The FCC Wireline Bureau invited nominations by Aug. 17 to occupy 12 board seats on Universal Service Administrative Co., a public notice in docket 96-45 said Thursday. Board members have fiduciary duties to protect the interests of USAC -- which administers USF programs for the FCC -- consistent with federal and state laws. The list includes six seats with terms that expired Dec. 31, 2013, and six that expired Dec. 31, 2014, but all but one of the seats are currently filled, the PN said. The FCC already solicited and received nominations for the first six but is seeking any new nominations to refresh the record, while it's seeking nominations for the second six for the first time. The slots to be filled are for representatives of Bell operating company ILECs, non-Bell ILECs with less than $40 million in annual revenues, libraries eligible for E-rate discounts, state consumer advocates, mobile wireless providers, cable operators, schools eligible for E-rate discounts (two slots), low-income consumers, CLECs, rural healthcare providers eligible to receive USF support and interexchange carriers with annual operating revenue of $3 billion or less.
A federal court took a short timeout from its briefing schedule so it can consider an FCC motion to suspend substantive judicial review of an AT&T challenge to a commission order on price-cap telco USF duties, pending regulatory action on related issues in other proceedings. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday granted an FCC request to file the motion to hold the case in abeyance and the court suspended its current briefing schedule. The court didn't rule on the FCC motion to hold the case in abeyance, which already has been submitted. In its motion, the FCC noted that AT&T and others in August had asked the FCC to relieve price-cap carriers of eligible telecom carrier (ETC) obligations to serve rural areas where they would no longer be subsidized if they elected to receive USF support under the agency’s Connect America Fund Phase II overhaul of the high-cost program. AT&T and others also had urged the FCC to permit, but no longer require, high-cost ETCs to participate in the Lifeline USF program subsidizing low-income telecom consumers. Separately, in October, USTelecom petitioned the FCC to forbear from applying related high-cost and Lifeline rules. The FCC in December partially granted USTelecom’s petition, relieving price-cap carriers of their ETC duty to offer voice service in census blocks determined to be “low-cost,” served by an unsubsidized competitor, or where a competing ETC is receiving USF support to deploy fixed broadband/voice networks. AT&T then challenged the FCC order in the D.C. Circuit, arguing it didn't provide enough relief and was arbitrary and capricious (AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1038). But the commission motion said that the agency made clear in December it wasn’t addressing all the issues raised in USTelecom’s petition or by commenters in the high-cost and Lifeline proceedings -- all three of which remain open. The FCC thus asked the court to hold the case in abeyance until (a) the agency finalizes its USTelecom forbearance review -- which must occur by Jan. 4 -- or earlier if it acts on the high-cost and Lifeline issues AT&T is targeting; and (b) AT&T petitions for review of the resulting orders, assuming it does so. The FCC said its prospective actions in the open proceedings could moot or alter AT&T’s current challenge, and even if they don’t, it made more sense for the court to consider all the issues at one time, rather than piecemeal. AT&T Tuesday opposed the FCC motion. “There is no reason for delay,” the telco said. “At bottom the FCC promulgated a rule it knows it cannot defend,” AT&T said. “That the FCC might, in a future order, grant AT&T relief from [unlawful] obligations is no reason to hold the case in abeyance.”
Pay Tel offered specific proposals for overhauling FCC rules for inmate calling services, in a meeting with agency officials, according ex parte filings submitted by the provider in docket 12-375 Monday. Pay Tel discussed the following elements it believes are necessary for "comprehensive, lasting ICS reform: (1) a tiered rate structure that recognizes structural cost differences between jails and prisons and that differentiates between jails by size so as to ensure service to the ... [nation's] small and medium jails; (2) a facility cost recovery fee added to ICS rates; (3) the elimination of many ancillary fees and reasonable caps on select, permissible payment fees (and on single call programs); (4) ensuring that ICS consumers do not pay for integrated services out of ICS rates; and (5) an appropriate transition period for implementation of reform that minimizes potential 'gaming' of Commission action." One of the filings contained a two-page outline of the proposals. Meanwhile, the National Sheriffs' Association responded to two other proposals for setting ICS compensation and urged the FCC to factor in institutional differences, according to NSA ex parte filings Tuesday. "While a formula or proxy-type method to determine compensation for correctional facilities may have merit, it should take into account the differences between prisons and jails and between small and larger jails," the NSA said. "As demonstrated in the record, there are a number of differences between jails and prisons which result in a higher cost to Sheriffs and those operating jails to provide the security and administrative duties necessary to allow ICS in jails. Among those differences, jails are typically operated by local jurisdictions that are under the authority of the county government or an elected sheriff and they do not have the economies of scope and scale of state or federal prisons."
If Frontier's acquisition of Verizon's wireline services in California, Texas and Florida (see 1502050059) is approved before the start of 2016, it will use money allocated from the FCC through Phase II of the Connect America Fund to facilitate broadband deployment in high-cost areas of California and Texas that it will acquire, the company said in an FCC filing. Frontier told the commission in the filing it "has aggressively pursued federal and state broadband support in its current service areas, and will continue to do so in [Verizon's transferred] service areas." The company also said it plans to use about $32 million of CAF Phase II support annually through the next six years for broadband deployment in Verizon's high-cost service areas of California it's in the process of buying, and $16.5 million of CAF Phase II funds throughout the next six years to deploy "high speed broadband to around 37,000 locations in high cost areas" of Texas. "Although Frontier has not yet formulated detailed plans for enhancing broadband deployment and services in the transferring companies' service areas, it anticipates that it will start with the CAF Phase II projects, which would result in significant builds in both California and Texas," it said in the filing. The CAF Phase II projects also will improve its network speed and service, Frontier said, and will require an investment of "substantial amounts of its own capital, in addition to CAF Phase II funding" to complete the high-cost builds.
The FCC Wireline Bureau approved Crown Castle's buy of Sunesys units from Quanta Services, said a public notice released Monday in docket 15-123. No opposition was filed to the application of Crown Castle and Quanta to transfer control of the communications licenses of Sunesys LLC and Sunesys of Virginia Inc., from the latter to the former under Section 214 of the Communications Act. The Sunesys units provide point-to-point telecom services in California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to the application, and Crown Castle owns, operates, leases and manages almost 40,000 wireless communications towers and rooftop sites, and has deployed "approximately 14,000 distributed antenna system ('DAS') small-cell nodes supported by 7,000 miles of fiber."
Frontier and Verizon responded Wednesday to the FCC request for more information concerning Frontier's proposed purchase of Verizon's wireline services in California, Florida and Texas. The companies submitted a joint reply to the several questions the commission posed in a June letter (see 1506180038) about the effects the purchase would have on particular aspects of each business. Frontier and Verizon said "there are no financial issues in the transaction that are expected or are likely to compromise Frontier's ability to maintain or improve its network and customer service quality beyond the ordinary market risks" of any business transaction. The letter said Frontier's acquisition of the wireline systems will "strengthen" their "already strong financial profile" so they might provide better services to customers, and give them more operating flexibility. In its information request, the commission asked for the details of the plan in place by the which the two companies will transition customers and back-office and billing systems. The telcos responded by citing the previous experience they have of transitioning customers and systems, including after their 2010 transaction moving wireline services in 14 states to Frontier. They said that a "cutover plan" is in place, which includes the testing of the data transfer and integration process. Prior to the information request, both companies said there would be a savings of $700 million in consolidated cost efficiencies, and in its request letter the FCC asked them to define exactly where the benefits would come from. The companies said in their response that $525 million would come from the elimination of Verizon corporate cost allocations, and the remaining $175 million in savings is based on the management of "other allocations and costs."
Florida Power and Light says Verizon hasn't come close to proving its case in its pole-attachment complaint against the power company. In its opposition to the complaint in FCC docket 15-73, FPL said Verizon has had more than 40 years, two complaint filings, four economist declarations, four additional affidavits and thousands of pages of documents to make its arguments to demonstrate that it was paying too much for the right to use the "infrastructure that FPL designed, constructed and maintained for Verizon." The FCC should dismiss or deny the complaint, "given that the burden of proof was squarely on Verizon," FPL said. Saying the FCC dismissed Verizon's first complaint Feb. 11, FPL said Verizon's most recent complaint "inexcusably fails again to address the value of FPL having granted voluntary access" to its network of poles and easements. "The sum total of the benefits provided Verizon and the obligations borne by FPL for Verizon dwarf Verizon's claims of overpayment and, at the very least, establish that Verizon's annual payment of a joint use attachment fee of approximately $35 to $37 per pole is eminently just and reasonable," FPL said. After the first complaint was dismissed, Verizon refiled its complaint March 13 with supplemental information identified by the FCC Enforcement Bureau that the telco said further establishes its right to pay the same rates FPL charges other competitors. "This long-standing pole attachment dispute involves the continuing efforts of FPL to use a contractual evergreen clause to forever charge Verizon rental rates that are nearly four times the rates FPL may charge Verizon’s competitors -- even though Verizon terminated the parties’ forty-year-old Joint Use Agreement nearly three years ago after repeated attempts to resolve the rate issue with FPL proved futile," Verizon said. "In its February 11, 2015 Order, the Enforcement Bureau rejected the vast majority of FPL’s reasons for resisting Verizon’s ability to maintain pole attachments at the rates envisioned by the Commission’s Pole Attachment Order. In particular, the Bureau made clear that, since July 12, 2011, Verizon has been entitled to a just and reasonable rate from FPL for pole attachments."
The FCC should immediately open a new video relay service (VRS) rulemaking sought by providers, Convo Communications said in a filing in docket 03-123. A Convo official told a staffer for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Tuesday it was urgent the commission issue an NPRM on "functional equivalency and rate stabilization" for VRS providers followed by expedited comment and decisionmaking. "As an emergent provider operating with increasing debt and no margin, Convo needs to soon understand the Commission's position related to the NPRM," Convo said. The FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Tuesday adopted further planned rate cuts to VRS provider compensation for the funding year running from July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016 (see 1506300063). Convo and other VRS providers said the cuts would damage the quality of their VRS services to the deaf and hard of hearing. The VRS providers in April proposed to make enhancements to their services in exchange for an FCC freeze before July 1 on their compensation rates, which have been on a "glide path" down since 2013. But the bureau said it couldn't alter in Tuesday's order the planned rate cuts adopted in a previous FCC order and would address the VRS provider's proposal separately.
The FCC is actively encouraging fiber deployment to boost broadband capabilities, spur competition and facilitate innovation, said Gigi Sohn, counselor to Chairman Tom Wheeler, in prepared remarks Tuesday at Fiber to the Home's Fiber on Fire conference in Anaheim. "Fiber networks lead to an influx of business, resources, jobs, and consequently, economic growth," she said. "On top of the economic benefits, broadband enhances health care, education, energy use, environmental protection, public safety, transportation, civic engagement, you name it." Sohn said that fiber-driven advances improve U.S. competitiveness overseas and broadband competition domestically. Citing many consumers' slow data speeds, she noted that the FCC increased the baseline speed for "broadband" from 4/1 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps. The agency is "working to help lift barriers to broadband deployment" by taking steps to foster wireless backhaul, better align the costs of using poles and conduits, and pre-empt state laws restricting community broadband, she said. Local and industry deployment efforts "are even more exciting," she said, and they often spark competitive responses. "If our efforts to lift barriers are not enough and if the efforts of communities across the country don’t reach far enough, rest assured, the FCC is taking more steps to incentivize fiber deployment. We need to make sure that all Americans will reap the benefits of fast broadband speeds." She cited the FCC decision to allocate $10 billion in USF support over six years to extend broadband in high-cost areas currently served by price-cap telcos; if the carriers decline funding in a state, others, including municipal systems and electric cooperatives, will be eligible for the funding, she noted. Sohn said the commission is promoting fiber deployment through the E-rate program subsidizing school and library communications.
AT&T and GTT Communications signed a long-term IP interconnection agreement, they said Tuesday in a joint news release. GTT CEO Rick Calder said the deal will give his clients additional capacity. GTT says its "global Tier1 IP network connects to any location in the world and with any application in the cloud." AT&T is trying to win Department of Justice and FCC approval of its planned takeover of DirecTV (see 1506290061), and Cogent and some others are pushing for an interconnection condition. AT&T had announced interconnection agreements with Cogent and Level 3. Separately Monday, AT&T and DirecTV said they might need longer to complete their transaction, amid the regulatory reviews (see 1506300052).