After finding that about half of the roughly 180,000 Connect America Fund, Phase II challenges filed with the FCC were without merit, the Wireline Bureau in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1BhCtul) Friday sought comments on the remaining tens of thousands of challenges over whether Census blocks should be eligible for Connect America Fund, Phase II funds. Responses to the challenges are due in docket 10-90 by Nov. 10. Of the 42,520 challenges that Census blocks deemed unserved by a broadband provider should really be considered served and not be eligible for funding, the bureau said only 24,225 of them made a prima facie case for further consideration, according to FCC figures. Of 135,815 challenges saying an area considered served should be considered unserved and eligible for funds, the bureau found 70,868 met a prima facie standard, the figures said. The challenges were seen as a high-stakes battle in which companies were trying to protect their own turf from competitors, or to be able to tap into the $9 billion pot to move into other areas (CD Aug 21 p2).

Filing deadlines in the special access Further NPRM were extended to April 6 for comments and May 18 for replies in docket 05-25, said an FCC Wireline Bureau notice (http://1.usa.gov/1rpxZR8) published in the Federal Register Thursday. The extension is necessary to allow the agency to collect data for an analysis of the special access market (CD Aug 19 p2) and for commenters to review the data before submitting their filings, the notice said.

Neustar again urged the FCC to issue an NPRM in its selection of the next Local Number Portability Administrator, saying, “given the factual, legal, and policy questions now before the agency, a rulemaking proceeding is needed to ensure that the Commission has an adequate record for decision,” in a Sept. 23 letter to the FCC posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/1utO7n8). Rival Telcordia in its reply comment had said any issues like the company’s ability to stay neutral, protect the security of the network from intrusion and work effectively with law enforcement agencies that remain unaddressed could be dealt with after the FCC formally awards it the contract (CD Aug 26 p6). Neustar in the letter posted as an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1utO7n8) said the argument of Telcordia’s parent company, Ericsson, that the agency could award the contract to the subsidiary “despite the gaps in its proposal ... is contrary to contracting principles and basic fairness."

It could take until mid-October for the FCC to finish posting online all net neutrality comments filed before the Sept. 15 NPRM replies deadline, meaning it will have taken a month to post them all, an FCC spokeswoman told us. The agency posted comments in docket 14-28 on Thursday that were filed at the deadline 10 days earlier. Normally, converting comments into a PDF file and then having them reviewed by the Office of the Secretary takes a couple of hours, the spokeswoman said. “However, the conversion process does not scale to handle the 3.7 million comments received in this proceeding.” Comments in other proceedings are processed along with net neutrality filings, so there could be slight delay in posting, the spokeswoman said.

A number of edge companies -- Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner, CBS, Scripps Networks Interactive and Viacom -- responded to cable companies’ proposals to have net neutrality rules apply to edge providers, not just ISPs. The companies said it would “stifle innovation,” run counter to January’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit net neutrality decision, and violate the First Amendment and copyright laws. The opposition represents an attitude of “Open Internet regulation for thee and not for me,” said Ross Lieberman, senior vice president-government affairs for the American Cable Association, one of the groups that suggested the two-way approach to the FCC. The edge providers argued in their net neutrality reply comments (http://bit.ly/1pf3RDi), filed Sept. 15 but posted only Thursday, that despite “suggestions by a few cable interests ... extending the regulations to edge providers is patently inconsistent with the limits of Section 706.” The section’s authority extends only to broadband providers to encourage deployment, the filing said. The Verizon decision “does not suggest that Section 706 authorizes the Commission to regulate other entities” to further the virtuous cycle of innovation. Congress intended Section 706 to apply to broadband providers, not edge providers, the companies also said, citing a Senate report discussing “the goal of ‘deployment’ as focusing on the regulation of ‘networks’ and ‘equipment needed to deliver advanced broadband capability,’ not on companies whose content, products and services are distributed on such networks,” the companies’ filing said. Subjecting edge providers to net neutrality regulations would have “troubling First Amendment implications,” the companies said, because if they were “forced to make their content available to all broadband access providers and their subscribers, it would amount to compelled speech in violation of the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the First Amendment protects against compelled speech because ’the choice to speak includes within it the choice of what not to say.'” Regulating edge providers would conflict with copyright law because it is “a fundamental American constitutional and statutory principle that content creators are deemed to have exclusive rights in their works -- works which often cost tens of millions of dollars to create individually, and billions of dollars to create in the aggregate.” As copyright owners, the companies “must remain free to determine how, when, where and to whom our works may be delivered,” the filing said. “The Open Internet rules originated from the principle that consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice,” Lieberman said, and consumers’ access to online content “can be blocked, and has been blocked in discriminatory manner by edge providers ... at least as often as the alleged instances of blocking by ISPs that edge providers commonly highlight.” Section 706 “clearly gives the agency authority to apply comparable rules to edge providers,” he emailed, calling the edge providers’ comments “weak and legally questionable objections."

The FCC should allow Wilkes Telephone Membership Corp. to include $147,149 owed by Halo in 2011 as part of its base period revenue for that year, NTCA said in an emergency petition (http://bit.ly/XWgnAf) posted Monday in docket 10-90 on behalf of the member company. It requests a waiver from a commission rule that requires that funds included as 2011 revenue be collected by March 31, 2012. The rural North Carolina company, which relies on Universal Service Fund support, has not been able to collect the money from Halo, which declared bankruptcy in 2012, the petition said. Not being able to count the funds “would not only create a one-time impact, but would continue to cause a financial impact to Wilkes every year” that the base period revenue is used to calculate USF support, the petition said.

An FCC webinar on how applicants for rural broadband experiment funding should fill out Form 5610 will take place Sept. 29 at 2 p.m., said the Wireline Bureau in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1odsujG) in Monday’s Daily Digest. More information on the webinar is forthcoming, the PN said. It said the form requires applicants to provide identifying information and attach proposed project bids.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was right to highlight in a recent speech (CD Sept 5 p1) the harm of a lack of competition in the last mile, Comptel said in a letter to the agency calling for “expeditious” action on special access reform. “Unjust and unreasonable terms and conditions” imposed by incumbent LECs “effectively lock-up competitors, preclude them from using facilities/services of other carriers (to the extent such an alternative exists) and disincentivize them from building their own facilities,” said Comptel’s Sept. 10 ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 05-25 (http://bit.ly/1mpmVD7). It said the lock-up plans “have impeded competition in the multi-billion dollar special access market and undermined investment in broadband networks, contrary to the Chairman’s and Commission’s goals of increasing consumer choice."

Teleconnect Long Distance Services & Systems seeks to stop providing stand-alone postpaid calling card services in 11 states, said an application (http://bit.ly/1pozERz) posted Friday in FCC docket 14-154. Public convenience and necessity would not be impaired, the company said in the Aug. 11 application, because “this service is declining in the marketplace as mobile phones have, in most cases, obviated the need for calling card services.” Affected would be customers in California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Washington.

The HD voice market is expected to grow from $815.5 million in 2014 to $2.3 billion by 2019, said a research report by MarketsandMarkets Monday. HD voice adoption “is expected to progress quickly,” a report summary said, “largely because mobile users tend to adopt new technology rapidly by replacing their mobile devices on a regular basis.” The demand for HD voice “is projected to increase with the accessibility of mobile networks,” the report said.