The deadline for submitting Form 477 broadband deployment data was extended because of “significant and unanticipated” technical issues in the FCC’s filing system on Sept. 26, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest (http://bit.ly/1ovVALd). The deadline had been Oct. 1. The bureau said it will announce the new filing deadline when the problems are resolved.
Windstream said it has begun the second phase expansion of its 100 Gbps long-haul express network. Phase two will expand the network by 4,100 route miles by the end of the year, Windstream said Monday. The expansion will include routes between: Chicago and Omaha; Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis; Cleveland and Albany; Boston, New York and Philadelphia; Atlanta, Charlotte and Ashburn, Virginia; and Memphis to Monroe, Louisiana. The first phase of the project covered 5,300 route miles, Windstream said (http://bit.ly/1wVjftF).
The bidding process to select a new Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA) fails to include requirements “recognized as crucial to national security,” said a Neustar-commissioned report by a consulting firm headed by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The report, which a Neustar spokeswoman said the company plans to file with the FCC this week, is part of the company’s bid to hang on to the LNPA contract after the North American Numbering Council (NANC) recommended it go to Telcordia. Neustar “is obviously highly familiar with the Chertoff Group, given that both are so focused on national security issues,” but the report is the first time the company has contracted with the consultant, said the Neustar spokeswoman. The contract called for Chertoff to do a “written analysis of the national security implications of the LNPA proceeding,” she said. Telcordia responded that the Chertoff Group report is “the latest desperate stunt from Neustar in an attempt to use fear to hold on to its multibillion[-dollar] contract.” The report was also called “fear-mongering,” in a separate statement to us by former Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett, now with Venable and representing Telcordia. The report largely tracks Neustar’s filings (CD Aug 22 p4) questioning the adequacy of Telcordia’s bid in terms of preserving national security. The Chertoff Group questioned Telcordia’s response that any concerns about its ability to deal with law enforcement or national security issues can be worked out during contract negotiations after the FCC confirms the selection (CD Aug 26 p4). “The defects cited in this report cannot be remedied simply by post-award contract negotiation,” the Chertoff Group wrote. Alternatives include rebidding the contract or reopening negotiations to impose additional security requirements, the report said. If number portability administration centers (NPAC) operated by the LNPA “were compromised, telephone calls and text messages might not be completed, many search warrants and subpoenas might not be served correctly, and our system for prioritizing communications in a national emergency might not function,” the report said. The bid terms were “insufficient in both scope and specificity when compared with widely accepted national and international standards,” the report said. It said there isn’t a requirement “for a complete risk assessment and risk management program to discover and monitor risk to the NPACs, while tracking and prioritizing its mitigation.” The analysis is “critical to maintaining a secure system” to keep security from becoming “obsolete in the face of constantly morphing threats,” the report said. “There is no merit” to the report’s claims, Telcordia’s statement said. “What is really at risk is the tens of millions of dollars per month that delaying the award of the new contract will cost carriers and ultimately consumers.” Telcordia said it’s in discussions with law enforcement agencies “to ensure that these agencies can continue to receive the information they need with the necessary security protocols in place.” Barnett said that “regardless of whom Neustar pays to implement its scare tactics and spread misinformation, Telcordia will build its number portability system from the ground up as an American system, just as secure as the other critical U.S. systems that Telcordia operates and protects now."
Filing deadlines in the special access Further NPRM were extended to April 6 for comments and May 18 for replies in docket 05-25, said an FCC Wireline Bureau notice (http://1.usa.gov/1rpxZR8) published in the Federal Register Thursday. The extension is necessary to allow the agency to collect data for an analysis of the special access market (CD Aug 19 p2) and for commenters to review the data before submitting their filings, the notice said.
Recipients of round two of Connect America Fund Phase I support have until Feb. 24 to identify location information, including latitude and longitude, for each location to be counted toward satisfying their deployment obligations, said the FCC Wireline Bureau in a public notice (http://fcc.us/1u355Hx) Thursday. The starting date for deadlines to meet the deployment obligations is when the amount of round two funding was finalized, the PN clarified. Recipients of Phase I round two support must complete deployment of broadband-capable infrastructure to two-thirds of the required number of locations within two years of providing notice of acceptance of funding, and must complete deployment to all required locations within three years, the PN said.
After finding that about half of the roughly 180,000 Connect America Fund, Phase II challenges filed with the FCC were without merit, the Wireline Bureau in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1BhCtul) Friday sought comments on the remaining tens of thousands of challenges over whether Census blocks should be eligible for Connect America Fund, Phase II funds. Responses to the challenges are due in docket 10-90 by Nov. 10. Of the 42,520 challenges that Census blocks deemed unserved by a broadband provider should really be considered served and not be eligible for funding, the bureau said only 24,225 of them made a prima facie case for further consideration, according to FCC figures. Of 135,815 challenges saying an area considered served should be considered unserved and eligible for funds, the bureau found 70,868 met a prima facie standard, the figures said. The challenges were seen as a high-stakes battle in which companies were trying to protect their own turf from competitors, or to be able to tap into the $9 billion pot to move into other areas (CD Aug 21 p2).
Neustar again urged the FCC to issue an NPRM in its selection of the next Local Number Portability Administrator, saying, “given the factual, legal, and policy questions now before the agency, a rulemaking proceeding is needed to ensure that the Commission has an adequate record for decision,” in a Sept. 23 letter to the FCC posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/1utO7n8). Rival Telcordia in its reply comment had said any issues like the company’s ability to stay neutral, protect the security of the network from intrusion and work effectively with law enforcement agencies that remain unaddressed could be dealt with after the FCC formally awards it the contract (CD Aug 26 p6). Neustar in the letter posted as an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1utO7n8) said the argument of Telcordia’s parent company, Ericsson, that the agency could award the contract to the subsidiary “despite the gaps in its proposal ... is contrary to contracting principles and basic fairness."
It could take until mid-October for the FCC to finish posting online all net neutrality comments filed before the Sept. 15 NPRM replies deadline, meaning it will have taken a month to post them all, an FCC spokeswoman told us. The agency posted comments in docket 14-28 on Thursday that were filed at the deadline 10 days earlier. Normally, converting comments into a PDF file and then having them reviewed by the Office of the Secretary takes a couple of hours, the spokeswoman said. “However, the conversion process does not scale to handle the 3.7 million comments received in this proceeding.” Comments in other proceedings are processed along with net neutrality filings, so there could be slight delay in posting, the spokeswoman said.
A number of edge companies -- Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner, CBS, Scripps Networks Interactive and Viacom -- responded to cable companies’ proposals to have net neutrality rules apply to edge providers, not just ISPs. The companies said it would “stifle innovation,” run counter to January’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit net neutrality decision, and violate the First Amendment and copyright laws. The opposition represents an attitude of “Open Internet regulation for thee and not for me,” said Ross Lieberman, senior vice president-government affairs for the American Cable Association, one of the groups that suggested the two-way approach to the FCC. The edge providers argued in their net neutrality reply comments (http://bit.ly/1pf3RDi), filed Sept. 15 but posted only Thursday, that despite “suggestions by a few cable interests ... extending the regulations to edge providers is patently inconsistent with the limits of Section 706.” The section’s authority extends only to broadband providers to encourage deployment, the filing said. The Verizon decision “does not suggest that Section 706 authorizes the Commission to regulate other entities” to further the virtuous cycle of innovation. Congress intended Section 706 to apply to broadband providers, not edge providers, the companies also said, citing a Senate report discussing “the goal of ‘deployment’ as focusing on the regulation of ‘networks’ and ‘equipment needed to deliver advanced broadband capability,’ not on companies whose content, products and services are distributed on such networks,” the companies’ filing said. Subjecting edge providers to net neutrality regulations would have “troubling First Amendment implications,” the companies said, because if they were “forced to make their content available to all broadband access providers and their subscribers, it would amount to compelled speech in violation of the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the First Amendment protects against compelled speech because ’the choice to speak includes within it the choice of what not to say.'” Regulating edge providers would conflict with copyright law because it is “a fundamental American constitutional and statutory principle that content creators are deemed to have exclusive rights in their works -- works which often cost tens of millions of dollars to create individually, and billions of dollars to create in the aggregate.” As copyright owners, the companies “must remain free to determine how, when, where and to whom our works may be delivered,” the filing said. “The Open Internet rules originated from the principle that consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice,” Lieberman said, and consumers’ access to online content “can be blocked, and has been blocked in discriminatory manner by edge providers ... at least as often as the alleged instances of blocking by ISPs that edge providers commonly highlight.” Section 706 “clearly gives the agency authority to apply comparable rules to edge providers,” he emailed, calling the edge providers’ comments “weak and legally questionable objections."
The FCC should allow Wilkes Telephone Membership Corp. to include $147,149 owed by Halo in 2011 as part of its base period revenue for that year, NTCA said in an emergency petition (http://bit.ly/XWgnAf) posted Monday in docket 10-90 on behalf of the member company. It requests a waiver from a commission rule that requires that funds included as 2011 revenue be collected by March 31, 2012. The rural North Carolina company, which relies on Universal Service Fund support, has not been able to collect the money from Halo, which declared bankruptcy in 2012, the petition said. Not being able to count the funds “would not only create a one-time impact, but would continue to cause a financial impact to Wilkes every year” that the base period revenue is used to calculate USF support, the petition said.