AT&T asked a federal court to consolidate and set briefing on its legal challenges to two FCC orders affecting price-cap telco USF obligations. The request came in a petition Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that AT&T said wasn't opposed by the Department of Justice or the FCC. AT&T noted the FCC in December adopted and released an order that partially granted and partially denied a USTelecom forbearance petition seeking price-cap ILEC relief from various obligations (see 1512170052 and 1512280037). The recent order "discussed, but did not resolve in AT&T's favor, the same issues addressed" in a 2014 FCC USF order challenged by the telco earlier in 2015 (AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1038). In the previous case, AT&T had argued the FCC should have given price-cap ILECs greater relief, including from eligible telecom carrier (ETC) voice USF obligations where they don't elect to receive new broadband-oriented Connect America Fund subsidies. The D.C. Circuit had put the previous case on hold pending commission resolution of the U.S. Telecom forbearance review and related issues in other proceedings (see 1507160032 and 1509030042). AT&T Wednesday filed a petition for review challenging the FCC's December 2015 USTelecom forbearance decision, which again denied price-cap telcos USF ETC voice relief (AT&T v. FCC, No. 16-1002). Given the "overlap of issues" in its two challenges, AT&T asked the D.C. Circuit to consolidate the cases and issue a restarted briefing schedule that would allow DOJ and the FCC at least 45 days to respond to the company's renewed opening brief.
Broadband providers are delivering both faster speeds and on advertising promises, but the end-user experience is subject to other variables, said Richard Bennett, network architect and founder of the High Tech Forum, commenting on the FCC’s recent Measuring Broadband America report on fixed services (see 1512300037). He said cable/telco ISPs had been basically delivering on the advertised speeds for several years. “So if MBA was intended to embarrass US ISPs (as many believe), it’s a failure," he said in a recent blog post. Bennett compared the FCC report with an Akamai State of the Internet report, the “only other data set” on U.S. broadband speed: “Akamai says speed increased by 2.9 times between Q1 2011 and Q3 2014, and the FCC says the average rose by 3.6 times. Akamai says the baseline in 2011 was 17 Mbps, while the FCC says it was 9 Mbps. And Akamai says the average download speed rose to 48.8 Mbps by Q3 2014, vs 32 Mbps for the FCC. The measurement techniques are different, the sampling criteria are different, but we see the same general trend line, a tripling in speed over a 3.5 year period.” Bennett said the FCC did a good job of explaining how Internet applications have different network needs, which affects performance. The report focused on three performance metrics: speed, latency and packet loss. He cited a “very interesting finding” in the report: “Web surfing hits its sweet spot at 15 Mbps and doesn’t improve much at higher speeds.” He noted the last MBA report found Web speeds didn’t improve much with broadband pipes offering above 10 Mbps. “So it appears that web servers are getting faster, even though they lag broadband networks by a staggering degree. If we want faster web surfing, we need web servers that can keep up with broadband networks, which they obviously aren’t doing today. This is not something we can blame on the ISPs.”
If the FCC accepts recommendations to switch to a voucher system or give only households on the federal Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) access to the Lifeline program, it would sharply reduce the number of low-income Americans who would be eligible for reduced services, said Consumer Action in a filing in docket 11-42 posted Thursday. The filing included signatures of more than 2,580 people that echo these concerns. A voucher system would be complicated and possibly require consumers to incur ATM or other charges, it said. Limiting eligibility to households on SNAP would mean millions of households that qualify through other benefit programs or by income no longer would qualify, Consumer Action said.
AT&T applied to discontinue offering operating services such as collect calling, person-to-person calling, billed to third party and busy-line interruption, said an FCC filing posted Thursday. Demand for the services AT&T wishes to discontinue has been declining about 18 percent per year over the past several years, it said: "If an end user wishes to continue to use these services, they can obtain alternative services from other wireline interexchange carriers." The company plans to discontinue the services to retail customers after March 18 and to wholesale customers June 4, it said.
Five Georgia ILECs asked the FCC to include in their "base period revenues" (BPR) $121,774 that they said they had been unable to collect in 2012 from Halo Wireless, which went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Brantley Telephone, Pembroke Telephone, Pineland Telephone Cooperative, Public Service Telephone and Waverly Hall Telephone filed an emergency petition Tuesday in docket 10-90 seeking to collect their Halo charges in the BPR effective July 1, 2012. The carriers said the absent cost recovery was harming their ability to make network investments, giving the commission "good cause" to grant the request, which would "meet the objectives" of the agency's 2011 USF and intercarrier compensation transformation order. They said the relief would be similar to that the FCC granted with conditions to other carriers, including TDS Telecom. Windstream is also seeking relief for charges it said were unpaid by Halo (see 1509020059).
Telco and cable interests opposed a consumer group petition for reconsideration that asked the FCC to put more of the onus and cost for implementing new backup power solutions on fixed-service providers and less on consumers (see 1511170042). Rules in an August tech transition order (see 1508060044) "promote access to 911 service by customers of non-line-powered, fixed voice service providers during commercial power outages in a manner that appropriately reflects consumer expectations regarding access to emergency communications," said the American Cable Association, NCTA and USTelecom in a filing Thursday in docket 14-174. "The Commission’s actions were based upon extensive comments from all interests, including Petitioners, and substantial evidence about the diminishing reliance that consumers have elected to place on line-powered voice service. The Petition counters none of these facts and thus offers no basis for the Commission to make any change to those rules, and therefore it should be rejected." In its opposition posted Friday, CenturyLink said the petition filed by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) and other groups "is procedurally infirm and otherwise without merit." The ITTA, NTCA and Fiber to the Home Council Americas filed oppositions last week (here, here and here). The NASUCA petition did pick up backing from the International Association of Fire Chiefs earlier last week, which said the order abandoned core public safety and consumer protection principles. "In enabling new technologies for 911, the standard of performance should be reliability that is at least equivalent to the current universal access landline telephone network. The Rule and Order fail to meet this standard," the IAFC said in a letter to the FCC. "The IAFC supports the petitioners’ request and respectfully requests the FCC reconsider its Rule and Order as outlined by the petitioners and place responsibility upon the carriers for ensuring the continuity of 911 communications. The Rule and Order as written will negatively impact the ability of individuals to reach 911."
The FCC Wireline Bureau approved four transactions Monday under Section 214 of the Communications Act. A bureau order granted the license application to transfer control of certain assets from Comcast phone and business subsidiaries to First Communications in docket 15-294. The bureau also granted transfers of control of Ayrshire Farmers Mutual Telephone to Northwest Communications in docket 15-281, of International Telecom to SwiftReach Networks in docket 15-297 and of Equivoice from Marcus McEwen to MNJ Technology Services in docket 15-277.
As it develops network plans for the Connect America Fund Phase II buildout, Frontier has found fewer locations in need of services in seven states in which it had accepted funding, the company said in a letter to the FCC. Frontier found the locations in Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico and New York, the letter said. Because of these findings, the company is asking the FCC to adjust the expected number to the actual number of locations, it said.
X5 OpCo and X5 RTC notified the FCC of their intent to acquire the customer base of CornerStone Telephone. The assets include wholly owned subsidiaries Public Interest Network Services and Richmond Telephone, the letter said. “The planned transfer … will take place on or after January 29, 2016, or as soon as possible following receipt of regulatory approvals and satisfaction of other closing conditions,” the companies said. The Massachusetts-based ILEC Richmond serves 813 voice and 154 broadband customers, the letter said.
Attorneys for Sandwich Isles Communications cited the "critical importance of federal high-cost support" for SIC to operate in the "very high-cost" Hawaiian Home Lands, in a meeting with the FCC Office of General Counsel staff on the "status of high-cost support disbursements" to the company. The disbursements were the subject of a petition for emergency relief filed by SIC earlier this month seeking rescission of an FCC directive suspending high-cost program support for the company -- SIC said in a letter posted by the commission Tuesday in docket 10-90. They also said SIC is willing to cooperate with an ongoing Universal Service Administrative Company audit and that the audit needs to be completed "as soon as possible," citing the "need for resolution of the suspension" affecting the company's high-cost support during July through December of this year and the need for resolution of state certification challenges that could "potentially" affect its 2016 high-cost support, the letter said.