s support for federal pre-emption of states’ municipal broadband restrictions, if enacted at the FCC Feb. 26, “would put [U.S.] broadband policy somewhere to the left of Europe,” said Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology Director Fred Campbell in a blog post Monday. The EU ruled last year that government-owned broadband networks harm competition when deployed alongside private networks, Campbell said. The EU subsequently issued a law that requires that broadband network investments “shall be undertaken primarily by the private sector, supported by a competitive and investment-friendly regulatory framework.” Municipal broadband networks like the one in Cedar Falls, Iowa, that Obama praised in January “would be presumptively illegal under EU law -- just as it would be under many of the state laws the President wants to overrule,” Campbell said.

The proposed requirement in the IP Transition rulemaking (see 1411210037) that providers supply at least eight hours of backup phone power in the case of power outages isn't enough, said the National Association of State 911 Administrators in comments posted Friday in docket 05-25. The requirement should be at least 24 hours, because “consumers in the midst of a power outage due to a natural disaster or other emergency will likely have urgent communication needs that may take time to accomplish,” NASNA said. When legacy copper landlines are being retired, consumers repeatedly should be made aware of the change before the switch, the group said. To get agency authorization to retire a service, providers should be required to show that a substitute service is available to customers that offers 911 capabilities consistent with the commission’s standards, NASNA said. It said public safety answering points should be given adequate notice of the retirement. If not, legacy PSAPs may be forced “to replace, upgrade or reconfigure their equipment with very little notice and before they are able or ready to do so,” the group said.

The FCC “should hold fast” to protecting taxpayers from the misuse of rural broadband experiment funds by denying applications to ease the program’s letter of credit requirement (see 1501070042), filed by several applicants tentatively approved for funding, Free State Foundation’s Senior Fellow Seth Cooper wrote in a blog post Monday. The agency “has a paramount duty to protect consumers,” and “must not squander Universal Service Fund ‘surcharges’ imposed on consumers’ telephone bills,” Cooper wrote. “Like tax dollars, consumer surcharges must be used efficiently and not put at unnecessary risk.”

Several rules from which the FCC already has granted forbearance for common carriers, plus several references to telegraph services, would be removed from the Code of Federal Regulations, under an NPRM issued by the agency Friday. The commission in 2013 approved two orders granting forbearance from 126 legacy wireline regulations, many of them involving recordkeeping, the NPRM said. The agency’s process reform report also recommended removing regulations made unnecessary by technological or market changes, the NPRM said. Comments are due 30 days after Federal Register publication, replies 45 days after publication.

Frontier Communications agreed to buy Verizon's residential, commercial and wholesale wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas for $10.54 billion, Frontier said Thursday. Included in the deal, which doubles Frontier's size, are 3.7 million voice connections, 2.2 million broadband connections and 1.2 million FiOS video connections, a news release said. Subject to regulatory approval, the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2016. "These properties are a great fit for Frontier and will strengthen our presence in competitive suburban markets and accelerate our recent market share gains,” said Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter. The deal further strengthens Verizon’s focus on its core markets, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said, promising “a smooth transition” for customers and employees. Verizon also said it will lease the rights to over 11,300 of its wireless towers to American Tower Corp., which will also purchase about 165 Verizon towers for $5 billion. The telco also announced $5 billion accelerated share-repurchase program.

Those opposing USTelecom’s petition for the FCC to reconsider a declaratory ruling strengthening requirements for retiring a service are wrong in saying the change doesn't create substantive requirements for providers, the association said. Under the ruling, providers have to file for Communications Act Section 214 approval from the agency if a community believes services are being changed, not only if a listed service on a tariff is being affected (see 1501260049). That has created “impossibly vague new substantive requirements” that are “a significant burden on providers,” USTelecom said. It said in a filing posted Monday in docket 13-5 that providers “may now have to file for section 214 authority in every instance where they seek to upgrade legacy facilities, or face unpredictable and unknown consequences.”

Comment is sought on the Alliance of Rural Broadband Applicants’ Jan. 27 petition for a waiver from letter of credit requirements to receive rural broadband experiment funding, the FCC Wireless Bureau said in a public notice Friday in docket 10-90. Oppositions are due Feb. 6, replies Feb. 13. The alliance represents 40 percent of the experiment’s funding and 60 percent of the census blocks to be served, said the waiver request. FCC requirements that applicants maintain a letter of credit for 100 percent of the funding over the course of the 10-year funding period are “extremely burdensome,” the alliance said. It said the 10-year period is “too long for banks.” Because banks require cash collateral equal to 100 percent of the letter of credit, the alliance said the requirement would “tie up much-needed capital” that can't be used for “network build-out, equipment, maintenance, acquisitions or other assets to enhance and expand broadband deployment.”

President Barack Obama’s call to encourage municipal broadband projects (see 1501200060) seems “driven by a desire all too often found in D.C. policy circles to come up with ‘the next big idea’ rather than building upon existing programs to make them work even better,” NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield wrote NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in dockets 14-115 and 14-116. Leveraging existing federal programs and incentivizing existing providers “already in the broadband business to invest and upgrade their networks should be the path of first resort,” the letter said. “This would represent a much more direct and efficient route toward better broadband than encouraging local governments that already ‘wear many other hats’ to try their hand as start-ups in a communications market that requires great focus and special expertise.”