FairPoint Communications’ contract with 1,700 of its 2,550 workers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont expired Saturday amid continued negotiations over a new deal. The two unions representing the 1,700 workers -- the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) chapters in the three states -- had “dug in on almost all of their current benefits under contracts from a bygone era,” a FairPoint spokeswoman said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1sn1ceh). Points of contention include pensions, retiree medical benefits or changes in union involvement in subcontracting, FairPoint said. CWA and the local IBEW contractors said in a joint statement that they would continue to negotiate “until we reach a fair and equitable contract.” The 1,700 workers will continue to work under most terms of the expired contract. FairPoint said it has a plan in place to maintain its infrastructure in the three states if the workers strike.

The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment on a draft eligible services list for schools and libraries under the E-rate program, said a public notice Monday (http://fcc.us/1o7auMh). Commenters should highlight whether the draft manifests the E-rate modernization order, and the extent to which additional changes are necessary, said the PN. Comments are due in docket 13-184 Sept. 3, replies Sept. 18. The FCC recently approved changes to E-rate.

Despite the FCC’s decision to delay implementing the $20.46 rate floor, problems remain, including that rural local exchange carriers (RLECs) in some states are caught in conflicts with state law and procedures, representatives of several rural telcos and the WTA Regulatory Counsel Gerry Duffy told aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler Wednesday, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1pvGIPl) posted Friday in docket 10-90. A 1995 Colorado statute that has frozen monthly local exchange service rates between $14 and $17.05 “will soon run afoul of the scheduled rate floor increases,” the telcos said. WTA supports the commission’s pending proposal to increase the minimum broadband speed that it seeks to achieve with USF from 4 Mbps to 10 Mbps downstream, the filing said. Sufficient and predictable high-cost support should be available to enable RLEC members to obtain and repay the loans necessary for the required infrastructure upgrades and extensions, the filing said. Involved in the meeting were representatives from Brad 3 Rivers Communications of Fairfield, Montana; Direct Communications of Eagle Mountain, Utah; Idaho Telecom Alliance; MTE Communications of Midvale, Idaho; New Florence Telephone Co. of New Florence, Missouri; and Pine Drive Telephone of Beulah, Colorado, the filing said.

An item to refer USF contribution methodology to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service was put on circulation (http://bit.ly/1rT3IIe) by the FCC Wireline Bureau July 29.

A Michigan county contract awarded to ICSolutions to provide inmate calling services appears to exceed the interim rate caps set by the commission, Securus said in a July 30 letter (http://bit.ly/1oWkR4G) to the FCC Wireline Bureau posted in docket 12-375 Friday. Another competitor, Praeses, is telling correctional facilities to cancel their contracts with Securus unless Securus immediately begins paying commissions to the facilities, the filing said. “Securus is suffering significant harm by maintaining its position” that the FCC inmate calling order prohibits companies from paying facilities commissions, the filing said. ICSolutions and Praeses were not immediately available for comment.

The Illinois Public Telecommunications Association petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for a rehearing en banc of the court’s June 13 decision (http://1.usa.gov/1ltd6Bf) (docket 13-1059) in Illinois Public Telecommunications Association v. FCC on Monday. The court upheld an FCC decision not to grant payphone service providers refunds from AT&T and Verizon (CD June 16 p9). The D.C. Circuit said it was not unreasonable or arbitrary for the FCC to permit refunds of charges that exceeded the cost-based rates mandated under Telecom Act Section 276. By permitting individual states to bar refunds, the court split with previous federal circuit courts that agreed the filed rate doctrine did not bar refunds of charges that exceeded the cost-based rate requirement of Section 276, said IPTA attorney Michael Ward. The D.C. Circuit also ignored the time requirements for implementing the Section 276 requirements set in the statute, five FCC orders and previous decisions of the D.C. Circuit, he said. The panel also failed to rule on the Independent Payphone Association of New York argument that the FCC did not require the New York State Public Service Commission to follow its new services test orders delineating the requirements for cost-based rates that the FCC has consistently required in all states, Ward said. The New York association and the Payphone Association of Ohio joined in Monday’s petition.

The FCC should “take concrete steps to bring intermediate providers out of the shadows and into full light,” while the Office of Management and Budget completes its Paperwork Reduction Act review and approves the information collection and record-keeping requirements in the commission’s rural call completion order, representatives from NTCA and the National Exchange Carriers Association told agency staff July 24, said an ex parte notice (http://bit.ly/1uDB1Eq) posted in docket 13-39 Tuesday. The rural representatives met with staff including Daniel Alvarez, wireline aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, and Terry Cavanaugh, chief of the Enforcement Bureau Investigations and Hearings Division. Calls continue to fail to reach rural areas at an alarming rate, NTCA and NECA told the FCC. As proposed in the Further NPRM, the FCC should require every provider in control of call routing to register with the agency “and certify that it does not engage in the blocking or restricting of calls to rural areas or that it strips or modifies call detail information,” the groups said in the notice. The providers would also certify that they have in place processes to monitor performance and that they route calls only to other certified intermediate providers or directly to terminating local exchange carriers, the groups said. The commission should also “create a carrier contact list so that other carriers experiencing call completion problems know whom to contact at the originating carrier for resolution,” the notice said.

Waivers on Safe Harbor record-keeping and reporting requirements under the FCC’s rural call completion order should be granted to CenturyLink, the company said in comments (http://bit.ly/1oG2SPH) posted in docket 13-39 Tuesday. Implementing the Safe Harbor requires complex changes to call routing and switch programming, revisions to intercarrier contracts, updates to routing tables, and necessary quality assurance testing, the company said in seeking waivers for calls that use multi-frequency signaling and intraLATA toll calls handed directly from the originating provider to the terminating provider. “Both of these limited requests for waiver involve historical technology that is not designed for such reporting but still serves customers well,” the filing said.

The FCC should grant Guadalupe Valley Telephone Cooperative’s emergency request for an expedited waiver of Section 51.917(c) of the commission’s rules, NTCA said in comments (http://bit.ly/1mYYFkW) posted Tuesday to docket 10-90. The Texas company relies on USF support and intercarrier compensation revenue, the filing said. The company is requesting it be able to include as company base period revenue of $278,317.62 owed to it by Halo, which has been forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy, ceased operations and liquidated all of its assets, the filing said. Quoting GVTC’s petition, NTCA said the inability to include the Halo money “would have ‘a significant adverse impact on GVTC’s recovery mechanism funding,’ and would ‘limit[] the company’s ability to invest in and improve its network.'” TDS Telecommunications should be granted a waiver from the March 31, 2012, deadline for defining its eligibility recovery baseline as set forth in footnote 1745 of the USF-for-broadband order, the company’s outside attorney Yaron Dori told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s legal adviser, Daniel Alvarez, on Monday, said an ex parte notice (http://bit.ly/1mZ9L9E) posted in docket 13-39 Tuesday. Halo’s bankruptcy made it “legally impossible” to obtain a court or regulatory decision order to force Halo to pay amounts ordered to TDS for inclusion in the baseline, the filing said.

Executives from Alaskan telco Adak Eagle Enterprises and its Windy City Cellular subsidiary urged FCC staff last week to provide a “permanent solution” to the funding issues they have sought to alleviate by seeking a waiver of a monthly $250 per line cap on high-cost universal service support, the companies said in an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 10-90(http://bit.ly/1pmMl2l). Adak Eagle and Windy City have been seeking FCC reconsideration of their waiver petition, which the Wireless and Wireline bureaus denied last year (CD Aug 16 p5). Neither company can survive “absent a waiver,” they said, saying Windy City was the only cellular service available in June to Adak Island residents who had evacuated to the island’s Bering Hill while awaiting a possible tsunami. The companies also reminded the FCC that the interim funding the FCC granted them in late February -- $33,276 to Adak Eagle and $40,104 to Windy City -- would run out Thursday.