Waivers of minimum standards for telecommunications relay services (TRS) have been extended until the FCC completes a pending rulemaking into whether the rules are still needed, a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Wireline Bureau order said (http://bit.ly/1m34dP8). The waivers were set to expire July 1, said the order posted Friday in docket 03-123. Waivers were also extended until July 1, 2015, of certain TRS mandatory minimum standards for certain video relay service and IP Relay providers.

Mescalero Apache Telecom officials expressed concerns that the $250 per line monthly USF cap could stifle the development of basic and advanced services on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, during a June 25 meeting with officials from the telco, tribe and the Office of Native Affairs and Policy, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1wRC69k) in docket 10-90. The parties also discussed the IP transition and the possibility of appropriating $50 million of unused Connect America Funds for the Tribal Broadband Fund, said the filing posted Thursday. A draft FCC order would start tests of CAF Phase II funds for broadband experiments. (See separate report above in this issue.)

Smaller companies have little market power for interconnection with larger networks or exchange of data controlled by larger content providers, NTCA said in an ex parte filing posted last week in dockets 05-337, 12-353 and 14-28 (http://bit.ly/1sKQXny). The lack of transparency in the markets can undermine their effectiveness and often appears to result in a paradigm where “biggest always wins with costs and transport burdens being pushed ‘downward’ onto smaller entities,” it said. Solving rural transport and interconnection cost issues through carefully constructed rules for traffic exchange and refined universal service support mechanisms “must be seen as an essential component of a 21st century broadband-focused universal service policy,” it said. The filing recounted a meeting with Matthew DelNero, Wireline Bureau deputy chief.

CenturyLink pulled a request that the FCC suspend and investigate Iowa Network Services’ annual access charge tariff filing (CD June 26 p17). The voluntary withdrawal is without prejudice to CenturyLink’s right to pursue “any and all legal remedies” of issues raised in its petition for an investigation, said the telco Wednesday in docket 14-48 (http://bit.ly/1m0gZiZ). Iowa Network Services, in a reply posted the next day in the docket (http://bit.ly/1lsa1BW), said CenturyLink’s original petition should be denied.

The rate-of-return regulated rural ILEC group with an FCC plan for broadband USF (CD June 25 p17, June 25 p14) includes about a dozen such companies with fewer than 10,000 access lines each, said industry officials involved with the Small Company Coalition in emails to us Tuesday and Wednesday. Some previous filings by the group hadn’t identified members of the coalition, which seeks among other things broadband access for rural and urban areas on similar conditions, rates and terms within USF budget parameters. ILEC members include Citizens Telephone of Kecksburg in Pennsylvania and Sacred Wind Communications in New Mexico. Associate coalition members include Alexicon Telecommunications Consulting, where Principal Doug Kitsch is involved with the effort, the Blooston Mordkofsky law firm and Calix Networks, which makes broadband systems, said the materials provided by Kitsch, a consultant to the group, and Jim Kail, on the coalition’s executive committee and the CEO of Pennsylvania ILECs including the Laurel Highland telco.

The Telecommunications Industry Association joined all other recent commenters (CD June 25 p16) in backing a Voice Communication Exchange Committee request that the FCC issue a notice of inquiry on migrating to HD voice as part of the IP transition. As that committee noted, migrating to HD voice “would accomplish many of the same benefits -- and poses many of the same challenges” -- “as the migration to HDTV overseen effectively by the Commission,” said a TIA comment posted Tuesday in docket 13-5 (http://bit.ly/1jOg3Is). “Using the HDTV transition as a model the Commission could include the migration to HD voice as a part of the IP transition, which would allow the Commission to address the collective technical challenges confronting the industry, while leveraging the extensive public awareness of the transition to HDTV."

The FCC should revise its protective order in the local number portability administrator (LNPA] proceeding to give small carriers access to the proposal, said a letter (http://bit.ly/1jOQyXx) submitted Monday by associations representing the carriers. The carriers also responded to CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom filings that urged a quick selection of the LNPA vendor (CD June 24 p11), saying, “While we are not opposed to the Commission moving quickly, we believe that the Commission should only act after all entities that depend on the LNP, not just the largest carriers, have an opportunity to review and understand the implications of the LNP selection and provide comments to the Commission.” The letter, posted Tuesday in docket 09-109, came from FISPA, Michigan Internet & Telecommunications Alliance, North West Telecommunications Association and Texaltel. The FCC’s definition of information considered to be ‘highly confidential’ in the protective order is overly broad, Neustar told agency general counsel’s staff June 20, an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/TxjFYM) posted Wednesday. “Neustar expressed further that the FCC’s default position for information submitted by vendors in this proceeding should be to favor disclosure rather than restricting disclosure.” A unit of Ericsson, which an FCC committee recommended get the LNPA job now held by Neustar, recently sought other changes to the protective order (CD June 24 p12).

CenturyLink asked the FCC to suspend and investigate Iowa Network Services’s annual access charge tariff filing. In reforming intercarrier compensation, an FCC order “unambiguously capped all interstate switched access charges at the rates in place on the effective date of the” 2011 order, said the telco in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-48 (http://bit.ly/1ryrgSS). “Yet in its instant filing, INS proposes to maintain a switched transport rate above that cap.” Iowa Network Services declined to comment.

All initial comments appeared to support a Voice Communication Exchange Committee request that the FCC issue a notice of inquiry on migrating to HD voice as part of technology transitions the agency is considering, based on filings in docket 13-5 as of Tuesday afternoon. Among NOI backers were Zula co-founder Jeff Pulver (http://bit.ly/1l7mczq), the VoIP pioneer and founder of Vonage; Vonage filing separately (http://bit.ly/1mbbDLX); the Voice on the Net Coalition, which was also founded by Pulver (http://bit.ly/1sC1kdk); and Dialogic, a maker of codecs, including for HD voice (http://bit.ly/Tclfit). The Voice on the Net Coalition said HD voice implementation can give consumers enhanced voice quality, “rejuvenate user interest in voice calls, and improve competitiveness of global communications infrastructure,” all within the IP transition. Vonage called an NOI an “incremental step” and said the FCC should promote the IP transition: An “NOI exploring the standards development -- and related IP transition issues” -- would “smooth the transition to HD voice.” Monday was the deadline for comments on a Wireline Bureau public notice seeking feedback on the committee’s request (http://bit.ly/1nCdE4Z). It noted the request was for the agency to “investigate the benefits of a common HD voice implementation to replace standard definition voice services historically associated with the Public Switched Telephone Network.”

National hotel chains have made real progress enabling guests to dial 911 directly, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1v24oLt). Pai said in January he would contact major hotel chains to ensure 911 works wherever it’s dialed (CD Jan 14 p14). He raised a December incident in which a child tried to dial 911 when her mother was being strangled by her estranged husband. The child “tried to call 911 four times but never reached emergency personnel” because the hotel required her to first dial 9 to get an outside line, Pai said then. The Wyndham Hotel Group reported earlier this year that only 80 percent of its owned and managed properties allowed direct dialing to 911, but now all its properties do so, Pai said. Hyatt initially reported that 75 percent of its managed properties allowed direct 911 access, but it now provides this functionality at 99 percent of its properties, he said. The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA) is “continuing to play an important role in solving this problem,” Pai said. “AH&LA has now issued an industry-wide recommendation that encourages all of its members to move to direct 911 dialing.” AH&LA is hosting a members-only webinar on the issue Thursday (http://bit.ly/1v28wLs).