The FCC should reverse a Wireline Bureau order denying Securus the same waiver from interim inmate calling service rate caps as Pay Tel (CD Feb 12 p12), Securus said in an application for review posted in docket 12-375 Monday. The bureau “failed to give appropriate consideration to the extensive cost data that Securus provided, but “simply repeated the Commission’s unreasonable interpretation -- manipulation -- of that data to grossly understate Securus’s costs,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/1oeZl6J).
Equipment capable of using alternative technologies like TV white spaces that can provide reliable broadband service to schools and libraries should qualify for E-rate funding, even if provisioned by schools and libraries and not by a broadband service provider, Microsoft said in a letter (http://bit.ly/1md8LD9) posted as an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 13-184. School districts in urban areas or near major universities frequently have 1 Gbps connectivity, but more than half of U.S. students are in rural school districts, said the company. Employing alternative technologies “should increase the likelihood and reduce the expense of reaching that broadband threshold in rural areas,” it said. Exempting schools and libraries from competitive bidding procedures when purchasing commercially available Internet connections “creates a poor precedent within the E-rate program and could adversely impact the applicants, the Fund and the competitive providers that are currently active in the program,” a Comptel official told a Wireline Bureau official, said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/TQXOeX). Splits are emerging at the commission on E-rate, with a Friday vote on an order nearing. (See separate report above in this issue.)
Transcom Enhanced Services Monday petitioned for a rehearing en banc on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold the FCC 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order (http://1.usa.gov/1r18uaa) (CD May 27 p1). While acknowledging such rehearings involving an entire court are rarely granted, Transcom attorney Scott McCollough said he was “hopeful.” The petition asks for rehearing on three points, including a panel ruling that “calls do not terminate with Transcom for purposes of the ‘intraMTA rule,'” the petition said. “The panel did not address this issue in the context of ‘wireline,'” the petition said.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau denied Patrick Keane’s request that the commission reconsider the $979,000 penalty it issued against him in 2013 for sending at least 100 unsolicited fax ads to consumers as The Street Map Company. The FCC had issued three Notices of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NALs) to Keane between 2010 and 2012 for sending the faxes, which advertised laminated maps. Keane didn’t pay the penalties prescribed in the NALs, prompting the FCC to issue its forfeiture order in 2013, the commission said. Keane responded with a handwritten petition for reconsideration based on his “inability to pay.” Keane’s arguments “do not justify reconsideration of the forfeiture,” the FCC said Wednesday. Petitions for reconsideration must usually be considered by the full commission, but a bureau can act if the facts presented in the petition “plainly do not warrant reconsideration,” the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1xnbEog).
FairPoint was given a 60-day extension to file its 2013 Automated Reporting Management Information System reports for its two study areas associated with Northern New England Telephone Operations and with Telephone Operating Co. of Vermont, said an FCC Wireline Bureau order(http://bit.ly/1q0gy6l) posted in docket 86-182 Wednesday.
Global Tel*Link asked for a 60-day extension on data collection on inmate calling rates, which are due July 17, said a motion posted in docket 12-375 Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1kjjrvp). CenturyLink also requested a 60-day extension, in a motion posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/1lCKEcb). Global Tel*Link “does not routinely maintain the data requested by the Commission, and does not keep its books and records in the format of the Commission’s template spreadsheet or detailed instructions for categorizing and classifying the data,” the company’s motion said. The data collection “calls for extensive, highly detailed information organized in a very specific way, and compiling it will require an enormous amount of work,” said CenturyLink.
A key presentation at a May 30 closed-door FCC workshop examined whether and how ISPs “can satisfy consumers’ interest in their operation as open and nondiscriminatory conduits, while also ensuring the timely and high quality transmission of video content,” said an ex parte filing Monday by Jonathan Levy, deputy chief economist at the FCC. The filing in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1o9uGsH) offers a few details from the workshop, also hosted by the Institute for Information Policy at Pennsylvania State University. Robert Frieden, a professor at the school, made the presentation and offered “a legal analysis confirming that ISPs can provide higher quality of service to promote the likelihood for speedy delivery of video content bitstreams without degradation caused by congestion and other factors,” Levy said. The opening part of the workshop was open to the public (CD May 30 p9).
NTCA is pleased with the FCC’s focus on funding connections within schools and libraries, because “adequate funding for this critical input remains insufficient,” association officials told an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel June 30, said an ex parte notice posted (http://bit.ly/TPABdt) Tuesday in docket 13-184. Any reforms to the E-rate program should not inadvertently limit the support available to small, rural schools and libraries, NTCA said. Many schools in areas served by NTCA members already have access to high-speed broadband, the group said. “Member companies have made a determined effort to provide these schools and libraries with the robust internal connections, including Wi-Fi technology, necessary to deliver broadband service to each individual classroom and student,” the group said.
AT&T’s IP trials “are not what they purport to be” and are “an effort to cast aside a significant number of people and render poorer service to many others,” NASUCA commented (http://bit.ly/1pGUxh9) Monday in FCC docket 14-28. AT&T’s plans should be rejected until it addresses the concerns, NASUCA said. “What AT&T is seeking is a post-transition network in which it can jettison the customers in higher-cost, lower-revenue areas within exchanges.” Four percent of the 4,388 occupied units in Carbon Hill, Alabama, where AT&T Is testing the IP transition, will be “abandoned,” and 41 percent of Carbon Hill customers will be migrated to AT&T wireless, said the group. “In the parts of the wire centers where AT&T plans to withdraw wireline service, it will simply abandon the copper wire that is located there, after trying to sell it to the CLECs.” NASUCA “appears to be ill-informed about our trials, as their letter contains a number of inaccuracies,” an AT&T spokesman said. “For example, we are on the record saying that we are responsible for ensuring customers are connected before discontinuing existing TDM services. AT&T will continue to work constructively with the FCC and other policy makers to understand the dynamics of the IP transition and how they will impact consumers."
Parties have to Aug. 14 to challenge the inclusion or exclusion of Census blocks (http://bit.ly/1rTxPzs) initially deemed eligible for Connect America Fund Phase II support, said the FCC Wireline Bureau in a public notice. The blocks were chosen because they're unserved by an unsubsidized competitor; “high cost” according to the adopted CAF cost model; and are located in price-cap territories, said the notice (http://bit.ly/1rcjErI) in Tuesday’s FCC Daily Digest. It said challenges may be based only on the first criterion: Whether the block is served by an unsubsidized competitor.