USTelecom pressed FCC officials for approval of a petition for forbearance relief from special access discount restrictions and other rules. "We discussed the relief sought in that petition, particularly in the areas of discounting special access services, equal access requirements and structural separation mandates placed on rate-of-return carriers," said a USTelecom filing posted Monday in docket 14-192. "FCC rules that explicitly ban offering lower prices to customers that want them seem unlikely to serve the public interest. USTelecom’s Petition seeks targeted relief that would provide consumers immediate benefits from increased discounting while preserving the Commission’s broad powers to act."

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).

Two Democratic appointees and one Republican were named to the three-judge panel to hear oral argument Dec. 4 on challenges to the FCC's net neutrality and broadband reclassification decision. An order Tuesday of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit identified the judges as David Tatel and Sri Srinivasan, both Democratic appointees, and Senior Judge Stephen Williams, a Republican appointee. Tatel has ruled both for and against the FCC in previous net neutrality cases. The order also set a format that appears to track the joint proposal submitted by most industry petitioners and the government respondents (see 1510230066). The court did not accept the proposal of Full Service Network to be included in the main discussion of the legality of the FCC's reclassification of broadband Internet access service under Title II of the Communications Act (see 1510260031). The case is USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063.

Full Service Network (FSN) proposed its own format for net neutrality oral argument Dec. 4 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (USTelecom v. FCC 15-1063). In their proposal Friday, FSN and allies said they were unable to reach agreement with other industry petitioners (USTelecom and allies) and government respondents (the Department of Justice and FCC), which had submitted a joint proposal for the format (see 1510230066). “The other petitioners and Respondents have an obvious common interest in minimizing the prominence and discussion of the substantive legal arguments in [our] brief,” FSN said. The joint proposal “minimizes FSN’s time,” giving it only 10 minutes, “and excludes it from discussion of a key issue,” said FSN, referring to the legality of the FCC’s reclassification of broadband access under Title II of the Communications Act (previously it was under Title I). FSN said its attorney, Earl Comstock of Eckert Seamans, should be given 20 minutes: 10 minutes, as part of the main reclassification arguments, to make its case that the statute dictated Title II for broadband and 10 minutes to argue the FCC should not have given broadband ISPs forbearance deregulation from much of Title II. “Both FSN and USTelecom argue that the plain language of the Act determines the classification, but with different end results,” FSN said (USTelecom argues the statute precluded Title II reclassification). The DOJ and FCC argue the statute is ambiguous and allows the commission to reasonably reclassify broadband under Title II. The joint proposal’s approach “would be inefficient and result in the Court having to hear the [reclassification] issue twice,” FSN said, while “hearing all three parties’ positions at the same time will facilitate the Court’s understanding.” FSN's 120-minute proposal would allocate 35 minutes to USTelecom, 20 minutes to FSN and five minutes combined to Alamo Broadband and Daniel Berninger (to raise their free-speech challenge), with the DOJ/FCC receiving 60 minutes to respond. That time breakdown “roughly” tracks the court-ordered breakdown of word limits in briefs, FSN said. Joining FSN in the litigation are Sage Telecommunications, Telscape Communications and Truconnect Mobile. One of the three judges hearing the case will decide on the format, according to the D.C. Circuit’s procedural handbook, with the composition of the panel usually revealed 30 days before oral argument (in this case, that would be Nov. 4).

Incompas joined by the Competitive Carriers Association opposed a USTelecom request joined by ITTA to extend the comment periods in the FCC special access rulemaking. USTelecom and ITTA apparently are trying to simply delay the proceeding, Incompas (formerly Comptel) and CCA said in their opposition Friday in docket 05-25. USTelecom and ITTA had asked that the current comment and reply deadlines of Nov. 20 and Dec. 11 be pushed back to Jan. 19 and Feb. 18. They said some incumbent telco outside counsels hadn't yet been cleared to see massive amounts of confidential industry data collected by the agency, and time was running out to review the data and file comments without an extension (see 1510220069).

Verizon supported USTelecom’s forbearance request for scrapping the ILEC duty to unbundle (offer discounted wholesale access to) 64 kbps voice-grade connections where the incumbent has retired a copper loop and replaced it with fiber. The requirement has “outlived any usefulness,” said a Verizon filing about a call with FCC officials, posted Friday in docket 14-192. “Customer demand for legacy wireline voice service has dropped precipitously. From 2003 to 2013, ILEC retail switched access lines declined by almost 60 percent," it said. “Similarly, demand for unbundled analog voice loops from Verizon -- which the 64 kbps on fiber channel replaces -- has declined by 65 percent.” Yet the costs of unbundling 64 kbps channels “are so high that they threaten to impede ILECs from retiring copper,” Verizon said. It cited redacted confidential costs of equipment needed to “retrofit the network of the future to accommodate yesterday’s 64 kbps technology,” which don’t include installation and provisioning costs. “And this assumes Verizon can acquire the physical equipment,” because one vendor stopped making it and others might follow suit due to the falling demand, the telco said. “The small subset of customers” for voice-grade service can obtain it from other providers or CLECs, which could continue to serve end-users through commercial platform services such as Verizon’s Wholesale Advantage or resale arrangements, it said.

FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet will take the lead on behalf of the agency defending a key part of its net neutrality order in the Dec. 4 oral argument, most of the parties to the case told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a filing Friday. The FCC issued the 3-2 February net neutrality order that has since faced several industry challenges as part of USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063. At stake in the order is the FCC’s reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, which attracted significant opposition from industry and Capitol Hill Republicans. Peter Keisler, an attorney with Sidley Austin, will present the argument on behalf of USTelecom, the filing said. Sallet and Keisler will address the arguments in the Title II portion of the case. Other FCC and industry attorneys will address other arguments raised in the case. Filings from litigants were due at the end of last week (see 1509080059). Sallet’s legal history includes partnerships at three law firms -- O’Melveny & Myers, Jenner & Block and Miller Cassidy -- in addition to a policy position at MCI and a Supreme Court clerkship for Justice Lewis Powell. “They’ve picked the best lawyer in the government uniform to argue the most important case in the history of the FCC,” former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt told us.

USTelecom, joined by ITTA, asked the FCC to further extend the dates for submitting initial comments and replies in the special-access rulemaking. "Given the size and complexity of the data collection, Petitioners’ members (many of whom still have not gained access to the data due to process delays) will not be able to adequately review and provide meaningful comment on the data within the current deadlines," the incumbent telco groups said in a joint request posted Thursday in docket 05-25. "We therefore request at least a 60-day extension for comments to January 19, 2016, and an extension for reply comments to February 18, 2016, 30 days after comments would be due." Initial comments and replies are now due Nov. 20 and Dec. 11.

NAB dropped more cash on its Q3 lobbying than any other competitor in the telecom and media space: $3.93 million, according to the report it filed Tuesday, about $50,000 less than it spent in 2014’s Q3. Comcast spent $3.27 million, nearly a million dollars less than it spent in 2014’s Q3 and more than NCTA spent (see 1510200064). The only stakeholder operating in the area spending close to what NAB did last quarter was Google, which spent $3.65 million. AT&T spent $2.9 million, much less than the $3.47 million in Q3 2014; Verizon spent $2.48 million, down from $2.91 million; CTIA spent $2.02 million, slightly up; Sprint spent $713,843, up by a few thousand; CBS spent $840,000, which is down $90,000; USTelecom stayed more or less steady at $1.15 million; Time Warner Cable spent $1.65 million, down from $1.8 million.