A senior House Commerce Committee Democrat wants to kick-start the new Congress with meetings about rewriting the 1996 Telecom Act. Overhauling that law has been a goal of GOP leaders in recent years, with mixed reaction among Democrats. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., in office since 1993 and the second most senior Democrat on the committee after ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., backed a rewrite and still hopes to take a bigger role in the process in 2017.

The FCC approved an order on demand for Alternative Connect America Cost Model support, which also directs the Wireline Bureau to “take steps consistent with this Order” so electing carriers receive A-CAM support. The actions will extend broadband service to more than 800,000 people in rural, high-cost areas that lack service today, the order said. Commissioners approved 5-0.

State consumer advocates supported an NTIA petition asking the FCC to reconsider or clarify parts of a July tech transition order to address special challenges facing federal government agencies as telecom customers. USTelecom opposed the request earlier this month in FCC docket 13-5 (see 1612090061). In a reply Monday, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates urged the FCC to reject the USTelecom opposition. “USTelecom fundamentally embraces the Commission’s goals, yet then claims that oversight is unnecessary,” NASUCA said. “We fundamentally disagree with USTelecom’s proposition that NTIA's proposals for protection of consumers -- governmental, residential and commercial -- will impede the transition.” The industry’s interest in saving money through deregulation must be balanced against protecting consumers, it said.

Broadband network capital expenditures by providers ticked down by $1 billion in 2015 to $76 billion, USTelecom said in a release Wednesday on its annual broadband investment research report. "To optimize the benefits for all American consumers and businesses, policymakers must seek to create an environment that encourages a return to growth in broadband investment," said the group, which has mounted a court challenge with others to the FCC's 2015 net neutrality and broadband reclassification order.

FCC staff dismissed as untimely a business group's petition for reconsideration of a declaratory ruling that granted USTelecom's request for nondominant regulatory treatment of incumbent telco interstate switched access services connecting local phone users to long-distance networks (see 1608240045 and 1607150048). The Wireline Bureau said such recon petitions were due within 30 days of a public notice, which in this case was issued July 15, but the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee didn't file its petition until Aug. 22. "Ad Hoc’s Petition expressly seeks reconsideration only of the Declaratory Ruling, arguing that the Commission erred in determining that incumbent LECs are non-dominant in providing interstate switched access and that the Commission should first finalize access rate regulations for toll-free originating access minutes," said Bureau Chief Matt DelNero in an order listed Tuesday in the Daily Digest. "Ad Hoc did not seek reconsideration of the Commission’s Second Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration, which amended the rules to establish a framework for discontinuance of legacy voice services under Section 214 of the Act," he said: "Ad Hoc’s petition predated the publication of these rules in the Federal Register." Ad Hoc recognized the recon petition "was a Hail Mary pass in terms of fixing the disparate treatment of toll-free ('8YY') traffic under the intercarrier compensation rules," emailed the group's counsel Colleen Boothby Tuesday. She said the FCC had acknowledged the problem without resolving it, allowing "the rate disparity between 8YY traffic and other switched traffic" to grow and impose "significant costs" on the group's business customer members. "Ad Hoc has no choice but to continue to look for procedural hooks like the recon petition that shine a light on the issue and hopefully prompt the Commission to address the very real problems it creates," said Boothby, a Levine Blaszak attorney.

Fostering prepaid and resold wired internet services and thereby creating competition similar to that existing in the wireless industry could close the digital divide and address systemic racial discrimination reducing internet adoption among minorities, Free Press reported Tuesday. It may be a challenge to convince a Republican-led FCC next year to require those options or stop market-power abuses, said Policy Director Matt Wood in an interview. While a prepaid internet service offered by Comcast lowers one adoption barrier, it may raise other hurdles, Wood said.

USTelecom opposed an NTIA request that the FCC reconsider parts of a tech transition order to address special challenges facing federal government agencies as telecom customers. "Although NTIA claims to fully support 'tech transitions,' it proposes additional Commission actions that could, if implemented, strike a significant blow against the progress of such transitions by making it more complicated, timely, and costly for providers to discontinue antiquated legacy services and replace them with newer services utilizing next-generation technologies that are necessary to support the nation’s current and future telecommunications needs," said a USTelecom filing posted Friday in FCC docket 13-5. "NTIA’s suggestions and proposals are not necessary to safeguard federal government agencies against the 'particular challenges [they face] as customers of telecommunications services and are otherwise unwarranted because they create burdens for providers that are not outweighed by any practical benefits." The USTelecom filing appears to be the only one that came in before the FCC's Thursday comment deadline on the petitions for reconsideration by USTelecom and a separate one by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates and others (see 1610120035). The FCC and NTIA didn't comment Friday. In its petition, NTIA said the commission set out a reasonable approach to facilitating tech transitions while minimizing consumer harm. But NTIA said federal users are different from other customers, given their procedures and "mission-critical" functions (see 1610140061). Federal agencies are "particularly vulnerable to unanticipated and accelerated network changes," and while the FCC's "adequate replacement" framework helps, it doesn't fully address agency issues, NTIA said.

Wireline and wireless telcos and others asked the FCC to repeal various rules as part of its latest "biennial review" of telecom regulations. USTelecom said the FCC had given "short shift" to its statutory biennial review mandate despite rapidly changing technology and markets. "This biennial should be a searching review and reevaluation of the Commission’s legacy rules to ensure that they do not interfere with the drive to build and upgrade broadband infrastructure," USTelecom said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-132 on Wireline Bureau rules. The ILEC trade group also made filings in dockets 16-128 and 16-131, and others filed in docket 16-138. Also filing were CenturyLink, CTIA, Mobile Future, Verizon, Sprint, Fast DAS and United Utilities. Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai -- who many expect to be the next FCC chairman, at least on an acting basis -- and Michael O'Rielly recently said the agency should be more assertive in its regulatory review (see 1611030042).

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker urged swift implementation of Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity recommendations to the White House, saying Tuesday the U.S. is at a “moment of reckoning” in this area. The private sector must play an active role in implementing the CENC recommendations, given the commission's emphasis on public-private partnerships to improve U.S. cybersecurity, Pritzker said during a USTelecom event. Friday's suggestions were short-term and long-term measures for the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump (see 1612020050).

Educational entities and most others backed the off-campus E-rate subsidy support proposals of Microsoft and others in one petition and the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) in Colorado in another. Some telco interests opposed the petitions, NCTA voiced concerns and a few others asked the FCC to adopt certain criteria for guidance or an alternative approach. Replies were posted Tuesday and earlier in docket 13-184 in response to a public notice (see 1609190051).