Price cap carriers say they're willing to offer faster broadband with Connect America Fund Phase II money, but in return they want the funding to last longer, and to have the “flexibility” of not having to serve all areas of a census tract if it’s too expensive. The FCC-proposed changes in the program are resurrecting a long-standing battle, in which cable companies and others resent that cap carriers are eligible for the funds. The American Cable Association, Competitive Carriers Association and NCTA are opposing the changes, in filings submitted before Monday’s Further NPRM replies deadline, with ACA saying the changes would be a “windfall” for the price cap carriers.

An FCC proposal to tighten rules on broadcasters swapping network affiliations within a market might lead to a rulemaking but is unlikely to result in a final policy banning the practice, said attorneys who oppose the proposed rule, in interviews. FCC ownership rules already prevent a single broadcaster from owning two Big Four-rated network affiliates in a market, but the 2014 quadrennial review Further NPRM tentatively concluded in favor of extending those rules to keep broadcasters from coming into ownership of two Big Four stations in the same market through network affiliation swaps. Initial comments were recently due on the FNPRM (CD Aug 8 p7).

The FCC Wireline Bureau dismissed a petition Monday from the American Cable Association (ACA) and NCTA requesting reconsideration of the bureau’s Connect America Fund Phase II challenge process guidance public notice, saying the petition was untimely (http://bit.ly/1vz8jFa). ACA and NCTA had been opposed to the bureau’s decision to require that parties present evidence of current or former customers in a census block in order to challenge the determination that the block is unserved (CD Aug 5 p5). ACA and NCTA filed the petition July 22, one day after the 30-day window for filing a petition had elapsed, the bureau said. Had the groups filed the petition on time, the arguments they presented still don’t warrant reconsideration, the bureau said.

The petition for reconsideration filed by the American Cable Association and NCTA about protesting eligibility for Connect America Fund Phase II support should be denied, USTelecom said in comments posted to docket 10-90 Friday. ACA and NCTA had protested the Wireline Bureau’s decision to require that parties present evidence of current or former customers in a census block in order to challenge the determination that the block is unserved (http://bit.ly/WX2Dpu). “The reasonable evidentiary standard adopted by the Bureau will help ensure that residents of rural areas are not denied the opportunity to have broadband available to them based upon the type of thin assertions” made during the challenge process, USTelecom said.

The American Cable Association and NTCA want net neutrality rules to flow both ways, with content providers prohibited from blocking Internet providers from carrying their content as well as the reverse. The ACA backed two-way regulation in the past, and it said in its comments that imposing “one-sided regulation” would be a “mistake.” If the commission approves net neutrality rules, “the exclusion of Internet edge providers from them, will undermine the rules’ goals and effectiveness, and in turn, cause distortions in the multi-sided Internet marketplace,” ACA said in its comments (http://bit.ly/Wnu1Nc). Using Title II “would be excessively costly, disruptive and unnecessary,” ACA said.

USTelecom opposed an American Cable Association FCC application for review of a Wireline Bureau April decision on the Connect America Fund cost model order that calculated costs of serving census blocks in price-cap telco areas. “USTelecom stands by its cost of capital calculation which resulted in a zone of reasonableness above 8.48% and below 9.52%, resulting in a point estimate of 9.00%” and other figures, said that association in an opposition filing to ACA’s request posted Monday in docket 10-90 (http://bit.ly/U1g5GM). “ACA presents no new information to contradict it. Yet ACA rejects the Bureau’s considered conclusion which adopted a cost of capital 50 basis points below the recommendation of the ABC Coalition.” The association said an FCC model used data from the coalition, a USF reform group of telcos that has included USTelecom members (http://bit.ly/1pXdWuo). ACA’s June 20 application for review said the bureau’s model, “for the key input of the cost of money ... adopted a cost significantly in excess of forward-looking market rates” and would mean price-cap LECs get more support than required (http://bit.ly/1vWPFSK). ACA plans to respond to USTelecom’s opposition, in reply comments, said ACA Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman. He declined further comment.

ACA International, which represents credit and collection professionals, asked the FCC to clarify how predictive dialers are treated under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. While a predictive dialer, which dials a list of phone numbers and connects answered dials to people making calls, can be an Automated Telephone Dialing System (ATDS), it’s not necessarily one, ACA said. The TCPA prohibits automated calls to cellphones, emergency lines, a hospital emergency number, a physician’s office or a hospital room, among other protected phone lines. “That a predictive dialer can be an autodialer if it meets the statutory definition of an autodialer” does “not (and cannot) mean that it must be an ATDS under the TCPA,” ACA said (http://bit.ly/1vBaT8t). “Fundamentally, the statutory elements of an ATDS must be met in order for equipment to be considered an ATDS under the statute.” The filing, posted by the FCC Wednesday, was in docket 02-278.

The FCC Wireline Bureau Connect America Cost Model order provides too much support to price-cap LEC territories, said the American Cable Association in an application for review (http://bit.ly/1jJQCI3) posted Monday in docket 10-90. The order is “erroneous” because it presumes too high a cost and too low of a “take-rate” -- revenue from users -- in calculating the funding, ACA said. The commission should have instead used figures suggested by ACA, the group said. It said that would let support be provided “more efficiently, enabling many more unserved locations to be supported in the Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II."

AT&T’s voluntary commitment to offer wireless broadband service to 13 million new customers as a result of planned DirecTV acquisition “precedes any election it might make to access Connect America Fund Phase II support to make broadband service available in high cost areas,” the American Cable Association told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Wednesday, an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 10-90 said (http://bit.ly/1oPdbTy). AT&T has said it’s one of the concessions it will make as part of its DirecTV acquisition (CD June 18 p5). The FCC should be ready for issues that might arise if it turns out some locations included in the merger commitment might also be high-cost areas where AT&T is eligible to receive support, ACA said. The association commended the bureau for making “great strides” in developing a cost model that accurately estimates the cost of a modern network, but criticized insufficiently precise inputs for the cost of money and the take rate to estimate revenue.

How much money the FCC should devote to the rural broadband experiments -- and which criteria it should use to judge applications -- were debated in reply comments posted Monday and Tuesday. The agency received more than 1,000 “expressions of interest” in participating in the experiments. Other sticking points include whether incumbents should get right of first refusal; how to ensure high-cost support mechanisms like Connect America Fund (CAF) II still get the attention ILECs say they deserve; and whether to run experiments in areas that already see extensive broadband service.