The continued decline in the number of customers with traditional landline phone service bolsters USTelecom’s petition for forbearance (see 1410070050) from “archaic regulations that divert spending to narrowband networks and perpetuate inefficient legacy network architecture,” the association said in a blog post Tuesday. By the end of 2015, more than half of households nationally will be using only wireless phones for voice service, and only about 5 percent will be using traditional switched lines, wrote USTelecom Senior Vice President-Communications Anne Veigle. Only 10 percent of households will get most or all their phone service from incumbents, the post said. The data was based on FCC landline data, as well as Centers for Disease Control national and state wireless data, the post said.

Neustar remained on a “negative CreditWatch listing,” Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said in a news release Monday. The listing “reflects ongoing uncertainty regarding whether Neustar will retain the [Local Number Portability Administrator] contract,” said Allyn Arden, an S&P credit analyst. Neustar was originally placed on CreditWatch on June 12, after the North American Numbering Council recommended the LNPA contract be awarded to Telcordia. “While the ultimate outcome has yet to be determined, we believe there is a significantly greater risk that Neustar could lose the contract, which would have a material impact on the company's financial risk profile,” S&P said. Neustar derives “roughly half of its business” from the contract, S&P noted. Companies are placed on CreditWatch if "events or circumstances occur that may affect a credit rating in the near term, usually within 90 days," an S&P spokeswoman said. CTIA and telecom associations and companies are pushing the FCC to award Telcordia the contract by the end of the year (see 1411240055). The LNP Alliance, made up of small and medium providers, urged the commission Nov. 21, in comments posted in docket 09-109 on Monday, to extend Neustar’s contract by two years and reopen the bidding process. Small providers were excluded from the selection process, the alliance said.

While praising the FCC for taking on “sunny day” 911 outages caused by software and other problems as opposed to storms, the National Association of State 911 Administrators is still reviewing the wide-ranging NPRM approved Friday (see 1411210037), Director Evelyn Bailey told us on Tuesday. Several LECs we contacted were also still reviewing the NPRM and had no comment. The notice deals with changes it says have made providing 911 more “complex.” While legacy 911 services were provided by ILECs, a growing number of system service providers (SSPs) have become involved, offering “specialized components … within the chain of connectivity previously provided by a single entity,” the NPRM said. “A growing number of disruptions to 911 service are caused by software malfunctions, database failures, and errors in conversion from legacy to IP-based network protocols,” the proposal said. The SSPs can be located in a different state than public safety answering points (PSAPs), and “have the potential to affect many states at once, or even all of a service provider’s customers nationwide,” the NPRM said. The seven-state 911 outage in April (see 1410170057) was caused by a software coding error at an SSP’s call routing facility, it said. In response, the NPRM proposes a policy statement that it “encourages and supports” local authority over 911. But in saying the commission has a responsibility to oversee “the increasingly complex component pieces of the nation’s 911 infrastructure,” it proposes a greater role for the agency. It would expand rules on 911 reliability to cover “all entities that provide 911, E911, or NG911 capabilities … regardless of whether they provide such capabilities under a direct contractual relationship with a PSAP.” The NPRM also proposed expanding requirements on providers to mandating “the reliability and testing of software and databases used to process 911 calls.” The NPRM also seeks comment on whether service providers should be required to notify the commission and the public of any major changes to the providers’ 911 network architecture or services, and whether to require commission approval to “discontinue, reduce, or impair” 911 services. States would continue to have authority to certify new 911 providers in their areas, but given the impact providers can have across state lines, the NPRM also proposed requiring new providers to certify to the commission they have the “technical and operational capability to provide reliable 911 service.” The new providers, though, would not be subject to commission approval, it said. The NPRM was approved on a party-line vote, with both commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Ajit Pai saying in dissents that the FCC was overstepping its authority into what’s been a local responsibility. “Replacing state and local governance with Washington-knows-best bureaucracy will leave 911 systems less nimble and responsive to the needs of local communities,” said Pai, who opposed the certification process. He asked, “How many 911 providers will simply decide not to offer an innovative, new capability because of the FCC’s all-encompassing process?” O’Rielly said the notice “does not even bother to attempt a cost-benefit analysis for this greatly expanded regulatory scheme.”

About three hours after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said at the Nov. 21 commission meeting that the agency needs to be careful in adopting net neutrality rules because “the big dogs will sue," (see 1411210040), a Verizon executive emailed him to say there’s one way to avoid having ISPs barking in court: Communications Act Section 706, an ex parte filing said. Saying he’d seen reports of Wheeler’s “view of the inevitability of litigation challenging the Commission’s eventual Open Internet rules,” Randal Milch, Verizon general counsel, included a blog post he’d written. Milch’s post describes why “Open Internet rules based on Section 706, and which prohibit 'harmful paid prioritization,’ will not be the object of a successful court challenge -- by Verizon or anyone else,” said the email, posted as an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 14-28. Under a Title II approach, “the ISPs, and perhaps some in the tech industry, will have no choice but to fight the sudden reversal of two decades of settled law,” Milch wrote in the Nov. 4 blog post. Title II proponents could also sue “if the FCC forbears from too many arcane common carrier rules for their taste (and to keep their fund raising pipeline flowing),” he wrote. Should the FCC take a Section 706 approach, Milch’s blog post said, “all of the major ISPs and their trade associations have conceded that the FCC can lawfully prohibit harmful paid prioritization on this basis -- effectively waiving their ability to challenge the FCC’s authority to do so and taking them out of the litigation path.” USTelecom has said it would be “compelled” (see 1410310050), and AT&T has said it would “expect” to challenge a Title II approach in court. Opinions varied among those involved in the debate about whether Wheeler’s comment revealed the path the agency is considering. AT&T, USTelecom and Verizon declined to comment. One Title II opponent said Wheeler’s concern about a court challenge indicated the agency is moving toward some form of a Title II approach because the prospects of an ISP legal challenge would be moot under a Section 706 approach. Free State Foundation President Randolph May disagreed in an email to us, but said “I am hopeful he's beginning to recognize that Title II, even in hybrid form, is just way too problematical.” Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said he didn’t read much into the remark, describing it as a "'Washington poker face.’ Wheeler is well aware that any statement he makes will get scrutinized for clues. But he can't refrain from comment because people would try to figure out what his refusal to say anything means. So 'someone will sue, so we want the best Order possible' is about as safe as a prediction as possible,” Feld said. Free Press, in a letter to the FCC, posted Monday as an ex parte filing, again disputed the methodology used by economists Kevin Hassett and Robert Shapiro in a study submitted to the commission by USTelecom, saying capital investments by broadband providers could decline by as much as nearly a third over the next five years if the FCC takes a Title II approach. Hassett and Shapiro defended their study to us at the time (see 1411190035).

Dozens of filings and FCC public notices from August and September were posted on the agency’s electronic comment filing system Monday and Tuesday after staff noticed the links to them were not working when they were originally posted, an agency spokeswoman told us Tuesday. When a staff member refreshed the links, it reposted the filings in the Electronic Comment Filing System, the spokeswoman said. The links have now been fixed and there shouldn’t be more problems, she said. After problems with ECFS in the wake of a record-setting onslaught of net neutrality comments, the FCC has been working on other fixes (see 1410310028 and 1411030039).

“Older households are at particular risk in an unregulated transition environment,” said AARP Senior Vice President Joyce Rogers in a statement Friday, praising FCC release of an NPRM looking into the IP transition (see 1411210037). “Older households, which disproportionately continue to maintain phone service through landlines, rely on health monitoring and other safety features supported by traditional telephone services."

The FCC should create net neutrality rules under both Title II and Section 706 and focus the debate on what sections to forbear from Title II,” AOL Chief Counsel-Global Public Policy Leigh Freund and Steptoe & Johnson’s Pantelis Michalopoulos told Gigi Sohn, Chairman Tom Wheeler’s special counsel-external affairs Nov. 19, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-28 Monday. They said banning paid prioritization under both Section 706 and Title II “provides the appropriate analytical framework that can accommodate different views on the scope of regulation and forbearance. Reasonable minds can disagree over that scope -- some favor total forbearance, while others prefer more limited forbearance,” AOL said. “But that conversation should occur with a firm ban on pay-to-play arrangements” as the essential backdrop, the company argued. Both complete or limited forbearance “allow for exceptional arrangements that might be permissible subject to prior Commission approval (for example, a request by an independent Internet Service Provider who does not have market power and does not charge end users for authority to deploy a different price model),” AOL said. The commission should not forbear from all or part of Sections 201, 202, 208, 222, 251, 255 and 256, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood and Policy Counsel Lauren Wilson told commission General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and Associate General Counsel Stephanie Weiner Nov. 19, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday. “Sections 201, 202 and 208 form the core of the Title II, and the heart of the entire Act in many respects, with that trio of statutes providing sufficient authority for strong Open Internet rules,” Free Press said. The group, though, “discussed the possibility of deferring decisions on forbearance … until a later date while staying their application’ until then. Further research is needed “of that procedural question,” said the group, which said it will provide further analysis on the issue, the filing said. Free Press also said, “the record in this docket is complete” on “which statutes the Commission must retain in order to adopt Open Internet rules -- namely, Sections 201, 202, and 208.” The record is also complete on “which statutes may be necessary (as a basis of authority in other proceedings) to promote important policy goals such as broadband competition, universal service, and consumer protection, even if some few questions remain as to how and when to make those determinations in other proceedings,” Free Press said.

Comments are due Jan. 5, replies Jan. 20 in docket 12-375 on the FCC rulemaking notice on inmate calling services (ICS), said a Wireline bureau public notice Friday. The commission is seeking comment on making interim interstate rate caps permanent and on creating intrastate caps, and on how to deal with payments to correctional facilities, and ancillary fees (see 1410230026). A single rate for inmate calling service providers could “result in ICS providers refusing to provide service to smaller facilities and jails,” Blooston Mordkofsky’s Mary Sisak, representing the National Sheriffs' Association, and Breanna Bock-Nielsen, NSA director-government affairs, told Wireline Bureau pricing policy division staff Nov. 19, said an ex parte notice filed and posted on Friday. Global Tel*Link responded to Praeses’ Oct. 3 ex parte filing that argued the payment of commissions is not prohibited. Praeses, a consultant to correctional facilities, receives a portion of the commissions, and “its position regarding site commissions may be heavily influenced by its self-interest,” Global Tel*Link said in a letter to the commission posted as an ex parte notice, also Friday. Praeses didn't comment on Monday.

Comments are due Dec. 22, replies Jan. 7 in docket 12-353 on CenturyLink’s proposed IP trial (see 1411130048) on business voice traffic in 12 wire centers in Las Vegas, said the FCC Wireline Bureau in a public notice Friday.

Level 3 asked the FCC in meetings with aides to commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel to take up the interconnection issue as part of any net neutrality order. Consumer demand for video “is driving significant growth in overall traffic volume on the Internet,” Level 3 General Counsel Michael Mooney, CEO Jeff Storey and other executives told Clyburn’s aide Monday, said a Level 3 ex parte filing. Content providers, such as streaming video services, have “multiple competitive options for delivering their content to the ISP,” but “the ISP itself offers the only path for that content to reach the end user,” Level 3 said. Several of the largest ISPs “are leveraging that bottleneck control over access to their users, demanding arbitrary tolls from providers like Level 3 who carry the Internet content requested by the ISPs’ end users from the global Internet to the ISPs’ last mile networks,” the company said. “If Level 3 will not pay these arbitrary and discriminatory tolls, these ISPs refuse to augment interconnection capacity that is congested to a degree that any network engineer would agree must be augmented for the Internet to function properly. … These ISPs are degrading the experience of their own customers as a means to leverage the collection of arbitrary access tolls from the rest of the Internet.” Other Level 3 officials at the meeting were John Blount, president-North America; John Ryan, chief legal officer; and Scott Seab, senior corporate counsel. Broadband Internet access providers have a "terminating access monopoly over end users that gives them the incentive and ability to demand new access tolls from some parties, leaving degraded local delivery for online content and services end users want," Joseph Cavender, Level 3 assistant general counsel, and others told Rosenworcel’s aide on Tuesday, according to a Computer & Communications Industry Association ex parte filing provided by CCIA. Also advocating for interconnection regulations at the meeting, according to the filing, were Catherine Sloan, CCIA vice president-government relations; Dave Schaeffer, Cogent Communications CEO; Brian Chase, Foursquare Labs general counsel; Melanie Wyne, National Association of Realtors senior policy representative; Angie Kronenberg, Comptel general counsel; Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel at the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute; and Phillip Berenbroick, policy director of the Internet Freedom Business Alliance. "Absent strong FCC rules against commercial discrimination by such access providers, we indicated that realtors, social media and other tech entrepreneurs, long haul transit providers, CDNs and others who depend on an open Internet for transmission of online video are all at risk in the near future," said the filling made in docket 14-28. Level 3 and other proponents of interconnection rules are encouraged the FCC will take it up (see 1411130042).