The FCC Connect2Health Task Force plans to unveil a mapping tool for broadband healthcare Aug. 2, the agency said Friday. “The Mapping Broadband Health in America tool enables more efficient, data-driven decision making at the intersection of broadband and health and promotes stakeholder collaboration,” said a public notice. “By allowing users to ask and answer questions about broadband and health at the county and census block levels, the tool provides valuable data and insights to drive broadband health policies and connected health solutions for this critical space.” The FCC will release the new tool 10:30 a.m. Aug. 2 at Microsoft, 901 K St. NW, Washington.

Several ILEC rivals lobbied the FCC for business data service regulations in recent visits. To curb incumbent telco circuit-portability tactics to "lock up" wholesale BDS demand, EarthLink asked the FCC to (1) mandate ILEC cuts in BDS rates through lower DS1 and DS3 price caps, and (2) restrict the term of circuit-specific plans they can offer in areas deemed not competitive. The agency should also extend its prohibition on "all-or-nothing" tariff conditions to all ILEC BDS contracts in noncompetitive areas, said an EarthLink filing posted Friday in docket 16-143 on a meeting with Wireline Bureau officials. It said ILECs should be barred from doing what Verizon did to comply with a recent tariff order (see 1607150062), in which it modified all-or-nothing provisions to permit customers to designate circuits they want included in a discount plan by assigning them to a specific access customer name abbreviation. "Requiring customers to elect a discount plan at the ACNA level is overly burdensome because it is costly and difficult to switch circuits between ACNAs," EarthLink said. Instead, the FCC should require ILECs to permit customers to designate discounted circuits by using "Access Service Requests," and particularly the "Variable Term Agreement" field on the ASR form, which would be "easy to administer," EarthLink said. It also urged the FCC to require ILECs to allow customers to count Ethernet purchases toward TDM volume commitments, and to limit the term of volume plans to one year in noncompetitive areas. Level 3 urged the FCC to classify (1) all BDS offerings of 100 Mbps and below as noncompetitive, (2) all BDS offerings above 1 Gbps as competitive and (3) BDS offerings between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps as competitive where criteria in a market competition test are met, including having four or more providers deploying connections in a census block. Sprint recommended the commission presume that BDS products providing 50 Mbps or below aren't competitive with a market test for offerings above that. TDS Metrocom said "AT&T’s price squeeze practices continue." TDS urged the FCC to adopt "a wholesale-retail rule" for Ethernet service to prevent telcos from charging CLECs more for wholesale access than they do business customers for retail service. The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission expressed concern about cable filings acknowledging undercounts of locations their BDS services could reach. The WUTC urged the FCC to incorporate the new information into updated market analysis before regulating. FCC staff and a consultant said recently the new cable data didn't change their basic analysis (see 1606290045).

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler appointed Tom Power, CTIA general counsel and a former Obama White House and NTIA official, to chair the commission’s advisory committee for the next World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019. Wheeler appointed Christopher Murphy, associate general counsel-regulatory affairs at ViaSat, as vice chairman. The committee helps develop an industry position on spectrum issues going into the WRC. Work already is getting started. The advisory committee scheduled its opening meeting Aug. 2 at the FCC (see 1607110020).

Sprint said the FCC should suspend its phasedown of E-rate voice support at the current 40 percent reduced level, as called for by Funds for Learning (see 1607050066) and backed by AdTec (see 1607200033). "Applicants still need voice service to meet the educational needs of students and library patrons. Unfortunately, it appears that the reduction in E-rate support for voice services has forced many schools and libraries to reduce their use of this critical, basic service, or to divert their resources from other endeavors to pay for basic voice services," Sprint said in reply comments posted Thursday in docket 13-184 on the agency's proposed E-rate eligible service list (ESL) for funding year 2017 starting next July 1. Sprint said the Wireline Bureau is evaluating the phasedown's impact and is to report to the FCC by Oct. 1, 2017, but it urged the agency not to wait until FY 2018 to suspend it. Opposing an Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology proposal, CenturyLink filed a reply that disagreed "that leased dark fiber or indefeasible rights of use ('IRU') should be re-classified as 'special construction' if the applicant or the provider chooses to substitute them in the midst of a project." CenturyLink continues to believe the FCC was wrong to fund dark fiber or self-construction when the statute authorizes "discounts" on "carrier" telecom services, and it urged particular caution on self-provisioning: "There can be no back door exceptions to program rules that require competitive procurement and responsible estimation of project costs. Giving parties the advance option -- mid-project -- of substituting leased dark fiber or IRUs for special construction could undermine the program by enabling parties to bypass or give short shrift to Commission rules requiring cost-effectiveness showing fair and competitive procurement for these self-provisioned services." In its reply, the Wisconsin Department of Public Education supported a petition of Microsoft and others seeking E-rate support of off-campus home Internet access for students using TV white spaces spectrum. The department acknowledged the petition wasn't filed specifically on the draft ESL, but it said the needs were so great that TV white spaces technology should be E-rate eligible. "Lack of home Internet access represents a serious inequity issue, especially for students in rural areas where as many as 50% of student households do not have reliable access to the Internet," it said.

Reply comments in the FCC business data service rulemaking are now due Aug. 9. The Wireline Bureau issued an order Thursday extending a July 26 deadline by 14 days. NCTA, USTelecom and ITTA had filed a motion seeking a 21-day BDS reply extension (see 1607190047). "Petitioners cite a number of factors in support of their request, including the voluminous record and a desire for more time to review and consider" a BDS framework proposed by Incompas and Verizon, the bureau order said. "A brief extension will allow parties to provide us with more thorough reply comments that will facilitate the compilation of a complete record in this proceeding, without causing undue delay to the Commission’s consideration of these issues." An NCTA spokesman emailed us: "We appreciate the Bureau's decision to grant this brief extension which will enable parties to participate more fully in this important proceeding." A USTelecom spokeswoman emailed: "We’re pleased the commission recognized the need to allow more time in this complex proceeding. This will give all parties a chance to better analyze the large volume of data, some only recently added to the record." ITTA, Incompas and Verizon had no comment on the extension. Most of the parties also didn't comment on whether there had been discussions to explore the possibility of a broader industry consensus plan -- something NCTA, USTelecom and ITTA had expressed interest in pursuing -- though one representative said he wasn't aware of any such talks.

U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies sent nearly 136,000 subpoenas, orders, warrants and emergency requests for data about Verizon's customers during the first half of 2016, the telco reported Wednesday in a transparency report. That was about 9 percent fewer than Verizon received in the first half of 2015 from U.S. authorities. The carrier received more than 67,000 subpoenas, about 33,000 general and wiretap orders and pen registers, nearly 12,000 warrants and more than 23,000 emergency requests. Outside the U.S., the company said it received more than 1,200 demands in the first six months of this year -- slightly down from the same period last year -- from Belgium, France, Germany and other countries for customer names, addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses or transactional information like a log of numbers called. Verizon General Counsel Craig Silliman in a blog post said "importantly" none of the U.S. demands sought customer data stored in overseas data centers. He cited the significance of Microsoft's court win last week against the U.S. government, which sought information about a customer in the company's Ireland data center (see 1607140071). Verizon filed an amicus brief in that case "to ensure that our customers outside the United States have confidence that the U.S. government cannot compel Verizon to turn over their data stored in our overseas data centers," wrote Silliman. He touted congressional legislation called the International Communications Protection Act (see 1605250050) that would help limit the government's reach. ICPA would allow the government to get data on a U.S. citizen or resident with a warrant regardless of where it's stored, requiring the U.S. to use the mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) process to get information about non-U.S. persons stored overseas, said Silliman. The process is considered laborious and ICPA would streamline it, he said. DOJ last week unveiled a legislative proposal for a model bilateral agreement that would essentially bypass the MLAT process in certain circumstances (see 1607180026).

The FCC denied Allband Communications Cooperative a further waiver of a rule establishing a presumptive $250 monthly line cap on total high-cost USF support for eligible telecom carriers. The commission gave Allband previous waivers to the rule, which was adopted in a 2011 order overhauling USF mechanisms. "Allband has consistently misapplied our cost allocation rules rendering its cost accounting unreliable," said an FCC order Wednesday adopted unanimously in docket 10-90. "We are therefore unable to determine, at this time, what, if any, support in excess of the $250 cap is justified and in the public interest. Accordingly, we deny Allband’s Further Waiver Request and require that Allband revise its cost accounting practices to be consistent with our rules. Once that has occurred, Allband may submit a new request for a waiver of the $250 cap if its revised cost study incorporating correctly determined costs would result in a need for support in excess of $250 per line. In addition, we deny Allband’s Application for Review of the Wireline Competition Bureau’s July 25, 2012 waiver grant. Allband requested that the Commission extend its July 2012 waiver of the $250 cap until 2026, rather than 2015, and waive the Commission’s benchmarking rule. Allband also made several legal challenges to both rules. We deny Allband’s legal challenges, consistent with the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit." Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O'Rielly issued separate statements attached to Wednesday's order. An Allband representative didn't comment.

The FCC International and Wireless bureaus extended the reply comments filing deadline in RM-11681 on Ligado's terrestrial LTE plans from July 21 to Aug. 11. In a public notice Wednesday, the agency said it agreed with Ligado's request for an extension (see 1607150021) to "facilitate the development of a complete record."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler isn't expected to name a replacement for Howard Symons as Incentive Auction Task Force vice chairman, as Symons takes over as FCC general counsel (see 1607190061), said agency and industry officials Wednesday. With much of the work of the task force complete, there's no need to replace Symons, officials said. Task force Chairman Gary Epstein already has another deputy, Jean Kiddoo, recently named deputy chairwoman-transition. Wheeler said in a Tuesday news release: “Now that the Incentive Auction rules are in place and the auction is underway, we have the flexibility to ask Howard to transfer his considerable talents to become General Counsel.”

The FCC sought comment on a proposal to create a new inventory of records system to be used by the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. The 1974 Privacy Act requires agencies to provide notice of the existence and character of records maintained by an agency, said a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register. “These records enable CGB personnel to contact interested parties concerning its public events, e.g., workshops, conferences, and Webinars, etc., as well as recent developments at the FCC, and to share contact information of governmental, law enforcement, industry, advocacy groups, employment centers, faith-based organizations, libraries, policy organizations, media outlets, schools, seniors centers, veterans groups, national governmental associations or tribal intergovernmental organizations.” Comments are due Aug. 18, and the new record keeping will start Aug. 29 “unless comments are received that require a contrary determination,” the FCC said.