NTCA said many rural carriers can't estimate their company-specific impact of the FCC’s “potential bifurcated approach” to updating rate-of-return USF mechanisms for broadband coverage. Reform details remain unsettled, the RLEC group said, and “average schedule” carriers have access only to “industrywide aggregate ‘price-outs’ that” are unlikely to reflect their particular results, and to their own spreadsheets consisting of “hundreds, if not thousands, of inputs,” which also remain works in progress. “We encouraged the Commission to remain open to simpler, more straightforward ways of achieving the same goals of reform via 'modules' (e.g., new limits or policy changes) that could be applied to any distributional mechanism rather than creating substantial new complexity by remaking the underlying distribution calculations,” NTCA said in a filing on an FCC meeting it had that was posted Monday in docket 10-90. It backed “sensible transitions” to how the costs of prior investments would be treated -- such as operating expense limits -- under an overhaul, including the proposed bifurcated approach, which would generally treat old investments under old rules and new investments under new rules. It's unclear how new limits or caps on prior investments, most of all sunk costs, would be consistent with the bifurcated approach, the group said, but if they're instituted, carriers would need time to adjust.
The FCC should require industry to do more to ensure emergency communications, consumer groups said, responding to critics of their petition to reconsider tech transition backup power rules (see 1601040056). “The public safety is very much at stake. Back-up power requirements are necessary,” said the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates and others in a filing Tuesday in docket 14-174. The FCC rules require fixed providers to give consumers the option of purchasing eight hours -- and 24 hours within three years -- of backup power capability (see 1508100041). The groups said it wasn’t surprising that industry parties opposed the petition, which seeks to require landline carriers to provide greater backup power guarantees. The opponents believe a stronger mandate would be too burdensome and 911 service should be optional and customers should pay for that reliability, the consumer groups said. “But access to 911 is mandated by regulation, and the costs of that access were spread throughout the industry and consumers … just as the cost of back-up power would be,” they said. “The decision was made years ago that the public safety embodied in 911 should not be optional." The groups compared backup power to having seat belts in cars, which is not optional. The opponents stress that many consumers rely solely on wireless voice services, the consumer groups said, but many others use IP-based voice services over cable, fiber and other landline networks. “Many consumers are thus forced to turn to the IP-based services for replacing legacy services,” they said. “The question is whether these IP-based services, like the legacy services they replace, should be designed and engineered to work in times of emergency. If the enduring values are to be preserved, the answer must be affirmative.” Wireless isn’t always available and where it is, it often isn’t reliable and can become overloaded in emergencies, they said.
FCC “asymmetric regulations” are impeding wireline broadband competition by constraining the ability of telcos to invest in new fiber networks, said a study released by the American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research. ACI said ILECs aren't the dominant providers of voice, data or video services, but they're subject to stricter regulation. That's “stifling” their broadband deployment, said an ACI release Monday, criticizing the commission's broadband reclassification under Title II of the Communications Act. While an AT&T request to do IP transition trials offered an opportunity to provide ILECs relief and level the playing field, "the FCC embraced its new Title II power over broadband services by expanding its regulations," the study said, citing the commission's August tech transition rules (see 1508100019). ILECs that build all-fiber networks “must keep their copper networks running” for some time, creating duplicative costs that discourage new deployment, the release said. “With these new rules in place, ILECs have sustained back-to-back declines in the total number of broadband subscribers, despite continued growth in the overall broadband market,” said Steve Pociask, ACI president and co-author of the study. “This study shows that imposing asymmetric regulations affects broadband competition, reduces broadband investment and innovation, increases wireline concentration and reduces consumer choice.” ACI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational and research institute that's "100% supported by public donations and a few public (not private) foundations," emailed Pociask Tuesday. "Donations are tax deductible and, according to IRS rules, this means that no one 'pays for' or sponsors a study. We are also not an advocacy group (501c4)," he said.
AT&T asked a federal court to consolidate and set briefing on its legal challenges to two FCC orders affecting price-cap telco USF obligations. The request came in a petition Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that AT&T said wasn't opposed by the Department of Justice or the FCC. AT&T noted the FCC in December adopted and released an order that partially granted and partially denied a USTelecom forbearance petition seeking price-cap ILEC relief from various obligations (see 1512170052 and 1512280037). The recent order "discussed, but did not resolve in AT&T's favor, the same issues addressed" in a 2014 FCC USF order challenged by the telco earlier in 2015 (AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1038). In the previous case, AT&T had argued the FCC should have given price-cap ILECs greater relief, including from eligible telecom carrier (ETC) voice USF obligations where they don't elect to receive new broadband-oriented Connect America Fund subsidies. The D.C. Circuit had put the previous case on hold pending commission resolution of the U.S. Telecom forbearance review and related issues in other proceedings (see 1507160032 and 1509030042). AT&T Wednesday filed a petition for review challenging the FCC's December 2015 USTelecom forbearance decision, which again denied price-cap telcos USF ETC voice relief (AT&T v. FCC, No. 16-1002). Given the "overlap of issues" in its two challenges, AT&T asked the D.C. Circuit to consolidate the cases and issue a restarted briefing schedule that would allow DOJ and the FCC at least 45 days to respond to the company's renewed opening brief.
AT&T applied to discontinue offering operating services such as collect calling, person-to-person calling, billed to third party and busy-line interruption, said an FCC filing posted Thursday. Demand for the services AT&T wishes to discontinue has been declining about 18 percent per year over the past several years, it said: "If an end user wishes to continue to use these services, they can obtain alternative services from other wireline interexchange carriers." The company plans to discontinue the services to retail customers after March 18 and to wholesale customers June 4, it said.
If the FCC accepts recommendations to switch to a voucher system or give only households on the federal Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) access to the Lifeline program, it would sharply reduce the number of low-income Americans who would be eligible for reduced services, said Consumer Action in a filing in docket 11-42 posted Thursday. The filing included signatures of more than 2,580 people that echo these concerns. A voucher system would be complicated and possibly require consumers to incur ATM or other charges, it said. Limiting eligibility to households on SNAP would mean millions of households that qualify through other benefit programs or by income no longer would qualify, Consumer Action said.
Broadband providers are delivering both faster speeds and on advertising promises, but the end-user experience is subject to other variables, said Richard Bennett, network architect and founder of the High Tech Forum, commenting on the FCC’s recent Measuring Broadband America report on fixed services (see 1512300037). He said cable/telco ISPs had been basically delivering on the advertised speeds for several years. “So if MBA was intended to embarrass US ISPs (as many believe), it’s a failure," he said in a recent blog post. Bennett compared the FCC report with an Akamai State of the Internet report, the “only other data set” on U.S. broadband speed: “Akamai says speed increased by 2.9 times between Q1 2011 and Q3 2014, and the FCC says the average rose by 3.6 times. Akamai says the baseline in 2011 was 17 Mbps, while the FCC says it was 9 Mbps. And Akamai says the average download speed rose to 48.8 Mbps by Q3 2014, vs 32 Mbps for the FCC. The measurement techniques are different, the sampling criteria are different, but we see the same general trend line, a tripling in speed over a 3.5 year period.” Bennett said the FCC did a good job of explaining how Internet applications have different network needs, which affects performance. The report focused on three performance metrics: speed, latency and packet loss. He cited a “very interesting finding” in the report: “Web surfing hits its sweet spot at 15 Mbps and doesn’t improve much at higher speeds.” He noted the last MBA report found Web speeds didn’t improve much with broadband pipes offering above 10 Mbps. “So it appears that web servers are getting faster, even though they lag broadband networks by a staggering degree. If we want faster web surfing, we need web servers that can keep up with broadband networks, which they obviously aren’t doing today. This is not something we can blame on the ISPs.”
Five Georgia ILECs asked the FCC to include in their "base period revenues" (BPR) $121,774 that they said they had been unable to collect in 2012 from Halo Wireless, which went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Brantley Telephone, Pembroke Telephone, Pineland Telephone Cooperative, Public Service Telephone and Waverly Hall Telephone filed an emergency petition Tuesday in docket 10-90 seeking to collect their Halo charges in the BPR effective July 1, 2012. The carriers said the absent cost recovery was harming their ability to make network investments, giving the commission "good cause" to grant the request, which would "meet the objectives" of the agency's 2011 USF and intercarrier compensation transformation order. They said the relief would be similar to that the FCC granted with conditions to other carriers, including TDS Telecom. Windstream is also seeking relief for charges it said were unpaid by Halo (see 1509020059).
The FCC Wireline Bureau approved four transactions Monday under Section 214 of the Communications Act. A bureau order granted the license application to transfer control of certain assets from Comcast phone and business subsidiaries to First Communications in docket 15-294. The bureau also granted transfers of control of Ayrshire Farmers Mutual Telephone to Northwest Communications in docket 15-281, of International Telecom to SwiftReach Networks in docket 15-297 and of Equivoice from Marcus McEwen to MNJ Technology Services in docket 15-277.
Telco and cable interests opposed a consumer group petition for reconsideration that asked the FCC to put more of the onus and cost for implementing new backup power solutions on fixed-service providers and less on consumers (see 1511170042). Rules in an August tech transition order (see 1508060044) "promote access to 911 service by customers of non-line-powered, fixed voice service providers during commercial power outages in a manner that appropriately reflects consumer expectations regarding access to emergency communications," said the American Cable Association, NCTA and USTelecom in a filing Thursday in docket 14-174. "The Commission’s actions were based upon extensive comments from all interests, including Petitioners, and substantial evidence about the diminishing reliance that consumers have elected to place on line-powered voice service. The Petition counters none of these facts and thus offers no basis for the Commission to make any change to those rules, and therefore it should be rejected." In its opposition posted Friday, CenturyLink said the petition filed by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) and other groups "is procedurally infirm and otherwise without merit." The ITTA, NTCA and Fiber to the Home Council Americas filed oppositions last week (here, here and here). The NASUCA petition did pick up backing from the International Association of Fire Chiefs earlier last week, which said the order abandoned core public safety and consumer protection principles. "In enabling new technologies for 911, the standard of performance should be reliability that is at least equivalent to the current universal access landline telephone network. The Rule and Order fail to meet this standard," the IAFC said in a letter to the FCC. "The IAFC supports the petitioners’ request and respectfully requests the FCC reconsider its Rule and Order as outlined by the petitioners and place responsibility upon the carriers for ensuring the continuity of 911 communications. The Rule and Order as written will negatively impact the ability of individuals to reach 911."