Securus’ objection to rival Pay-Tel’s request for Securus’ unredacted cost study documents on inmate calling services was rejected by the FCC Wireline Bureau, in an Oct. 1 order posted Tuesday in docket 11-10. Securus had said the “confidential information in the documents is competitively sensitive, and the company will suffer “substantial and irreparable harm” if Pay Tel’s outside counsel receives them, the order said. Pay-Tel responded with sworn declarations from its president that the counsel is not involved in competitive decisionmaking, the order said. Securus had to provide Pay-Tel with the data by Oct. 6, the order said.
Level 3’ acquisition of tw telecom was approved by shareholders of both companies at separate meetings Tuesday, said a Level 3 news release. The deal was approved by 86.2 percent of tw telecom shareholders, and 99.7 percent of Level 3 shareholders, said Level 3 Tuesday. It expects to complete the acquisition Nov. 5, the release said. The FCC recently OK'd the deal (see 1410270047).
The E-rate eligible services list (ESL) for funding year 2015 released in an FCC Wireless Bureau order Tuesday incorporates the changes the FCC made in July’s modernization order (see 1407140044), including the elimination of some legacy services in both Category One and Two. Among the “outdated, legacy and other non-broadband” services no longer eligible for support are Web hosting, email and paging. Category One voice services are being phased out, and Category Two support for LAN/WLAN-focused components, basic maintenance of eligible broadband internal connections components, and managed internal broadband services is limited, the order said. In response to comments that past versions of the ESL were “too long, difficult to understand, and confusing to work with,” the new list will not include the ESL glossary, special eligibility conditions or the ineligible services that had been posted at the end of each category of service, the order said. In response to comments applicants may not be aware of the services that are no longer eligible for E-rate support, the list includes a chart of those services in an appendix, the order said. The ESL also clarifies that multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) is eligible for Category One E-rate support, and the language in the list about digital transmission and Internet access services emphasizes that the commission understands flexibility is needed to provide support for services that facilitate high-speed connectivity, said the order. The ESL also redefines caching, which is eligible for Category Two support.
Last week’s opening of the filing period for the FCC’s rural broadband experiments “marks a historic occasion,” Wireline Deputy Chief Carol Mattey said in a blog post Wednesday. The commission for the first time is using a competitive bidding process to award about $100 million in Connect America Fund support for broadband in rural America. Even before the Nov. 7 end of the application period, the bureau has “learned a lot from these experiments,” in doing outreach to potential bidders, creating the application form and “getting the online system up and running,” she wrote. In the future, “we’ll be learning about competitive interest to build networks to rural communities that will deliver services that far exceed the Commission’s current performance standards,” she wrote. “And I’m sure we will learn something unexpected that will help the Commission make decisions regarding the design of the Phase II auction that will occur after the offer of model-based support to price cap carriers.”
The FCC Form 477 filing interface, which closed Oct. 7 for technical improvements (see 1410080027), will remain closed until at least Nov. 10, said a public notice posted Tuesday in docket 11-10. After the site reopens, in about two weeks, the Wireline Bureau will release a PN announcing the new filing deadline for the form, which will be no less than 14 days after the notice, the bureau said. The form is used for local phone competition and broadband reporting.
Customers of the largest U.S. consumer-facing Internet service providers “experienced dramatically poor performance” when connecting to core Internet transit infrastructure, according to a report by the Measurement Lab Consortium. The performance was often “well below" the FCC’s four-year-old "definition of 'broadband,'” said a New America Foundation Open Technology Institute news release about the report Tuesday. “The careful work done by M-Lab researchers exposes patterns of severe Internet performance degradation across the US, and suggests that ISP business relationships are a source of these problems,” said Vint Cerf, M-Lab steering committee member, in the release. “This is the first work of its kind, using open data and reproducible methods to expose complex performance issues at scale.
The deadline for public comments on the current and potential availability of communications services in the Arctic region was extended to Dec. 3, the NTIA said in a notice in the Federal Register on Tuesday. Comments had been due by Nov. 3.
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s comments Monday that a Communications Act Title II approach could deter broadband investment are “evidence-free fears” that “have been refuted several times over,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood in a statement to us. “Imagine how much less fearful he could be simply by examining the facts instead of ISP talking points!” O’Rielly spoke at an NTCA event (see 1410270035).
CenturyLink won't file a petition for reconsideration on the FCC Wireline Bureau’s decision to approve the proposed Level 3/tw telecom deal, a CenturyLink spokeswoman said Monday. CenturyLink had not pushed the FCC to deny the merger, but did urge the agency to impose conditions on the approval, including a requirement Level 3 give CenturyLink and other incumbent local exchange carriers access to the entrance conduit at Level 3’s on-net buildings (see 1410240028). The commission has previously ruled that LECs don't have a reciprocal right to gain access to the facilities of a competitive LEC under the Telecommunications Act’s Section 251(b)(4), the bureau said in an order Friday. Revisiting the determination of reciprocity is better done under a separate proceeding, the bureau said. Level 3 and tw telecom had argued the deal would improve competition because Level 3’s global footprint and tw telecom’s more extensive operations in metropolitan areas would allow it to more effectively compete for customers. “On balance, we find that any potential loss of competition that may occur as a result of the transaction is outweighed by the public interest benefits that will likely result from this increased competition,” the bureau said. The companies' shareholders still need to approve the deal Tuesday, a Level 3 spokeswoman told us. The FCC approval "does not come as a surprise. There is very little overlap between the two networks ... so the deal wasn't expected to raise anti-trust concerns," said Equity Research Senior Analyst Jennifer Fritzsche in a note to investors Monday.
As the FCC takes up net neutrality, it should not ban user-directed prioritization, Bob Quinn, senior vice president-federal regulatory, and other AT&T officials told FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and Associate General Counsel Stephanie Weiner on Oct. 22, according to an ex parte filing the company made available to us Monday. To AT&T’s knowledge, no ISP offers or plans to offer paid prioritization for mass-market Internet services, but user-directed service could “offer significant consumer benefits,” such as allowing consumers to choose to prioritize health-monitoring or home alarm devices, the filing said. Communications Act Section 706 offers “ample authority” to deal with any problems posed by non-user-directed paid prioritization, the AT&T officials said.