The FCC understands the promise broadband access offers for low-income households, Wireline Bureau Chief Matt DelNero said in a commission blog Monday. It noted the beginning of Lifeline Awareness Week and commended state regulators for making the program work for low-income users and telecom ratepayers who fund it through USF fees. "Broadband can help families fully engage in civic life and meaningfully access health services, job opportunities, and educational resources," wrote DelNero. "All network users benefit when everyone, regardless of income level, can communicate and innovate through broadband access." DelNero said initial comments (see 1509010073 and 1509040045) on proposals in the Further NPRM to expand Lifeline to broadband and promote program efficiency "reveal the remarkable variety of ways that broadband can enrich and transform lives," including by bringing better communications access to people with disabilities, children doing homework, parents needing information about state programs, and people living on tribal lands. Replies are due Sept. 30.

Sprint shouldn't be allowed to discontinue domestic wireline long-distance service until it satisfies certain duties regarding the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, said the Oglala Sioux Tribe Utility Commission in South Dakota in comments to the FCC in docket 15-186. The OSTUC said Sprint hasn't provided information the tribal commission needs to take a position on the carrier's planned service discontinuation (see 1506190036). To satisfy the FCC public interest standard, Sprint must meet all applicable requirements to discontinue service, including on the PRIR, the OSTUC said. "Sprint has refused to recognize the jurisdiction and authority of the OSTUC," which regulates telecom and other utility services on the PRIR, leading to litigation between the parties, the tribal commission said. A federal court recently denied a Sprint request to block the tribe from exercising jurisdiction over Sprint's telecom service on the PRIR, the OSTUC said. Sprint hadn't met tribal consumer protection duties or provided the OSTUC with any information about its planned service discontinuance on the PRIR, the tribal commission said. "Until Sprint demonstrates that it has met its obligations to 'inform customers prior to termination of service that they may file a complaint with the Commission' and comply with other applicable requirements on the PRIR, the FCC should not allow Sprint's planned termination of service on the PRIR to go into effect." The OSTUC said that Sprint had said consumers could buy alternative long-distance service from wireless carriers such as itself, but the tribal commission said it doesn't believe Sprint provides wireless service on the PRIR and there may not be other alternatives on the reservation. The OSTUC comments were dated Sept. 1, and posted on the FCC electronic filing system Monday. Sprint had no comment, but plans to file a response soon, a company spokesman told us Monday.

Seventy-six consortia are participating in the FCC healthcare connect fund, with rural participation in the consortia standing at 79.9 percent (the agency's rules require at least 50 percent for each consortium), the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Friday. The bureau issued a separate public notice addressing funding year 2014 annual reporting requirements.

The FCC gave Northeast Rural Services and First Step Internet about $1.3 million combined to do rural broadband experiments. Northeast Rural Services got money for four rural broadband experiments in Oklahoma, and First Step money to do such experiments in Idaho and Washington state, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Friday in docket 10-90.

Several broadband providers and industry associations urged the FCC to permanently adopt its temporary small business exemption from enhanced transparency requirements, in comments posted Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in docket 14-28. Most commenters also asked the commission to expand its current definition under the exemption of a small broadband provider -- 100,000 or fewer broadband connections -- to the definition established by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) of 500,000 connections or fewer. In a comment posted in the docket Wednesday by the SBA's Office of Advocacy, the agency encouraged the FCC to continue the exemption and to use the SBA's existing size standards to determine the appropriate small business threshold. The agency said the enhanced requirements "are not feasible for small broadband providers, particularly small rural providers, and may ultimately degrade the quality of service that consumers receive." SBA also said in its comments that small businesses are typically unable to absorb increased operating costs to the same extent as larger businesses, and before the FCC requires small providers to comply with the new rules, "it should first attempt to mitigate the cost of compliance for small entities and determine whether such costs are justified in light of consumer benefits." The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA), along with the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) also urged the FCC to make permanent the exemption, and to raise its small business threshold. WISPA said making the exemption permanent has "unanimous" support. "It is rare for the record in any commission proceeding to reflect unanimous support for a regulatory position, but that is the case here," the group said. CCA echoed WISPA's position, and urged the commission to modify the exemption requirements to apply to providers with either 1,500 or fewer employees or those with 500,000 or fewer broadband connections. The Alaska Telephone Association, American Cable Association and small broadband provider SouthernLINC joined WISPA, CCA and the SBA in submitting comments in favor of the exemption.

North American Portability Management expects to conclude negotiations with iconectiv on a new local number portability administrator contract and deliver it to the FCC this month, said a NAPM transition status report posted Wednesday in FCC docket 95-116. NAPM plans to begin negotiations with incumbent LNP administrator Neustar on an agreement for transition services beyond standard number-porting services (which allow consumers to keep their phone numbers when they switch carriers but not locations), the status report said. NAPM, with the help of transition oversight manager PricewaterhouseCoopers, is negotiating performance benchmarks, incentives and remedies, including financial penalties if either Neustar or iconectiv fails to meet their obligations during the transition, said an accompanying NAPM submission updating its transition oversight plan. The plan includes more details on NAPM's efforts to reach out to stakeholders and invite their input. It also includes a timeline that currently projects the LNP administrator transition will conclude mid-2017. Neustar is challenging in court the FCC March decision to award Telcordia (which does business as iconectiv) the contract subject to conditions, and its opening brief is due Sept. 21 (see 1508190033).

A federal court suspended its review of an AT&T challenge to a December FCC order on price-cap telco USF obligations. The commission had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to hold the AT&T case in abeyance while the agency considers related issues in a USTelecom forbearance petition and two other proceedings, which could render moot or alter the case (see 1507270038). In a brief order on Thursday granting the FCC request pending further order of the court, Judges David Tatel and Cornelia Pillard asked the parties to file motions on future proceedings within 14 days of an FCC decision addressing AT&T's issues in either the USTelecom forbearance proceeding or the two parallel rulemakings, or by Jan. 18, whichever comes first.

The FCC Wireline Bureau partially granted Lifeline USF appeals by AT&T and Qwest, saying eligible telecom carriers (ETCs) were permitted but not required to seek pro-rata support for subscribers enrolled in the low-income support program for less than a month. After the FCC announced and then backed off plans to require ETCs to seek pro-rata support for partial-month subscribers in 2003 and 2004, AT&T and Qwest (now CenturyLink) in 2008 and 2009 appealed decisions by Universal Service Administrative Co. that said they weren't in compliance because they didn't seek pro-rata reimbursement on FCC Form 497 for months in which they had partial month subscribers. In its order Wednesday, the bureau sided with AT&T and Qwest in finding the pro-rata reporting wasn't required. The bureau said "during the times relevant to the appeals," the commission's rules said USF support to ETCs was to be provided "based on the number of qualifying low-income consumers" they serve. "By basing reimbursement on the number of subscribers served, as opposed to how many days each customer has been a subscriber, section 54.407(a) of the Commission’s rules in effect at the time of the period audited does not clearly require pro-rata reporting," the bureau said.

Windstream asked the FCC for a waiver to collect a little more money as it reduces transitional intrastate access service rates under a commission order. "Specifically, the Windstream ILECs request a waiver of the relevant portions of Section 51.915(c) and (d) insofar as such requirements would prevent the Windstream ILECs from including in their Intrastate Access Reduction calculations uncollectible intrastate access charges billed to Halo Wireless, Inc. (‘Halo’) during Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 (October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011) that were not collected by March 31, 2012," the telco said in a petition posted in FCC dockets 10-90 and 01-92 Wednesday. Windstream said the FCC in 2011 ordered many access charges to be driven down to zero over time under a bill-and-keep regime. It also said the FCC was "all too familiar with the sordid details of Halo's operations and their effect" on LECs. "As the Commission recently described, 'Record evidence outlines an access charge avoidance scheme whereby Halo attempted to disguise traffic otherwise subject to access charges as traffic subject to reciprocal compensation under the intraMTA rule,'" Windstream said. "The Windstream ILECs were among Halo’s victims, terminating millions of interstate and intrastate switched access minutes that Halo disguised as subject to reciprocal compensation rather than switched access charges." Windstream filed various claims on Halo before and after the latter went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Windstream noted the FCC had already issued a waiver to TDS similar to the one it's seeking. To offset its losses, Windstream said it's seeking to collect an extra $2.05 million in Connect America Fund intercarrier compensation support for the time period 2012-2015.

A revised Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM) is available, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Monday in a public notice in docket 10-90. The revised A-CAM contains broadband deployment data from the latest Form 477 filed by broadband providers. The A-CAM is being considered for use by the commission to help determine future USF support under the Connect America Fund for at least some rate-of-return carriers, mostly small RLECs. The bureau also released "results that illustrate how different per-location funding caps used in calculating support impact the potential support calculated for a particular study [coverage] area" served by rate-of-return telcos. The three scenarios the bureau looked at -- all using a funding benchmark of $52.50 -- had per-location funding caps of $200, $215 and $230. A-CAM information is available at a commission webpage.