NTCA asked the FCC to grant a waiver of the affordable connectivity program's "uniform, rolling 30-day" non-usage period for small providers that offer a fully subsidized plan to tribal households, said a petition posted Friday in docket 21-450. The group also sought a waiver for ACP subscribers that qualified through Lifeline. The rule "requires an automated functionality that many of these entities do not have," NTCA said, asking the FCC to allow small providers serving tribal consumers to abide by emergency broadband benefit program rules on non-usage. AT&T is also seeking a targeted waiver for consumers receiving asymmetric digital subscriber line services (see 2205090056).

The FCC "must adopt a new rate plan quickly" for video relay service funded by the Telecom Relay Service Fund, said ZVRS and Purple Communications CEO Sherri Turpin in a letter posted Thursday in docket 03-123 (see 2111150057). A third extension by six months of the rates that were set to expire in June 2021 "would have a devastating impact" on VRS, Turpin said, adding it would "amount to another rate cut in real terms." The FCC has "significantly cut rates over the past twelve months as a result of unanswered inflation," Turpin said: "The repeated extensions of the 2017 rates that have taken place have only served to create uncertainty for VRS providers and consumers and put providers under increasing pressure to do more with less in order to maintain service."

The FCC Wireline Bureau approved the National Exchange Carrier Association's proposed average schedule interstate settlement disbursements formulas for July 1 through June 30, 2023, said an order Wednesday in docket 21-473 (see 2202100066).

The FCC waived the budget control mechanism for rural cost-based Connect America Fund broadband loop support and high-cost loop support recipients until June 2023, said an order Tuesday in docket 10-90. "Absent a waiver, the projected budget control reduction factor would exceed 14%," the order said. The order "makes eminent sense," said Commissioner Brendan Carr: "Now is not the time to cut back on the support for these rural providers." Other commissioners didn't release a statement. Several groups sought an extension of the waiver, including NTCA, USTelecom and WTA (see 2204110062). WTA "strongly supports the FCC's actions to spare small broadband providers serving rural areas the worst effects of the [budget control mechanism] for another year," said Senior Vice President-Government and Industry Affairs Derrick Owens.

ClearCaptions asked the FCC to seek additional information from Global Caption on how it will "ensure its proposed [automatic speech recognition]-only offering will provide functionally equivalent" IP captioned telephone services if it grants the company's application for certification to provide ASR-based IP CTS supported by the Telecom Relay Service Fund. In comments posted Tuesday in docket 03-123 (see 2204070050), ClearCaptions said it "does not believe ASR-only IP CTS delivers acceptable experiences on unscripted calls" and recommended the FCC seek information about how Global Caption will provide functionally equivalent service "when captioning on calls is or becomes problematic for the ASR system." Several advocacy groups, including the Hearing Loss Association of America, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf, and Gallaudet University's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said the FCC should "carefully evaluate" Global Caption's application to ensure it meets the "concededly low bar" of delivering a "similar level of quality to those already certified." The groups also sought scrutiny of the quality and privacy aspects of the company's plan to provide ASR-based IP CTS to incarcerated individuals.

The FCC Wireline Bureau announced its annual tariff review plans for LECs, effective July 1, in an order posted Monday in docket 22-108. The bureau waived commission rules limiting annual access charge tariff filings to rate-level changes and clarified the "extent that rate-of return carriers receiving model-based universal service support may recover certain exogenous costs through end user charges and Connect America Fund-Intercarrier Compensation (CAF-ICC) support." The bureau also reminded LECs that are required to submit annual filings to pay the new filing fees through the new payment system, said a public notice.

NTCA asked the FCC to consider reverting the affordable connectivity program's usage rules for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) services to those in the emergency broadband benefit program "with a technical infeasiblity exemption where such measurement is not possible," in comments posted Friday in docket 21-450 (see 2204150057). The FCC sought comment on AT&T's petition to waive the requirement for its grandfathered plans that use ADSL technology. The group said some of its members faced problems with capturing usage of its ACP-enrolled customers using ADSL technology. NTCA opposed FCC action that "would result in its members forgoing reimbursement for a discount extended to a subscriber." AT&T's willingness to do so "highlights that strict compliance with the rule ... is neither feasible nor reasonable," NTCA said. AT&T also met with Wireline Bureau staff on its petition, per an ex parte posted Monday, saying its request is "limited to a small and targeted subset of potentially eligible wireline customers on grandfathered plans utilizing ADSL technology that is no longer supported by equipment manufacturers."

WTA asked an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to extend the current waiver of the budget control mechanism for rural cost-based Connect America Fund broadband loop support and high-cost loop support recipients, said an ex parte posted Thursday in docket 10-90 (see 2204110062). The group said more than half its rural LEC members rely on the funding and its smaller members may lose "between a quarter and a half million dollars a year." The estimated support reductions "would impair the ability of affected RLECs to extend and upgrade their broadband networks, repay loans, maintain service quality and retain their staffs," the group said. It asked for "an early ruling on the extension ... to simplify the scheduled June 2022 annual access tariff filings."

The FCC committed an additional nearly $39 million in Emergency Connectivity Fund support, totaling more than $4.8 billion so far, said a news release Wednesday (see 2204190041). The new funding will support 140 schools, 14 libraries and one consortium.

NTCA asked FCC Wireline Bureau staff to reconsider the affordable connectivity program's non-usage rules or grant additional time for companies serving tribal consumers, said an ex parte posted Wednesday in docket 21-450 (see 2204150057). Some of the group's smaller members "will have substantial difficulty with" the rules, Vice President-Federal Regulatory Brian Ford told staff, noting at least one member company serving customers on tribal lands with fully subsidized plans would need to use an automated process for tracking usage because doing so manually "would be nearly impossible." Tribal areas "pose unique challenges," Ford said, and it's "important to reconcile reasonably the prospect of a new program intended to increase broadband adoption in these areas and a non-usage provision that applied too strictly could undermine the success of these efforts."