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.
Waivers of minimum standards for telecommunications relay services (TRS) have been extended until the FCC completes a pending rulemaking into whether the rules are still needed, a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Wireline Bureau order said (http://bit.ly/1m34dP8). The waivers were set to expire July 1, said the order posted Friday in docket 03-123. Waivers were also extended until July 1, 2015, of certain TRS mandatory minimum standards for certain video relay service and IP Relay providers.
The deadline to file comments on the North American Numbering Council’s recommendation for a local number portability administrator vendor was extended to July 25, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a notice (http://bit.ly/1m34dP8). The deadline to file reply comments was extended to Aug. 8, said the notice posted Friday in docket 09-109.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel will make opening remarks at a July 9 agency workshop on Inmate Calling Services, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice posted to docket 12-375 Friday (http://bit.ly/1z2Jf8K). Panels will explore the impacts of the 2013 overhaul, cost drivers at different types of correctional facilities, ancillary charges and new technologies. The session is planned to for 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the commission meeting room.
Mescalero Apache Telecom officials expressed concerns that the $250 per line monthly USF cap could stifle the development of basic and advanced services on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, during a June 25 meeting with officials from the telco, tribe and the Office of Native Affairs and Policy, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1wRC69k) in docket 10-90. The parties also discussed the IP transition and the possibility of appropriating $50 million of unused Connect America Funds for the Tribal Broadband Fund, said the filing posted Thursday. A draft FCC order would start tests of CAF Phase II funds for broadband experiments. (See separate report above in this issue.)
Smaller companies have little market power for interconnection with larger networks or exchange of data controlled by larger content providers, NTCA said in an ex parte filing posted last week in dockets 05-337, 12-353 and 14-28 (http://bit.ly/1sKQXny). The lack of transparency in the markets can undermine their effectiveness and often appears to result in a paradigm where “biggest always wins with costs and transport burdens being pushed ‘downward’ onto smaller entities,” it said. Solving rural transport and interconnection cost issues through carefully constructed rules for traffic exchange and refined universal service support mechanisms “must be seen as an essential component of a 21st century broadband-focused universal service policy,” it said. The filing recounted a meeting with Matthew DelNero, Wireline Bureau deputy chief.
CenturyLink pulled a request that the FCC suspend and investigate Iowa Network Services’ annual access charge tariff filing (CD June 26 p17). The voluntary withdrawal is without prejudice to CenturyLink’s right to pursue “any and all legal remedies” of issues raised in its petition for an investigation, said the telco Wednesday in docket 14-48 (http://bit.ly/1m0gZiZ). Iowa Network Services, in a reply posted the next day in the docket (http://bit.ly/1lsa1BW), said CenturyLink’s original petition should be denied.
The FCC should revise its protective order in the local number portability administrator (LNPA] proceeding to give small carriers access to the proposal, said a letter (http://bit.ly/1jOQyXx) submitted Monday by associations representing the carriers. The carriers also responded to CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom filings that urged a quick selection of the LNPA vendor (CD June 24 p11), saying, “While we are not opposed to the Commission moving quickly, we believe that the Commission should only act after all entities that depend on the LNP, not just the largest carriers, have an opportunity to review and understand the implications of the LNP selection and provide comments to the Commission.” The letter, posted Tuesday in docket 09-109, came from FISPA, Michigan Internet & Telecommunications Alliance, North West Telecommunications Association and Texaltel. The FCC’s definition of information considered to be ‘highly confidential’ in the protective order is overly broad, Neustar told agency general counsel’s staff June 20, an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/TxjFYM) posted Wednesday. “Neustar expressed further that the FCC’s default position for information submitted by vendors in this proceeding should be to favor disclosure rather than restricting disclosure.” A unit of Ericsson, which an FCC committee recommended get the LNPA job now held by Neustar, recently sought other changes to the protective order (CD June 24 p12).
The Telecommunications Industry Association joined all other recent commenters (CD June 25 p16) in backing a Voice Communication Exchange Committee request that the FCC issue a notice of inquiry on migrating to HD voice as part of the IP transition. As that committee noted, migrating to HD voice “would accomplish many of the same benefits -- and poses many of the same challenges” -- “as the migration to HDTV overseen effectively by the Commission,” said a TIA comment posted Tuesday in docket 13-5 (http://bit.ly/1jOg3Is). “Using the HDTV transition as a model the Commission could include the migration to HD voice as a part of the IP transition, which would allow the Commission to address the collective technical challenges confronting the industry, while leveraging the extensive public awareness of the transition to HDTV."