NCTA urged conditioning a telco proposal for a transition in pole-attachment rates under a potential FCC shift in price-cap carrier accounting from Part 32 rules to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). "While the transition period should be helpful in avoiding rate shock due to changes made during the initial accounting transition, it will not do anything to protect against subsequent accounting changes," said an NCTA filing posted Friday in docket 14-130 on a meeting with Wireline Bureau staffers. It noted its advocacy of a "temporary freeze" in telco pole rates, but said: "[A]s a safeguard the Commission should consider applying the 12-year transition to any rate increases attributable to accounting changes during the first three years a carrier is using GAAP, not just the initial transition."

A draft FCC order on a planned Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction of subsidies for fixed services includes proposed bidding weights for broadband performance tiers that were largely a "placeholder" to generate discussion, industry officials told us Friday. If so, the tactic appears to have worked, as industry parties submitted numerous proposals for weighting the tiers this past week in docket 10-90 before sunshine restrictions took effect. Commissioners are scheduled to vote Thursday at their meeting, led by Chairman Ajit Pai.

Cable and telco groups continued to battle over FCC treatment of pole attachments under a proposed ILEC shift from traditional Part 32 regulatory accounting rules to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The American Cable Association said if the commission ends use of Part 32 data to calculate pole-attachment rates, it should adopt an NCTA proposal to freeze price-cap carrier rates at current levels (see 1702090042). If the FCC adopts an ILEC 12-year transition proposal "in lieu of a rate freeze, at least it should provide that: incumbent carriers cannot increase rates for the first five years of the transition; incumbent carriers must maintain and produce part 32 data during this five year period so it can be compared to rates that would result from the use of [GAAP]; and, incumbent carriers should file with the Commission annually underlying data to show how they derive rates," said an ACA filing posted Thursday in docket 14-130. Telcos acknowledged the shift may cause pole-attachments rates, typically under $10 (per pole attachment per year), to rise "by several dollars, a substantial rate hike," which would be "especially felt" by ACA's members and hinder broadband deployment, the cable association said. The agency is considering streamlining its Part 32 rules at commissioners' Feb. 23 meeting (see 1702020051). A USTelecom filing posted Wednesday called the NCTA arguments "flawed" and Part 32 accounting "a relic of rate of return regulation" that "makes no sense for America's price cap carriers." It said ILECs understood the concerns of cable and others, and proposed "a reasonable transition mechanism" for calculating GAAP pole-attachment rates. The transition proposed by AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon factored in depreciation, cost-of-removal and any other differences between methodologies, USTelecom said. Freezing rates based on one year's costs "cannot be a realistic alternative to a reasonable, long-term transition," the ILEC trade group said. The telco proposal "is not an effort to increase pole attachment rates; any suggestion otherwise is conflating an argument about problems with the formula used to define rates with a procedural accounting issue," it said. USTelecom said the carriers' confidential submissions back their claims that the transition's rate impact would vary -- rates would "in many cases, go down or not be significantly affected."

Telcos pushed for FCC elimination of "outdated" Part 32 accounting rules as part of a gradual move to reliance on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). USTelecom, AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon officials discussed the methodology the price-cap telcos used in crafting a proposed transition for calculating pole-attachment rates under GAAP, said a USTelecom filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-130 on meetings with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael O'Rielly. The FCC is considering streamlining and eliminating its Part 32 rules at its Feb. 23 meeting (see 1702020051). The telco "proposal seeks to provide a simple and transparent method for addressing any delta between the results derived under the two methodologies and ensuring a long 12-year transition [that] is fair to both attachers and the carriers and meets the requirements of the [Communications] Act," the filing said. But NCTA said a GAAP-based approach wouldn't track specific pole investment and expenses as required under Part 32, leading to "unwarranted, harmful increases in pole attachment rates." The harms can't be addressed solely through a lengthy transition and instead should be combined with a freeze on ILEC pole-attachment rates, said an NCTA filing on a meeting with the O'Rielly aide to discuss the group's opposition to the telco proposal (see 1702090042). The USTelecom filing said the telco proposal, unlike a rate freeze, would incorporate changes annually, which would be "more consistent with the Act," while neutralizing the impact of the transition from Part 32 to GAAP-based inputs. Pole-attachment rates would continue to vary under GAAP and in many cases are expected to be lower than those under Part 32, the filing said. "We also described how impractical it would be to maintain Part 32 accounts just for pole attachment rate calculations," the telcos said.

Rural telcos asked the FCC to fully fund Connect America Fund subsidy support mechanisms for rate-of-return carrier broadband and voice services in high-cost areas. NTCA, WTA, USTelecom, ITTA, other rural telco interests and Adtran asked the commission to provide $110 million annually in additional funding for carriers opting to receive CAF funding based on an Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM).

States and the federal government are partners in a “common cause” promoting good communications policy, House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Monday at a NARUC meeting. Walden urged states and local governments to look at cutting red tape holding back broadband deployment as Congress considers President Donald Trump’s proposed $1 trillion infrastructure package. Congressional aides from both parties said they hoped for bipartisan consensus on the infrastructure package but said a Telecom Act rewrite may still be a long way off.

USTelecom knocked proposals to assign large bidding credits to gigabit performance tiers in the FCC's planned Connect America Fund Phase II auction of broadband/voice subsidies. "This type of proposal, if adopted, risks reducing by three-quarters the number of homes and businesses that obtain broadband under this program. That would be an unfortunate result for rural America," ILECs' main trade group said in a filing posted Friday in docket 10-90. The filing was used in meetings with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai (here) and an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly (here). Commissioners tentatively are set to vote on a CAF II order Feb. 23 (see 1702020051). "Assigning bidding weights that would skew auction winners to 1 Gbps networks risks reducing the number of rural locations that would benefit from new broadband connections from roughly 1.5 million to under 400,000, leaving more than 1 million rural homes and businesses without broadband," USTelecom wrote. The group said backing terrestrial broadband to more locations at any speed promotes more rural fiber deployment, which is not only "more equitable" but supports 4G and 5G wireless services. USTelecom proposed "reasonable weighting of the speeds that customers actually demand" to bring broadband to as many Americans as possible. A rural electric/telco coalition has urged the agency to adopt bid weights that promote the higher speeds in rural areas that it said urban customers take for granted (see 1702030040).

The FCC asked a court to hold off its reviews of two more commission cases: one involving USTelecom challenges to a 2015 technology transitions and 2014 backup power declaratory ruling, and another involving AT&T and CenturyLink challenges to 2014 and 2015 orders granting ILECs only partial forbearance from telecom regulations that left them subject to unsubsidized USF voice obligations. Holding the cases in abeyance will allow the FCC's new leadership to decide how to proceed regarding the issues in the cases, said two agency motions (here and here, in Pacer) Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit. The court granted the second abeyance motion Tuesday in a brief order (in Pacer) in AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1038, which directed the FCC to file a status report by April 10 and every 60 days thereafter. Then-Commissioner and now-Chairman Ajit Pai and fellow Republican Commissioner Mike O'Rielly dissented from the tech transitions and backup power orders, while Pai partially dissented from both ILEC forbearance orders, with O'Rielly concurring on the 2014 order and partially dissenting from the 2015 order, the motions said. In the first case (see 1511160063), the FCC said USTelecom doesn't oppose the motion and joint intervenors "have almost all advised the Commission that they take no position on this motion" (not including the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and XO Communications). In the second (see 1607120073), the FCC said AT&T, CenturyLink and intervenor USTelecom consented to the motion.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., led Democrats and public interest groups Tuesday in a net neutrality news conference to resist weakening open internet protections, whether legislatively or at the FCC. He and other Senate Democrats cast aspersions on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, suggesting he would act on behalf of incumbent ISPs. Markey declined to comment in any detail on possible negotiations beginning between Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

NCTA and USTelecom asked the FCC for a broad stay of the effective date of the enhanced disclosure rules in the 2015 net neutrality and broadband reclassification order. The motions of CTIA, the Competitive Carriers Association, Wireless Internet Service Provider Association, NTCA and American Cable Association "present compelling procedural and substantive grounds for granting immediate relief from the enhanced transparency requirements in order to avoid irreparable harm," said an NCTA and USTelecom joint filing Monday in docket 14-28. "Importantly, however, the arguments set forth in those motions support granting relief across the industry from the enhanced transparency requirements, rather than staying the requirements only for the members of the associations that filed the motions. Thus, if the Commission decides to grant a stay of the enhanced transparency requirements, it should do so for all providers of broadband Internet access service ('BIAS') -- fixed and mobile, large and small." Meanwhile, in another proceeding, public-interest groups said a separate industry request for an FCC stay of broadband privacy rules was unjustified. "Staying the broadband privacy rules would harm consumers and other parties, and would therefore not serve the public interest," said an opposition filing from Consumer Action and 17 other groups in docket 16-106. "The rules ensure consumers have meaningful choice, greater transparency, and strong security protections for personal information collected by ISPs. Granting a stay would leave consumers unprotected unless and until new rules are established, during which time ISPs could use the troves of sensitive information they collect without giving their customers a choice about whether or how it can be used or disclosed. Reliance on ISPs’ voluntary privacy policies is ill-advised because there is no enforcement mechanism, nor sufficient market incentive for ISPs to honor their promises." If the FCC is inclined to grant a broadband privacy stay, the Voice on the Net Coalition asked it to exclude the commission's "adoption of section 64.2010 of the Commission’s rules, and its elimination of section 64.2009 of the Commission’s rules which are directed to providers of regulated voice services."