Telco and cable ISPs are unlikely to change broadband data policies because of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling last week (CD Jan 15 p1) that struck down most FCC net neutrality rules, said industry officials and observers in interviews. They said large telco and cable ISPs have been vocal about not changing customer-facing policies following the ruling, and aren’t likely to change other policies at least in the near term because of uncertainty about how the FCC will respond to the ruling. Small and mid-sized ISPs aren’t likely to change data policies for broadband customers or OK preferential traffic arrangements with websites because of the ruling, said their associations.

USTelecom and the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance jointly asked the FCC to revise its Nov. 8 rural call completion order to drop a data collection requirement on intraLATA interexchange/toll calls carried entirely over the originating LEC’s network or handed off by the originating LEC directly to the terminating LEC. The associations questioned whether requiring LECs to tabulate and report this data is consistent with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). NARUC and several other parties also commented on a further NPRM released with the order. The FCC, under acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, unanimously approved rules in late October, limiting data retention obligations to calls destined only to rural ILECs (CD Oct 29 p2).

The FCC must implement Phase II of its Connect America Fund program in 2014 if it wants to accomplish its goal of ensuring rural America is connected to modern broadband networks, officials from USTelecom, AT&T, CenturyLink, FairPoint and Alaska Communication Systems told an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler Jan. 9, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1cqh0lP). The commission’s current cost model, “as a result of substantial public input through workshops and multiple rounds of comments, appears to produce generally reliable results,” the groups said. The commission should quickly finalize the cost model and begin a challenge process to determine where support will be allocated, they said. The groups also asked the commission to resolve other “key” issues early this year, such as redefining eligible telecom carrier obligations to reflect CAF Phase II’s targeting of support to “discrete geographic areas” rather than on a broad study area basis. They also asked the FCC to specify the “precise nature of any obligation to provide levels of broadband service other than at the 4/1 Mbps level."

Several key telecom trade associations united before Congress to back the reinstatement of the bonus depreciation provision of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. In a Monday letter to Senate and House leaders of both parties, the executives leading USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA, NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, the Telecommunications Industry Association and PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association told Congress they support efforts to comprehensively update the corporate tax code, but “we believe that the business certainty needed for sustained domestic job growth during the nation’s economic recovery requires renewal for 2014 of the bonus depreciation provision,” which expired Dec. 31. Any overhaul of the tax code would -- “it appears increasingly possible” -- not potentially take effect until Jan. 1, 2015, they said. Until a tax overhaul is effective, “extending bonus depreciation is essential to maintaining the nation’s economic momentum,” they said (http://bit.ly/1djGIgh). “In order to plan with certainty, companies must know as soon as possible what the tax rules for capital investment and job creation in America will be in 2014.” The bonus depreciation provision allowed businesses making domestic investments to “receive substantial tax benefits,” according to USTelecom’s press release. That benefit, as part of the 2012 act, amounts to 50-percent bonus depreciation for such investment. Some observers have argued the provision should stay expired. “Bonus depreciation is costly, particularly if policymakers make it permanent,” Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/KVZtvn). “While a one-year extension would cost about $5 billion, the ten-year cost of a permanent extension would be about $280 billion.” He said the provision was intended as temporary, dating back to the economic recession of 2008, and criticized it for “low bang for the buck."

The FCC Wireline Bureau denied a request Thursday to stay rules requiring ILECs to submit revised study area boundary data. USTelecom, NTCA, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, WTA and the Eastern Rural Telecom Association had asked for a six-month extension, pointing to comments by Chairman Tom Wheeler they said implied the new data wasn’t needed just yet. The Wireline Bureau disagreed, but granted a two-month extension to March 17. The associations told us they hoped that would be enough time.

Accuracy of state maps of broadband availability, as oversight shifts to the FCC from NTIA, is generally considered good. And any issues are on very small geographic levels, in a project that’s more comprehensive than anything ever amalgamated in the U.S. That’s according to stakeholders in interviews Thursday. The night before, government, public interest and city officials discussed the national broadband map, as data collection funding is ending for all states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia for maps that some said will be used to parcel out $1.75 billion a year of USF-for-broadband money. Some have criticized accuracy, while acknowledging improvements since the National Broadband Map went online in February 2011 (CD Jan 10/13 p5).

LAS VEGAS -- AT&T is very optimistic about the direction the FCC is heading on the IP transition, with a rulemaking teed up for a vote at the commission’s January meeting, said Senior Vice President Bob Quinn. Speakers during a CES panel hosted by USTelecom said the transition to IP from a plain-old-telephone-service (POTS) world is one of the biggest issues facing the agency. “I'm pretty optimistic,” Quinn said. “One of the things they [at the FCC] really get is that this be voluntary. I don’t think they want to mandate people to participate in this trial. … They want telephone companies who are interested in conducting these test beds to come forward and say, ‘Where would [you] like to have these done and what is your timeframe, what is your plan.'"

Submitting refined study area boundary maps, necessary for implementation of the FCC’s Connect America Fund benchmarking rule, “would require a very substantial, industry-wide effort with (at best) speculative results,” and in any case cannot be completed by Jan. 13, Verizon told the FCC in a filing Monday (http://bit.ly/19AIKUt). Verizon was writing to support a Dec. 17 petition by several ILEC associations -- including USTelecom, of which Verizon is a member -- to stay the requirement, or grant an extension of time to reconcile study area boundaries (CD Dec 19 p12). The Wireline Bureau’s proposal that ILECs review an online map of aggregate study area boundary data and resolve and recertify overlaps and voids is “an extensive process” that can’t realistically be performed by the requested deadline, Verizon said. It’s not even clear that the data will be needed at all, the ILEC said, given that it’s intended for use as an input to the quantile regression analysis, which may itself be eliminated (CD Dec 18 p2). Even if the commission continues to use the quantile regression analysis, the Jan. 13 deadline doesn’t give ILECs and state commissions enough time to reconcile and revise their study area boundary data, Verizon said.

It’s time for new telecom policies to match the “new marketplace,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick said in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ijg7DA). One hundred years after the Kingsbury Commitment that made AT&T a government-sanctioned monopoly in exchange for “agreeing to pervasive economic regulation,” it’s time for “early 20th century policies” to sunset, McCormick said. “Today the notion of a single voice provider is quaint, at best,” he said. “After 100 years, it’s time to leave the wireline-centric regulation of the monopoly voice era behind, focus on the broader social compact between network operators and their customers, and embrace our nation’s highly competitive, consumer driven, Internet-enabled future."

NCTA faces opposition to its request for the FCC to review the Wireline Bureau’s data collection order on the state of the special access marketplace. In comments filed Tuesday, USTelecom, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance and Sprint argued against full commission review. NCTA had asked the commission to modify the data request “to reduce the burden on cable operators and other competitive providers” in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (http://bit.ly/18RlukP). NCTA also argued the bureau ignored “critical concerns” about the security of the data it would collect. The bureau submitted the data collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for PRA approval earlier this month.