Rural telcos reported progress but asked the FCC Wednesday for a couple more weeks to try to develop consensus proposals for reforming universal service funding for rate-of-return (RoR) carriers, said an ex-parte filing by WTA -- Advocates for Rural Broadband. Under prodding from the FCC to develop common proposals, representatives of WTA, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance, the National Exchange Carrier Association, NTCA, USTelecom and others updated commission officials on the status of their efforts since April 16. That's when FCC officials asked the telco associations to develop a broad industry plan within a month, but it became clear recently that they hadn't reached a consensus (see 1505150046). In their filing, the groups said they had reached agreement on a number of issues but others remained unresolved for a variety of reasons, "including disagreements between certain representatives and insufficient time to work out the details of certain proposals and options." The groups asked for a two-week extension, until June 3, "to continue to negotiate a comprehensive plan for future RoR high-cost support," the filing said. FCC officials seemed receptive to the industry efforts, one telco official said. "Things are fluid. Hopefully we'll get a little more time to submit a framework," the official said. "We're trying to make sure the plan is all-encompassing," addressing proposals for carriers wanting to move to model-based support and rural group "data connection service" (DCS) proposals for carriers wanting revisions to the current mechanisms to facilitate stand-alone broadband support. The FCC has asked the groups to modify their DNS proposals by including some additional constraints, the telco official said. "So we're trying to make that happen."
Comcast and Level 3 agreed to a multiyear interconnection accord as part of a broader "multi-faceted arrangement that will help both companies meet their customer needs into the next decade and beyond," said a joint news release Thursday. Comcast and Level 3 executives hailed the mutual benefits of the agreement. The companies said the pact will enhance their network capacity, covering their existing networks and any expansion during the term of the agreement, which wasn't specified. Level 3 and other backbone providers have been reaching interconnection agreements recently with major cable and telco ISPs, with some saying the net neutrality order with its complaint process, including for interconnection, may be spurring more cooperation (see 1505010033).
Bandwidth will be provisioning and managing 911 emergency services capabilities for iTalkBB, a VoIP provider, said the vendor in a Wednesday news release. Bandwidth will handle iTalk's call termination process, helping the company manage the entirety of its emergency services process, it said. The vendor said it manages 911 services for the top 5 U.S. VoIP providers.
Cablevision filed suit in federal court against Verizon Tuesday, seeking a declaratory judgment to allow it to continue running an ad that "exposes Verizon's false and misleading marketing claims" about its FiOS service. "Verizon has not been truthful to the public for nearly 10 years about FiOS," said a Cablevision news release. "Verizon FiOS is not all fiber and, in fact, uses regular coaxial cable inside the home. Cablevision ran an advertisement revealing that FiOS is not all fiber, and now Verizon is demanding that Cablevision stop running its ad. Consumers deserve to make informed decisions based on facts, and Cablevision is asking the court to intervene to stop Verizon from attempting to continue to mislead the public.” Cablevision said that in some cases, Verizon had used coaxial cable outside the home as well. Cablevision's complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said that Verizon had "sent a cease and desist letter to Cablevision asserting that Cablevision’s television commercial 'must be immediately stopped' and asserted that commercial was false advertising "under Section 1125(a) of the Lanham Act and other federal and state laws." Verizon then filed a challenge to Cablevision’s advertisement with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, but Cablevision had decided voluntarily not to submit to the NAD review, the complaint said. Verizon responded that "once again Cablevision demonstrates an unhealthy appetite for confusing consumers. Cablevision cannot compete with Verizon FiOS, or even come close to providing the Internet speeds and performance available from Verizon’s 100 percent fiber-optic network. Since their network can’t compete against FiOS, they resort to legal stunts, which we will challenge vigorously."
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on Granite Telecommunications' request for FCC clarification of Bell Operating Company (BOC) Section 271 duties to combine unbundled network elements at wholesale discounts and commingle them with other services. Comments/petitions are due June 15 and replies/oppositions are due June 30, said a bureau public notice in docket 15-114. In a May 4 petition for a declaratory ruling, Granite, a CLEC with business customers, asked the FCC to remove uncertainty about BOC duties "(1) not to separate unbundled network elements ('UNEs') provisioned pursuant to Section 271(c)(2)(B)(iv)-(vi) of the [Communications] Act; (2) to combine such UNEs; and (3) to commingle such UNEs with other wholesale services." Granite said a court-driven FCC rollback in ILEC unbundling duties under Section 251, the absence of FCC rules on BOC Section 271 UNE duties, and a recent USTelecom filing -- asserting the BOCs don't have to combine Section 271 UNEs -- "have created uncertainty as to the BOCs' obligations regarding the separation, combination, and commingling of Section 271 UNEs." Citing a Section 202(a) prohibition against unreasonable discrimination and a Section 201(b) prohibition against unjust and unreasonable practices, Granite asked the FCC (1) to prevent BOCs from separating already-combined UNEs unless requested by a CLEC or unless the BOCs have a reasonable basis for doing so; (2) to require BOCs to combine Section 271 UNEs at the request of CLECs unless the BOCs have a reasonable basis for refusing to do so; and (3) to require BOCs to commingle, or allow CLECs to commingle, Section 271 UNEs with wholesale services obtained from ILECs unless the BOCs have a reasonable basis for refusing to do so. Granite said the BOC Section 271 obligations to provide competitors with unbundled access to local loops, transport, and switching are ongoing and independent of ILEC Section 251 unbundling duties. "[I]n the absence of Section 251 unbundling obligations for local switching and shared transport, the Section 271 competitive checklist provides the only regulatory compulsion for BOCs to provide these network elements on an unbundled basis today," Granite said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on Clearwire's application to discontinue digital voice VoIP services in Chico and Redding, California, and Reno/Carson City, Nevada. Comments are due June 1, and the application will be granted automatically June 16 absent FCC action halting it, said a bureau public notice on docket 15-117 in Monday's Daily Digest. Clearwire indicated its parent Sprint, as part of its 4G LTE upgrade, is shutting down the towers that support the Clearwire broadband service over which it provides the affected VoIP offering, which has only about 95 customers, the notice said. It said Clearwire reported that all the customers were notified and alternative voice services are available.
A U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel on Friday dismissed Global Crossing's legal challenge to a 2012 FCC order under which the company was to pay an additional $4.34 million into the USF contribution system. The panel issued a dismissal judgment rather than an opinion because it found it had no jurisdiction over Global Crossing's petition for review. The panel said it could review only final FCC orders, and this one was an interlocutory order remanding an audit to the fund's administrator. The administrator lowered Global Crossing's payment obligation from an original $5.6 million under the audit to $4.34 million and "could have imposed zero contribution liability on Global Crossing," the panel said. "Such an outcome would clearly obviate the need for judicial review. Indeed in that event petitioner would lack standing to challenge the order," the panel found.
Verizon told FCC officials that six wire-center migrations to all-fiber facilities went "smoothly, with very few customer complaints," the company said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 13-5 on Technology Transitions. Customers received the same or similar services, including plain old telephone service (POTS), on comparable prices and terms over "more reliable" fiber lines than copper, Verizon said, noting the migrations weren't from legacy TDM systems to IP packet switching. Verizon said transition notifications to wholesale customers "worked well" and showed there's no need for new requirements. Migrating voice-grade digital signal 0 customers to like services over fiber is "technically possible" but "very expensive," Verizon said; the company has filed a Section 214 application to grandfather and discontinue offering those services to new customers in the six wire centers. Verizon said its notifications to retail customers were also effective, though in some cases it found sending multiple communications to customers could be confusing. Verizon noted concerns about some FCC NPRM proposals for specific types of notifications, and it urged the agency to preserve flexibility for carriers in their customer communications. Verizon said it provided customers with backup batteries that could power voice systems for up to 20 hours if power goes out, well above the NPRM's eight-hour-minimum proposal, but it opposed any mandatory backup configuration standard, given various industry configurations. Finally, Verizon touted broader benefits from the migration in the six wire centers: the reduction in power consumption by 1 million kilowatt hours (enough to power 100 homes for a year), the use of D-cell batteries that will reduce lead in landfills, and the retirement and removal of copper, reducing opportunities for theft. (Verizon said it has had 1,700 incidents of copper theft since 2009.) The six wire centers were in Ocean View, Virginia; Belle Harbor, New York; Hummelstown, Pennsylvania; Farmingdale, New Jersey; Lynnfield, Massachusetts; and Orchard Park, New York, Verizon told us by email on Friday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit should uphold a 2014 FCC order rejecting a Saturn Telecommunications Services complaint against AT&T (then BellSouth) over a 2006 interconnection agreement, the agency said in a brief Tuesday asking the court to deny Saturn's petition for review. The FCC said Saturn, a competitive LEC, was bound by the terms of a settlement to not refile allegations against AT&T related to their interconnection proceeding in Florida. The FCC disputed Saturn's contention that its complaint to the commission was limited to post-settlement conduct, and regardless, the agency said, Saturn's claim accrued before the settlement. The FCC also said the court had no jurisdiction to review a Saturn breach-of-contract claim -- that AT&T had failed to convert 2,500 of the CLEC's customers to a new wholesale platform -- because Saturn had not exhausted its administrative remedies.
Comments on FCC efforts to reduce telco paperwork burdens for depreciation rate changes are due July 13, said the agency in a notice in Thursday's Federal Register. Communications common carriers with annual operating revenue of at least $150.2 million and classified as "dominant" must file certain information before making any depreciation rate changes for their operating plant. The FCC requires the carriers to file four summary exhibits including underlying data and provide the "depreciation factors (i.e., life, salvage, curve shape, depreciation reserve) required to verify the calculation of the carrier's depreciation expenses and rates" -- a process that takes 24 respondents a total of 6,000 hours, 250 hours each on average, and $919,560 to comply, the notice said. The FCC has discretion on specific record keeping and, citing its Paperwork Reduction Act mandate, invited the public and other federal agencies to comment on the necessity of the information collection, its practical utility and clarity, and ways to enhance the quality of the information and minimize the burdens on respondents, including small businesses.