The FCC has not only “failed to pursue meaningful solutions” to making sure broadband is being deployed in a timely and reasonable fashion, but exacerbated the problem by “arbitrarily raising” the broadband benchmark speed and imposing Communications Act Title II regulation on broadband in the net neutrality order, NCTA said in comments filed Friday. Responded to the agency’s January notice of inquiry (see 1501290043) on improving broadband deployment, the comments hadn't been posted in docket 14-126. USTelecom also filed comments on the NOI Friday, which, according to its blog, focused on removing “outdated legacy regulations” and “restrictive local rules and regulations.” The commission failed to “effectively implement many of its own prior recommendations,” including adding broadband to Lifeline and implementing the Remote Areas Fund (RAF) to deploy broadband to unserved areas, NCTA said. The commission should immediately revoke offers to ILECs for high-cost USF support that don't meet the new 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload standard, it said. The funding should be offered on a competitively neutral basis to any qualified broadband provider willing to provide the new speed, NCTA said. The agency should also implement the RAF and issue an NPRM to create a broadband Lifeline program, the filing said. An independent third party should also examine why there hasn’t been more progress extending broadband deployment to unserved areas, even though more than $28 billion in federal funding has been spent on the goal since 2010, the filing said. USTelecom urged the agency to grant its October 2014 forbearance petition (see 1410070050), reforming state and local regulations “that impede a provider’s ability to roll out broadband services,” and ensure that broadband providers can deploy fiber in multi-dwelling units. The FCC should “promote efficient and carefully targeted broadband deployment in rural areas” through the Connect America Fund and develop “’sooner rather than later’ a long-term universal service solution for rate-of-return carriers,” USTelecom said.
Twelve more bidders were provisionally selected to receive $26.9 million of the up to $100 million in rural broadband experiment funding approved by the FCC in July (see 1407140040), the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice posted Wednesday in docket 10-90. The largest provisional bidder was Oklahoma’s Northeast Rural Services, which would receive $7.4 million for six bids, if it survives the agency’s post-selection review process, said the PN. The tentatively selected bidders submitted their technical and financial information Jan. 6. They have until May 4 to submit a letter of credit for the amount of support they would receive and until June 2 to submit FCC Form 5620 to document their designation as an eligible telecom carrier in all areas for which they will receive support, the PN said.
Covered long-distance voice service providers are required to begin recording and retaining rural call completion data April 1, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice posted in docket 13-39 Wednesday. Reports for the quarter covering April through June must be filed by Aug. 1, the notice said. The data collection became effective Wednesday after the Office of Management and Budget approval Jan. 29, the notice said.
The “quiet period” on CenturyLink’s 2013 petition for forbearance from dominant carrier regulation for packet-switched and optical transmission services began Friday at 11:59 p.m., the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice posted in docket 14-9 that day. The ban on communications to the agency continues for the two weeks until the petition is deemed granted, in the absence of commission action, March 13. The company didn't comment Monday. Before the beginning of the quiet period, Comptel Chief Advocate Angie Kronenberg and Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Karen Reidy opposed the petition, in Friday meetings with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, said an ex parte filing posted Monday. The commission shouldn't allow the CenturyLink petition because of a pending petition for reconsideration asking the agency to overturn forbearance from the same regulations and tariffing requirement that had been granted to AT&T, legacy Embarq, Frontier, Qwest and Verizon, in non-TDM-based special access services, Comptel said.
Despite FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s remarks Thursday in approving net neutrality rules, small rural broadband providers are subject to Communications Act Title I, which regulates information services, not to Title II common-carrier regulations as Wheeler and Clyburn claimed, USTelecom Senior Vice President-Law and Policy Jonathan Banks wrote in a blog post Friday. In answering fears the agency would regulate broadband rates after reclassifying broadband under Title II, Clyburn said at the commission meeting that the agency hadn't regulated the rates of 700 rural broadband providers, even though they were subject to “full panoply of Title II regulation.” The “hideous complexities” of the commission’s telecom regulations, Banks said, led the companies to provide Title II wholesale transport services they “’sell’” to themselves, while providing Title I broadband service to customers wanting Internet access, Banks wrote. The Title II wholesale service “is fully and completely regulated by the commission, including rate regulation, down to the penny,” Banks wrote. The “misunderstanding illustrates the lack of clarity and understanding around the debate of Title II being a workable regulatory model for achieving an open and vibrant Internet,” Banks wrote. The rural broadband providers have to contribute to the USF based on their Title II revenue, he said. Clyburn noted that the rural providers make USF contributions, but said, “amazingly, the sky has not fallen and things are OK.” Clyburn’s office did not comment Monday. The Title II regulations Banks referred to don't include the forbearance in the "light touch" net neutrality regulations the commission approved, an agency spokesman said.
Officials from Wilson, North Carolina, didn’t tell Commissioner Mike O’Rielly they “could live with” their state’s restrictions on municipal broadband, the city’s attorney, Jim Baller of Baller Herbst, said in a letter to the commissioner posted Monday in FCC docket 14-115. O’Rielly related the conversation in his remarks at Thursday’s commission meeting, when the agency pre-empted North Carolina’s and Tennessee’s anti-municipal broadband laws (see 1502260030). Wilson officials said they told O’Rielly that even if the law were removed, the city would still have to comply with a number of requirements that existed before it went into place, and that the city could live with those requirements, the letter said. O’Rielly responded in a letter Monday to the docket. The meeting with Wilson officials included more general discussions that a number of anti-municipal broadband rules seemed reasonable, he said. O’Rielly said a Wilson official said that they could live by such rules as public hearing and voting requirements.
The FCC should reconsider its Dec. 19 CAF order (see 1412110060) changing the national average cost per loop support mechanism because it will “substantially reduce” funding for broadband deployment to tribal lands and tribally owned carriers, the National Congress of American Indians wrote in a petition for reconsideration posted Monday in docket 10-90. The agency didn't follow the commission’s 2000 statement of policy on establishing a government-to-government relationship with Indian tribes by not consulting with tribes before adopting the order, the letter said. The FCC didn't comment Monday.
Comments are due March 30, replies April 13, on how issues raised in petitions seeking waivers from letter of credit requirements for rural broadband experiment funding could be relevant to Connect America Fund Phase II, said an FCC Wireline Bureau notice in Friday’s Federal Register. The Alliance of Rural Broadband Applicants, NTCA and National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp. sought waivers (see 1501300046).
The FCC plans to fine GPSPS, an Atlanta phone company, $9 million for allegedly switching consumers’ long-distance services without authorization, billing customers for unauthorized charges and submitting falsified evidence to regulatory officials, the agency said in a news release Friday. It said the Enforcement Bureau reviewed more than 150 complaints against GPSPS filed with the commission, the FTC, the Texas Public Utility Commission and the Better Business Bureau. GPSPS submitted to regulatory bodies “fabricated” recordings purportedly of consumers authorizing service from the company, the agency said. Consumers who listened to the recordings “adamantly denied” to the bureau their voices were on the recordings, the commission said. It “will hold companies accountable who prey on consumers by switching their telephone carriers and placing charges on their telephone bills without authorization,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said. The agency said it's taken nearly 30 enforcement actions for cramming or slamming and announced more than $90 million in penalties in the past five years. GPSPS didn't comment.
Allowing Ericsson to establish a voting trust for its interest in Telcordia doesn’t ease concerns about Telcordia’s ability to act neutrally as the local number portability administrator (see 1502100040), Neustar said in a letter to the FCC posted Friday in docket 09-109. The commission has “made clear” that voting trusts can't be used to address neutrality concerns, and federal procurement rules don't allow voting trusts, Neustar said. “To permit Ericsson to modify its bid -- while not providing the same opportunity to Neustar -- would be unlawful,” the letter said. Neustar had raised questions about Telcordia’s neutrality given Ericsson’s business relationships (see 1408250042). "Neustar's arguments are meritless," emailed Telcordia attorney John Nakahata of Harris Wiltshire. "There is no current neutrality problem and the potential structure was purely prophylactic. The order could be adopted without this trust. The important thing at this point is to finish the selection so that the transition can begin and consumers and carriers can begin to save money."