AT&T's peering policy with ISPs and Internet backbone providers "is typical of those in the industry (and more generous than some)," the company said in a filing posted Monday in docket 15-149 as part of a response to Media Bureau document requests (see 1510130063) for data in the review of Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. AT&T said its policy broadly is to allow "a peer to transmit up to two times more traffic ... than it receives from AT&T." Third parties also can interconnect with AT&T's network via Managed Internet Service and the Content Interconnection Platform, it said. The heavily redacted filing also gave some details on AT&T's data cap policy -- offering 150 GB/month service to DSL customers, and charging $10 for every 50 GB used beyond that; and through its U-verse high-speed Internet providing 250 GB/month as the lowest-priced data plan option, with that allowance increasing with higher-speed plans -- and gave no indication of any intention to change those policies.
The FCC Wireline Bureau announced the timeline for an urban rate survey of fixed voice and broadband service providers. Email notifications will be sent on or about Tuesday to Form 477 contact persons of fixed service providers that are required to participate in the survey, with completed surveys due Dec. 8, the bureau said in a public notice posted in docket 10-90 Friday.
The time frame of the video relay services (VRS) program Further NPRM will likely take providers past at least one more rate cut, said ASL Services, CAAG/Star VRS and Convo Communications in a filing in FCC docket 03-123 posted Friday. The companies identify themselves as the three "smallest, emergent and minority-owned businesses" that are being compensated at a rate lower than their reasonable and necessary costs of providing VRS. The companies said they requested an expedited process because any further reductions in rates could put them out of business.
Verizon opposed FCC intervention and defended its “special construction” practices against competitor allegations that ILECs are overcharging for adding facilities to provide special-access business services. Responding to customer concerns, Verizon revised its procedures and “substantially reduced the volume of special-construction quotes” for service over DS1 circuits while giving customers more information, the telco said in a filing posted Friday in docket 05-25 noting it absorbs many construction costs. Verizon took issue with a recent Windstream filing that elaborated on -- and urged ILEC compliance with -- a May proposal by Incompas (formerly Comptel) for allowing special-construction charges in certain situations. “Disguised as a clarification of Incompas’s proposal, Windstream’s latest proposal materially changes the Incompas proposal,” Verizon said. “Windstream adds to the Incompas proposal many scenarios under which an ILEC could never charge special construction, regardless of facilities availability or a willingness to certify to no future re-use for retail.” Verizon said Windstream and others want to shift construction costs onto ILECs for delivering “deregulated Ethernet facilities,” which they don’t ask of cable providers. Verizon also said ethernet special construction isn't a common-carrier service, disputing Incompas arguments to the contrary. Noting its 2006 ethernet forbearance relief, Verizon said it’s under no obligation to provide ethernet services under any circumstances. Verizon said it was irrelevant that it didn’t specifically mention special construction in its ethernet forbearance requests. “If Verizon can turn down requests for service even where it maintains facilities, it certainly may do so where it has no facilities,” the telco said. “If it decides it wants to offer Ethernet services where it does not have facilities, Verizon offers them on a privately negotiated commercial basis, can condition that offer on the customer’s payment of some or all of the construction costs, and can negotiate with the customer concerning an acceptable price.” Verizon said special-construction charges had never been tariffed, so the FCC “cannot have greater authority to regulate these prices following forbearance than it had before.” In its filing, Windstream suggested the FCC issue a public notice or declaratory ruling to provide guidance. “Unjustified ILEC special construction charges erect an unduly high cost barrier to competitive carriers’ and their customers’ migration to new services, and often cause customers to forego orders with competitive carriers,” Windstream said. CLECs believe an ILEC “cannot assess special construction charges on the purchasing CLEC (or its end-user customer) that the ILEC would not assess on its own retail customer requesting the same service for the same location,” Windstream said. Verizon said it applies the same special-construction policies to retail and wholesale customers.
The FCC should get going on reforming its USF contribution system, ITTA and the Montana Telecommunications Association (MTA) said Friday. There is “growing pressure on the Universal Service Fund as the Commission considers expanding the scope of services supported by USF programs,” said midsize-telco group ITTA in a filing posted in docket 10-90 summarizing an Oct. 28 meeting with Gigi Sohn, counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “We urged the Commission to undertake USF contribution reform and broaden the base of contributors before taking any further steps to modify the Lifeline program to include support for broadband services.” MTA also urged the FCC to address contribution reform, “particularly given the increasing pressure on the high cost reform efforts caused by budgetary restraints and the shrinking contributions base,” the association said in a filing on its meetings with aides to Wheeler and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel. An FCC spokesman said the issue was before a federal-state joint board. Carriers currently contribute 16.7 percent of their interstate and international telecom revenue to USF, a rate that has trended up over the years as subsidies have increased and the industry revenue base has eroded. Carriers generally pass the fees along to consumers.
FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Matt DelNero highlighted the IP technology transition among wireline proceedings on the bureau's agenda, in remarks posted online Thursday that he gave last week to the Connect Michigan: 2015 Broadband Conference. DelNero said he wanted to focus on a few items that would be of particular interest to attendees. "First on that list is our continuing efforts to future-proof the Nation’s communications networks through our technology transitions proceedings," he said. The FCC this week received various comments on the agency's proposals to establish discontinuance criteria for replacing traditional copper-based circuit-switched TDM services with fiber-based packet-switched IP services (see 1510270058). DelNero also cited bureau efforts in various USF proceedings, including to institute competitive bidding for Connect America Fund support not accepted by price-cap telcos, rate-of-return carrier high-cost reform, and broadband-oriented Lifeline support for low-income consumers.
Rural telco groups asked the FCC to increase USF broadband speed requirements, with some wrinkles, as part of a planned agency overhaul of high-cost subsidy mechanisms for rate-of-return carriers. NTCA, USTelecom and WTA said the FCC’s current 10 Mbps requirement for broadband-oriented Connect America Fund support “risks locking rural America into lower service levels” contrary to statutory mandates, including that USF ensure “reasonably comparable” rural services at “reasonably comparable" prices. “This is particularly true when one considers that the networks that the USF program enables require planning years in advance and then have life cycles measured in decades once built,” the associations said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. “The Associations propose to tether more closely the applicable USF broadband speed objectives to the Commission’s Section 706 broadband speed objectives.” But the groups said they understood the USF budget may not provide enough support for rural carriers to always meet the FCC’s current 25/3 Mbps wireline broadband definition under Section 706 of the Telecom Act. So they suggested some flexibility be built into proposed USF reforms to change existing mechanisms to cover broadband while giving carriers the option of receiving support based on a broadband cost model. For carriers not electing model-based support, the associations proposed they be required to deliver 25/3 Mbps service (or any new Section 706 definition) upon receiving a “reasonable request,” which the FCC interprets as generating sufficient anticipated revenue to justify the upgrades. If a rural telco can’t offer at least 25/3 Mbps, it would be required to offer 10/1 Mbps if feasible or 4 Mbps/768 Kbps if only that level of service is feasible, they suggested. For carriers electing the model-based approach, the groups would keep a 10/1 Mbps broadband requirement covering increasing percentages of customer locations over time, but with a duty to report how many locations are receiving 25/3 Mbps service, they proposed.
Granite Telecommunications urged the FCC to deny USTelecom’s forbearance request to lift incumbent telco obligations under the Communications Act to give competitors discounted wholesale access to voice-grade channels. The ILEC Section 271 duties and a requirement under Section 251 to offer a 64-kbps voice channel over fiber where copper loops are retired act as a regulatory “backstop” for CLECs seeking wholesale access, said Granite in a filing posted Monday in docket 14-192. Without the mandates, Granite estimates its costs for leasing lines through wholesale voice commercial agreements (also called “UNE-P replacement agreements”) would jump by about 159 percent. “Granite does not believe that any competitive service provider can sustain a business entirely using resold service given the relatively small margin for those services,” the CLEC said. Granite suggested the FCC examine the company’s wholesale agreements with AT&T that the latter filed with the FCC and certain state public utility commissions. Verizon last week backed the forbearance relief request (see 1510230034). The FCC has until Jan. 4 to decide on a USTelecom petition, which includes other requests (see 1509250046).
Three intervenors opposed AT&T’s challenge to an FCC VoIP symmetry decision that allowed CLECs partnering with over-the-top VoIP providers to collect end-office switching charges from interexchange carriers (IXCs) for connecting long-distance calls to customers. Bandwidth.com, Broadvox-CLEC and Level 3 said AT&T, which is both an IXC and an ILEC, “misconstrued” FCC actions in arguing the agency had unlawfully “amended” the 2011 VoIP symmetry rule without notice-and-comment by “radically” altering its application of a “functional equivalence” standard for determining end-office switching (see 1507310057). The agency appropriately clarified the rule to say CLECs (or other LECs) and OTT VoIP partners provide the functional equivalent of end-office switching even if they don’t provide the physical connections between subscriber lines and trunk lines, the competitors argued in their brief Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (the case is AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1059). AT&T had argued CLECs partnering with OTT VoIP providers, unlike facilities-based VoIP providers such as cable companies, didn't provide the functional equivalent of end-office switching and therefore should collect lower charges. But the commission found CLECs in either case provided “call control” functions, the intervenors said. “In other words, local switching provides the ‘brains’ in the legacy telephone network that directs a call to the proper phone number and subsequently ends the call when the parties hang up,” they said. “A LEC partnering with a VoIP provider -- whether over-the-top or facilities based -- does the same thing.” The intervenors also disputed AT&T’s argument for prospective-only application of the agency decision. AT&T’s argument against retroactivity was based on an “incorrect assumption” that the agency had substituted “new law for old law that was reasonably clear,” they said, citing a court precedent. But the commission simply clarified its rule, and AT&T failed to even note the court’s "default" ruling that such adjudicatory actions generally are given retroactive effect, they said. The commission recently filed its brief defending the order (see 1510060033).
The FCC approved Ark-O’s buy of three small TDS Telecom subsidiaries: Cleveland County Telephone, Decatur Telephone and Wyandotte Telephone. The transfer of related Section 214 communications licenses was granted, noted a Wireline Bureau notice Monday after no opposition was filed in docket 15-217. Cleveland County and Decatur are both Arkansas corporations and serve 2,233 and 651 working loops, respectively, while Wyandotte, an Oklahoma corporation, serves 482 working loops, the companies' application said. Ark-O is a nonpublic corporation created specifically for the transaction and is owned by two brothers, Jay and Brian Mitchell of Seneca, Missouri. It's related through common ownership to Seneca Telephone, Goodman Telephone and Ozark Telephone.