Communications Sales & Leasing's planned buy of PEG Bandwidth was approved by the FCC's Wireline Bureau Tuesday. Related communications license transfers were granted after no oppositions were filed, said a public notice in docket 16-31. The transaction already had gained antitrust clearance (see 1603020028). CSL, a real estate investment trust, is paying $409 million to buy PEG Bandwidth's equity interests from affiliates of Associated Partners, the companies said in January, announcing the deal, which they expected to close in April. PEG Bandwidth provides infrastructure including cell site backhaul and dark fiber for telecom carriers and enterprises and has a fiber network of more than 300,000 miles, said a release.

The FCC sought to refresh the record on Sandwich Isles Communications' disputed cost recovery from the National Exchange Carrier Association. The Wireline Bureau asked for comment by April 18 and replies by April 28 in a public notice Tuesday in docket 09-133. "At issue in the proceeding was whether certain lease expenses incurred by Sandwich Isles were costs that were 'used and useful' and could be included for recovery in the NECA pool," the PN said. In 2010, Sandwich Isles filed a petition for reconsideration of a Wireline Bureau declaratory ruling in September of that year on its NECA cost recovery, and AT&T filed an application for full commission review. More recently, NECA petitioned the FCC to clarify the bureau's 2010 conclusions. All the requests are pending. The PN detailed costs that Sandwich Isles was allowed and not allowed to include in its NECA pool cost recovery under the bureau's previous ruling.

Google added a cloud-based home phone service to its fiber broadband service. Google Fiber customers can pay $10 per month for Fiber Phone service, which includes unlimited local and long-distance calling, Google said. For international calls, customers pay the same rates as Google Voice. Customers can port their old phone number, Google said. Like Google Voice and the Project Fi mobile service, Fiber Phone can transcribe voice messages to SMS or email, and customers can receive calls on their landline phone, cellphone, tablet or laptop, Google said. Fiber Phone will be available only in select markets to start, but Google said it will eventually roll out the service to all of its Fiber customers. Landline service is still important, Google said in a blog post announcing the service. “Landlines can be familiar, reliable and provide high-quality service, but the technology hasn’t always kept up.”

The parties to FCC inmate calling service litigation suggested the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit largely consolidate briefing that would last 175 days. The FCC, ICS providers and others -- at the urging of the court -- submitted a joint proposed briefing format and schedule Monday in the case (Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461). The filing said petitioners and intervenors were challenging an FCC 2015 order that "adopts permanent tiered per-minute rate caps for all inmate calling services ('ICS'), asserts jurisdiction over both interstate and intrastate calls, regulates ancillary and transaction fees associated with ICS, imposes annual reporting and certification requirements, and asserts jurisdiction over ICS calls carried over both traditional telephone and other advanced technology such as VoIP." The parties said the challenges raised two distinct sets of issues -- those raised by ICS providers and those raised by state and county officials -- and accordingly asked to file separate briefs. Under the proposal, the 12 state government petitioners and intervenors would file consolidated initial and reply briefs while the five ICS providers -- CenturyLink, GTL, Pay Tel Communications, Securus and Telmate -- would file most of their arguments in initial and reply briefs, while Securus would also file shorter briefs analyzing confidential cost data it submitted on credit card transactions and "single-call services." Under proposed word limits, the FCC and its supporters, which include Martha Wright Petitioners and Network Communications International (a wholesale-oriented ICS provider), would receive the same number of words, 29,500, for their responses as the challengers in their initial briefs. The initial industry and state briefs would be due 40 days from the date of the court's order setting the schedule, followed 60 days later by the FCC response brief and intervenor briefs 15 days after the FCC brief. The challengers would then have 30 more days to file their reply briefs, with final briefs incorporating a joint appendix due 30 days after that. The court previously stayed the FCC rate caps, one set of ancillary fees and application of 2013 interim rate caps to intrastate services, pending further review (see 1603070055 and 1603230058).

State consumer advocates agreed with concerns by state regulatory commissioners about FCC-proposed changes to the Lifeline program. In a letter last week, NARUC blasted Lifeline proposals to simplify provider participation and bypass state reviews in the FCC's planned expansion of the low-income support program to broadband (see 1603180052). In an ex parte letter posted Friday in docket 11-42, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates said it “agrees that cutting states out of the eligible telecommunications carrier designation and review process will increase fraud and abuse -- especially by carriers -- in the Lifeline program as it transitions to supporting broadband services.” States should maintain a strong role in the ETC process, said NASUCA. “These state ‘cops’ should not be taken off the beat.”

The Office of Management and Budget approved three years of FCC information collection on "network change disclosure rules pertaining to copper retirement notices" flowing from an IP/tech transition order (docket 13-5), said a summary of a commission rule published in the Federal Register Thursday, the effective date of the rule. The order, adopted in August, requires ILECs to notify customers and interconnecting carriers and ISPs about planned retirement of copper lines -- including “de facto retirement” -- and to seek permission when they plan changes that discontinue traditional services to retail end users, including of CLECs (see 1508100019).

The FCC Wireline Bureau adopted a modified protective order "governing the filing of and access to FCC Form 481 financial information filed by privately held rate-of-return carriers pursuant to section 54.313(f)(2) of the Commission’s rules." The order issued Tuesday in docket 10-90 streamlines and updates filing procedures for privately held rate-of-return eligible telecom carrier (ETC) reporting duties. "Privately held rate-of-return ETCs who wish to file confidentially any portion of FCC Form 481 should file one copy of the confidential (unredacted) version of the form with the Secretary’s Office and file a redacted version of the form, including any and all attachments, through the Commission’s electronic comment filing system (ECFS). Filers are no longer required to, and should not, submit two courtesy copies of the confidential (unredacted) version of the form with the Bureau," the order said. "This protective order substantially reduces the number of dockets into which submitting parties must file information."

The FCC should reform Lifeline USF, which is overly complex, said CenturyLink in a filing Tuesday in docket 11-42 on meetings with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The complexity has caused consumer confusion and frustration with the "bureaucratic nature of the program," while saddling providers with administrative burdens and regulatory costs that discourage participation, the telco said. If Lifeline support is extended to broadband, program administration should be streamlined for all providers and not just new entrants, "especially by promptly shifting eligibility verification to a third party and by not requiring offering of all Lifeline broadband options in all areas," it said. "The company also cautioned against making participation mandatory for any providers or applying a rigid 10/1 Mbps minimum service level for wireline Lifeline broadband service, as it would limit options for consumers who may prefer less expensive options or who live in rural areas where only lower download and/or upload speeds are currently available."

Level 3 said an AT&T blog made "tired arguments" that again ignored "the facts, basic economics and the law" in saying CLECs were pushing the FCC to impose ill-advised reregulation on ILEC fiber-based ethernet business services (see 1603160020). "The facts are that, for the vast majority of businesses that purchase dedicated services, there is only one option: the incumbent telco. That lack of competition has meant higher prices for American businesses, governments, non-profits and others -- higher prices that get passed on to consumers," emailed Joe Cavender, vice president-federal affairs. "For years, they’ve leveraged their market power to lock out competition for these services, and now they’re using the same tactics to try to throttle competition for newer services like Ethernet. There’s no question the FCC has the authority to protect consumers from AT&T, as much as AT&T might prefer to continue to abuse their market power without oversight.”

The FCC teed up U.S. TelePacific's planned buy of DSCI LLC from DSCI Holdings, inviting initial comments by March 29 and replies by April 5, said a public notice Tuesday in docket 16-67. TelePacific offers competitive telecom services to business customers in California and Nevada, and DSCI offers CLEC services in 13 states (including California) and the District of Columbia, the PN said.