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.

FCC staff said rate-of-return telcos must impute an access recovery charge (ARC) in some circumstances whether they opt to receive support based on an new Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM) or an updated legacy Connect America Fund Broadband Loop Support (CAF BLS) mechanism. The Wireline Bureau acknowledged there had been uncertainty about the scope of the ARC imputation. "We clarify that this imputation obligation applies not only to rate-of-return LECs that receive support from CAF BLS, but also to those that receive support from A-CAM," the bureau said in an order in docket 10-90 in Thursday's Daily Digest. "Rate-of-return LECs must impute an amount equal to the ARC they assess on voice/broadband lines on their Consumer Broadband-only Loops receiving support either from CAF BLS or A-CAM." In another order, the bureau on its own motion granted rate-of-return carriers "a waiver of sections 69.311 and 69.416 of the Commission’s rules to limit the costs that must be shifted from the Special Access category to the Consumer Broadband-only Loop category in certain specific circumstances." The bureau said the revised Part 69 rules were intended to require rural carriers "to move costs of consumer broadband-only loops from the Special Access category to the new Consumer Broadband-Only Loop category." But the bureau said the "surrogate cost methodology" could over-allocate costs out of special access, reducing rates and revenue more than intended -- potentially, even to zero -- so it was providing a limited waiver from the methodology for December tariff filings in certain circumstances it detailed.

A court set Feb. 8 oral argument on NARUC's challenge to the FCC's VoIP numbering order. The three-judge panel to hear the case is usually revealed 30 days before the argument, said a short order (in Pacer) Thursday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is reviewing NARUC v. FCC, No. 15-1497. NARUC argues the FCC couldn't give interconnected VoIP providers direct rights to phone numbering resources without classifying them as telecom carriers providing telecom service under Title II of the Communications Act (see 1604050013). The FCC and DOJ defended the commission's 2015 order as a "common-sense approach to telephone numbering" that eliminated needless telecom carrier middlemen, and they cited procedural and statutory arguments (see 1605200002). Intervenor Vonage also defended the order (see 1605260058).

Seeking federal OK to buy Level 3, CenturyLink applied at the FCC to transfer control of domestic and international Communications Act Section 214 authorizations and sent Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust reports to the FTC and DOJ, the companies said Wednesday. Regulators are expected to OK the $34 billion deal, which also needs state approvals (see 1610310033). “The Transaction will benefit customers and competition,” the companies said in the FCC application dated Monday. In a statement Wednesday, CenturyLink Senior Vice President-Public Policy John Jones said the combination “will provide customers with state-of-the-art services over a global platform that meets their growing demand for bandwidth, helps them manage today’s complex communication services and provides them with more robust cybersecurity protections. This merger will help us compete more effectively, thus increasing opportunities for our customers, employees and the communities we serve.”

FCC staff authorized Lake Connections' $3.5 million rural broadband experiment in Lake County, Minnesota, covering 8,497 locations in 845 census blocks. "Lake Connections has elected to receive 30 percent of its total support upfront in exchange for meeting an accelerated deployment obligation to build out to 25 percent of all eligible locations within 15 months of receiving its first disbursement, i.e., April 2, 2018," said a bureau public notice Monday in docket 10-90. Universal Service Administrative Co. will "disburse to Lake Connections 30 percent of its total support amount with the first monthly payment and the remaining 70 percent of the total support amount in 120 equal monthly installments over the 10-year term," the PN said.

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.

Educational advocates urged the FCC to approve waivers allowing E-rate USF discounts to be applied to students' off-campus connectivity. Waiver petitions would extend E-rate benefits without adding cost to the USF because the services couldn't be overprovisioned, said various groups. "The petitioners only seek to use the excess services that are left unused after school hours," said representatives of the Benton Foundation, Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation and Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition in a filing posted Monday in docket 13-184 on a meeting with Wireline Bureau staffers. "The participants stressed that many schools that want to extend broadband connectivity to students’ homes choose not to out of concern they may lose their E-rate funding due to lack of clarity in the rules. The Commission should clarify or waive the cost-allocation rule to allow off-campus use, encouraging more schools to help bridge the homework gap." Comments on petitions from Microsoft and Colorado's Boulder Valley School District have been mostly favorable, but ILECs have voiced opposition and NCTA and others have expressed concerns or sought certain safeguards (see 1612060057).

A federal court will hear oral argument Feb. 6 on FCC inmate calling service orders capping rates and restricting ancillary service fees in regulations being challenged by various ICS providers, states and sheriff groups. The three-judge panel hearing the argument is usually revealed 30 days beforehand, said the short order (in Pacer) Tuesday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is reviewing Global Tel*Link v. FCC (No. 15-1461 and consolidated cases). The D.C. Circuit has issued four stays blocking implementation, pending further review, of several FCC rate decisions in three orders over recent years, though 2013 interstate ICS rate caps remain in effect.

Frontier updated the FCC on the areas where it plans to offer internet access using Connect America Fund Phase I Round 2 incremental broadband subsidy support (see 1609080001). The telco previously filed a list of census blocks it believed were "unserved" and thus eligible for the support, but some parties said they serve some of those areas, said a Frontier filing Friday in docket 10-90. The carrier said it didn't include the challenged census blocks in attachments to the filing, but noted it had responded to the challenge of one party, StarTouch Broadband Services (see 1611220040), and would certify those census blocks as unserved later if it receives a favorable decision, which it believes is likely to occur. "We submitted 3,146 census blocks for approval back in August and we received challenges for a total of 701 of those census blocks. We have removed all of those census blocks as part of the certification we submitted [Friday] with the detailed location information," a Frontier official emailed. In a separate filing, the carrier attached a list of 515 other census blocks it plans to include in its CAF I Round 2 deployments.

VTCSecure certification to offer video relay service (VRS) and IP captioned telecom service (IPCTS) would improve service for people with hearing disabilities and ease pressure on a subsidy fund, the company told FCC officials. The company said it "believes that its technology platform that includes Real-Time Text, Simple Message Service and automated speech to text services will provide the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community greater functional equivalence and innovative new services at a lower cost to the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund (TRS)." CEO Peter Hayes "stressed that VTCSecure's technology would allow a new VRS and IP CTS provider to offer its services under the TRS Fund reimbursement glide path" adopted in a 2013 order driving down VRS compensation rates, the company said in filings (here, here) Thursday in docket 10-51 on meetings it had with an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai and a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau official. Citing open-source software in VTCSecure's network platform and an "endpoint" using the commission's accessible communications service app (see 1509180029), Hayes said the company could "facilitate the interoperability and common network platform goals that the Commission also adopted in the VRS Reform Order." VTCSecure has petitioned for a waiver to provide a direct sign-language support service that allows the deaf and hard of hearing to communicate directly with certain customer-service personnel fluent in sign language, rather than going through sign-language interpreters who relay communications to customer-service personnel (see 1607070003). It has been supported by deaf advocates and opposed by VRS providers (see 1608180036 and 1609020033).