The FCC Wireline Bureau wants comment by Oct. 4, replies by Oct. 19, in docket 05-337 on National Exchange Carrier Association-proposed changes to the average schedule USF high cost loop support formula, said a public notice posted in Friday's Daily Digest. The new formula would take effect on Jan. 1.
Some proposed rules for withdrawing basic local exchange service (BLES) could be unlawful, phone and cable companies commented Wednesday. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) is weighing draft rules in docket 14-1554-TP-ORD to implement a 2019 state law and allow ILECs to forego carrier of last resort obligations (see 2108250050). The law lets ILECs withdraw or abandon BLES in exchanges where they get FCC permission to withdraw the interstate portion, provided they give 120 days' notice to affected customers, who can petition PUCO for relief if they can’t find a “reasonable and comparatively priced service.” AT&T said PUCO’s proposal contains “fatal defects,” warning that the commission can't go beyond what the legislature required. One problem is a proposal to add a 30-day notice requirement for sole providers of voice service, which the legislature didn't require and is overbroad because voice includes more than BLES, AT&T said. It means VoIP could be improperly included, commented the Ohio Cable Telecommunications Association: The law didn't authorize extending authority over voice providers. The Ohio Telecom Association said PUCO would exceed its statutory authority if it expands the law’s definition of “reasonable and comparatively priced service” to say that a service “is presumptively deemed competitively priced, subject to rebuttal,” if the rate doesn’t exceed either the ILEC’s BLES rate by more than 20% or the FCC’s urban rate floor. The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel and other consumer advocates said PUCO’s proposed definition of the same phrase is “vague regarding which threshold would apply for determining that a service is presumptively deemed ‘comparatively’ priced.” Require customer notices to be clear and mailed separately from phone bills, advocates said.
Redwire received a one-year extension of the waiver of the letter of credit requirement for the Connect America Phase II auction, said an FCC Wireline Bureau, Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force, and Office of Economics and Analytics order Thursday in docket 10-90. Redwire must enter into at least one binding agreement with a service provider and that provider "must agree to assume all of the obligations associated with Redwire's Auction 903 support" within 90 days, the order said. The service provider must also seek eligible telecom carrier designation in Oklahoma and with the FCC to cover the areas Redwire was authorized to receive support and apply to transfer Redwire's Communications Act Section 214 authorization.
Q4 USF revenue is projected to be around $9.5 billion, the Universal Service Administrative Co. reported Wednesday, as expected (see 2108030062). The quarterly contribution factor will be 29.1%, emailed analyst Billy Jack Gregg.
Additional winning Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I bidders agreed to withdraw bids for certain census blocks if the FCC waives penalties (see 2108180050), in recently posted filings in docket 20-34. Wavelength agreed to withdraw eight census blocks in California and Arizona. Altice agreed to withdraw support for nine census blocks in Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas and West Virginia. Resound agreed to withdraw its bids for 353 census blocks. Wisper agreed to withdraw six census blocks in Arkansas and six in Missouri.
Apollo affiliate Connect will acquire nine of Lumen's winning Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction bids to serve 32,580 locations if the FCC approves the companies' proposed $7 billion sale, said a transfer of control request filed by Lumen Wednesday (see 2108030077). Lumen asked for a waiver of the prohibition on major changes to RDOF applications to facilitate the proposed transaction. The deal would also include the transfer of one international Communications Act Section 214 license. Lumen has started filing its state applications where required, emailed a spokesperson.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted CaptionCall conditional certification to provide automatic speech recognition-only IP captioned telephone services supported by the Telecom Relay Service Fund, said an order Tuesday.
The FTC and six states "continue to misrepresent" Frontier advertising of its DSL speeds, the telco said in docket 21-cv-04155, asking the U.S. District Court for Central California Monday to dismiss the claim against it (see 2108160049). Plaintiffs "continue to tout their incredible shrinking advertisement to argue that defendants’ explanatory language is 'tiny' and 'inconspicuous,'" the carrier said. The ISP said the ad cited in the complaint was "purposefully rendered illegible" and "shrunken by 80%." The FTC declined to comment Tuesday.
United Church of Christ and Public Knowledge asked the FCC to reconsider some "legal conclusions" in its order on interim interstate inmate calling services rates (see 2105200044), said a petition for reconsideration in docket 12-375. The groups asked the commission to exclude site commissions from the rates, reconsider allowing contractually negotiated site commissions of up to 2 cents per minute, and preempt state actions allowing site commissions. Don't "allow these anti-ratepayer biases to control rates for even the interim period," the groups said. NCIC sought changes to capping third-party and single-call transactional fees, in a petition for recon also posted Monday. It asked that rates be capped at $3 for automated payments and $5.95 for live-agent services. It asked to reconsider regulating site commissions for prisons and jails with an average daily population of 1,000-plus.
The FCC Wireline Bureau denied CenturyLink's application for emergency impairment of its wireline telecom services and "other real-time two-way voice communications services" in areas of Mound City, Missouri, due to "severe flooding that damaged its facilities and caused a service outage" March 15, 2019, said a public notice posted in Monday's Daily Digest. The bureau also denied CenturyLink's request for a waiver of the 65-day filing deadline because it "became aware of the deficiencies in its internal tracking system over a year ago and could have exercised diligence at that time to ensure that other outages necessitating emergency discontinuance applications had not occurred." CenturyLink, now Lumen, "provides no indication that it took prompt steps to address the outage" as it did for a 2020 outage in Michigan, the notice said. Lumen didn't comment.