An ILEC should not discontinue services competitors use to serve business customers “until it offers comparable successor services on rates, terms and conditions,” Comptel General Counsel Angie Kronenberg and Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Karen Reidy told aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Thursday, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-353. Competitors should receive adequate notice before an incumbent is allowed to retire a service, Lisa Youngers, XO vice president-regulatory affairs, and Kelley Drye’s Thomas Cohen and Edward Yorkgitis told an aide to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly Thursday, said an ex parte filing in the docket. Responding to the aide, Youngers said competitors buying copper loops that incumbents want to retire “may be an option in very select instances, but there were not insignificant logistical issues.” Establishing a strong checklist for changes to the phone network would address concerns that carriers are “forcibly migrating consumers off copper-based service,” Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld, senior vice president; Jodie Griffin, senior staff attorney; Clarissa Ramon, government affairs and outreach associate; and Edyael Casaperalta, coordinator of the Rural Broadband Policy Group, told aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Tuesday, said an ex parte notice posted in the docket Thursday. The commission should “establish the metrics by which new technologies will be evaluated when carriers wish to transition away from their existing networks,” they said. Copper retirement rules, “including rules regarding adequate maintenance and consumer education, will only be effective if they are paired with adequate enforcement mechanisms,” they said. In light of the problems on Fire Island, New York, after Superstorm Sandy, the commission should also establish guidelines for situations when carriers want to change a network after a natural disaster, the filing said. Griffin, Ramon and Casaperalta made similar points to an aide to O’Rielly the same day, according to an ex parte filing. Griffin and Casaperalta also made those points to an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, also Tuesday, another filing said. Chairman Tom Wheeler is circulating a draft NPRM, expected to be taken up at the commission’s Nov. 21 meeting, which would raise issues on copper retirement (see 1410310047).

Several rural carriers associations are “frustrated” rural call completion record-keeping and reporting rules still aren’t in effect, more than a year after they were approved in an FCC order, representatives from NTCA, the National Exchange Carrier Association and WTA told an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday, said an ex parte filing posted Friday. “The record is replete with data and anecdotal information describing the extent of the problem and the serious public safety and financial ramifications of call failure,” the groups said. “Family members have been unable to contact loved ones, rural businesses have lost opportunities and customers, doctors have been unable to reach patients, hospitals have been unable to reach on-call emergency surgeons and there is a reported instance in which a 911 call center was unable to make emergency call backs.” The aide said Rosenworcel is committed to addressing the issue, said the filing, in docket 13-39. The agency said last month it’s awaiting the approval of a circulating order on the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and USTelecom's petition to reconsider parts of the order, before sending necessary paperwork to the Office of Management and Budget (see 1409260039). The commission is expected to release the order "very soon," which would clear the way for seeking OMB approval, an FCC spokesman said. Representing the groups, according to the filing, were Jill Canfield, NTCA vice president-legal and industry; Colin Sandy, NECA senior regulatory attorney; and Derrick Owens, WTA vice president-government affairs.

Pay-Tel Communications’ Oct. 31 petition for an extension of its waiver from FCC interim interstate inmate calling service (ICS) rate caps should be denied, Securus said in an opposition posted in docket 12-375 on Wednesday. Pay-Tel’s 46-cents-a-minute rate “is more than double the Interim Rate Cap that every other ICS provider in the country is charging. It is well more than double Pay-Tel’s reported ICS costs. And it is almost double the rate that Pay Tel believes is reasonable for jails going forward” in its proposal for permanent rate caps, Securus said. Because of intrastate rates in some states, Pay-Tel can't recover its costs, the ICS provider said in its petition. Without the waiver from interstate caps, Pay-Tel said in its petition that it “would have to substantially curtail its operations, most likely by terminating service in its smallest facilities, or would go out of business altogether.” Comments are due on Pay-Tel's petition Nov. 12, replies Nov. 19, said a public notice seeking comment.

Saying Lifeline needs be updated for this century, the Internet Innovation Alliance unveiled in a white paper Thursday some proposed reforms. They include the creation of a Lifeline Benefit Card that would allow eligible consumers to purchase a range of communications services, including broadband, wireline or wireless voice services. While not endorsing any of the specific ideas, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel praised the report in a statement for “kickstarting a conversation about bringing the Lifeline program into the 21st century. Millions of households lack access to broadband today. Rethinking this program can help remedy that.” The study said only wireline phone providers are required to participate. The program "is a 20th Century government program aimed at spreading a 19th Century technology, voice service," said former Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., honorary chairman of the IIA, in a news release. The paper recommended that because providers administer the program and have an incentive to increase enrollment, a governmental agency should determine eligibility and conduct program oversight. The paper recommended including broadband in the program, and providing subsidies directly to customers instead of providers. "Expanding the program to focus on broadband, and simplifying its administration to welcome participation by more service providers, will help millions more Americans access modern communications services," Boucher said in the release.

Granting USTelecom’s petition to forbear from several regulatory requirements on LECs would be a “concrete action” the FCC could take “in the immediate future to increase competition where Chairman [Tom] Wheeler has said it is most needed -- in fiber-based broadband,” said the group’s president Walter McCormick in a statement Thursday. “The petition calls for removing long outdated rules, such as those requiring companies to separate local and long-distance business, that prevent carriers from investing in the kind of advanced communications services that consumers want today. ... We believe action on this petition will lead to greater broadband opportunities for American consumers.” Comments on the petition are due Dec. 5, replies Dec. 22 in docket 14-192 (see 1411050047).

Comptel wants the FCC to be "clear that it will not permit large incumbents to use technology transitions as basis for reducing last-mile options or forcing cost increases on rivals and their customers,” General Counsel Angie Kronenberg told Deputy Wireline Bureau Chief Matthew DelNero, according to an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 13-5. A draft NPRM being circulated by Chairman Tom Wheeler asks whether incumbents should be required to provide competitors with equivalent services when retiring a TDM service (see 1411040060).

Comments are due Dec. 5 and replies on Dec. 22 in docket 14-192 on USTelecom’s Oct. 6 petition (see 1410070050) for forbearance from “’various outdated regulatory requirements applicable to incumbent local exchange carriers,’” said a public notice Wednesday.

The FCC grants forbearance in cases in which it finds no dominance in the retail market, said George Ford, chief economist at the Phoenix Center. In the net neutrality issue, the question is different and the agency will have trouble granting forbearance, Ford said. The commission “has explicitly defined the relevant market as 'terminating access' and found that all Broadband Service Providers are 'monopolies' (i.e. 'dominant') in that market,” Ford said. He was responding to criticism from Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, who said the agency would have difficulty forbearing should it take a Communications Act Title II approach to net neutrality rules (see 1411040036).

Paid prioritization might not always slow non-prioritized traffic, and the FCC could run computer simulations to “determine to a high degree of accuracy the actual effects of prioritization on wide classes of traffic,” University of Nebraska assistant law professor Justin Hurwitz told FCC Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan Friday, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-28. “There are many reasons that prioritization is not 'zero sum' -- indeed, there are circumstances under which prioritization of some traffic may improve the performance of all other traffic.”

The inclusion of “urban clusters” in the definition of “urban” in the FCC E-rate modernization order could pose problems for rural schools, NTCA Senior Vice President–Policy Michael Romano, other NTCA and local E-rate officials told aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Ajit Pai, Managing Director Jon Wilkins and several Wireline Bureau officials in separate meetings Oct. 28, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 13-184. Romano also spoke with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Oct. 29, the filing said. Because rural schools can get additional funding, the categorization of schools in the clusters as urban “will result in significant shifts in E-rate support for many small schools and libraries that dot the sparsely-populated rural landscape,” said NTCA. Also involved in the Oct. 28 meetings were Brian Ford, NTCA regulatory counsel; Debra Kriete, the South Dakota E-rate coordinator; and Julie Tritt Schell, the Pennsylvania E-rate coordinator, on behalf of the State E-rate Coordinators Alliance, the filing said.