Granting USTelecom’s petition to forbear from several regulatory requirements on LECs would be a “concrete action” the FCC could take “in the immediate future to increase competition where Chairman [Tom] Wheeler has said it is most needed -- in fiber-based broadband,” said the group’s president Walter McCormick in a statement Thursday. “The petition calls for removing long outdated rules, such as those requiring companies to separate local and long-distance business, that prevent carriers from investing in the kind of advanced communications services that consumers want today. ... We believe action on this petition will lead to greater broadband opportunities for American consumers.” Comments on the petition are due Dec. 5, replies Dec. 22 in docket 14-192 (see 1411050047).

Saying Lifeline needs be updated for this century, the Internet Innovation Alliance unveiled in a white paper Thursday some proposed reforms. They include the creation of a Lifeline Benefit Card that would allow eligible consumers to purchase a range of communications services, including broadband, wireline or wireless voice services. While not endorsing any of the specific ideas, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel praised the report in a statement for “kickstarting a conversation about bringing the Lifeline program into the 21st century. Millions of households lack access to broadband today. Rethinking this program can help remedy that.” The study said only wireline phone providers are required to participate. The program "is a 20th Century government program aimed at spreading a 19th Century technology, voice service," said former Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., honorary chairman of the IIA, in a news release. The paper recommended that because providers administer the program and have an incentive to increase enrollment, a governmental agency should determine eligibility and conduct program oversight. The paper recommended including broadband in the program, and providing subsidies directly to customers instead of providers. "Expanding the program to focus on broadband, and simplifying its administration to welcome participation by more service providers, will help millions more Americans access modern communications services," Boucher said in the release.

The FCC grants forbearance in cases in which it finds no dominance in the retail market, said George Ford, chief economist at the Phoenix Center. In the net neutrality issue, the question is different and the agency will have trouble granting forbearance, Ford said. The commission “has explicitly defined the relevant market as 'terminating access' and found that all Broadband Service Providers are 'monopolies' (i.e. 'dominant') in that market,” Ford said. He was responding to criticism from Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, who said the agency would have difficulty forbearing should it take a Communications Act Title II approach to net neutrality rules (see 1411040036).

Comments are due Dec. 5 and replies on Dec. 22 in docket 14-192 on USTelecom’s Oct. 6 petition (see 1410070050) for forbearance from “’various outdated regulatory requirements applicable to incumbent local exchange carriers,’” said a public notice Wednesday.

The inclusion of “urban clusters” in the definition of “urban” in the FCC E-rate modernization order could pose problems for rural schools, NTCA Senior Vice President–Policy Michael Romano, other NTCA and local E-rate officials told aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Ajit Pai, Managing Director Jon Wilkins and several Wireline Bureau officials in separate meetings Oct. 28, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 13-184. Romano also spoke with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Oct. 29, the filing said. Because rural schools can get additional funding, the categorization of schools in the clusters as urban “will result in significant shifts in E-rate support for many small schools and libraries that dot the sparsely-populated rural landscape,” said NTCA. Also involved in the Oct. 28 meetings were Brian Ford, NTCA regulatory counsel; Debra Kriete, the South Dakota E-rate coordinator; and Julie Tritt Schell, the Pennsylvania E-rate coordinator, on behalf of the State E-rate Coordinators Alliance, the filing said.

Paid prioritization might not always slow non-prioritized traffic, and the FCC could run computer simulations to “determine to a high degree of accuracy the actual effects of prioritization on wide classes of traffic,” University of Nebraska assistant law professor Justin Hurwitz told FCC Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan Friday, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-28. “There are many reasons that prioritization is not 'zero sum' -- indeed, there are circumstances under which prioritization of some traffic may improve the performance of all other traffic.”

Comments are sought on petitions by Allscripts-Misy Healthcare Solutions and Francotyp-Postalia for a retroactive order on Junk Fax Act requirements to include an opt-out notice in fax ads, said the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau in a public notice on Tuesday. The bureau last week granted retroactive orders (see 1410300047) to previous petitioners but said similarly situated companies could also seek the waivers. Comments are due in docket 02-278 Nov. 18, replies Nov. 25.

LECs that partner with over-the-top VoIP providers shouldn't be allowed to collect local end-office switched access charges, Verizon Assistant General Counsel-Federal and State Legal Affairs Curtis Groves and Executive Director-Federal Regulatory Affairs Alan Buzacott told aides to Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai Oct. 30, said an ex parte filing in FCC docket 10-90. An order being circulated at the FCC would say LECs and VoIP providers are entitled to the access charges (see 1410280032), but Verizon argued neither LECs nor VoIP providers perform "the necessary switching, or controls the switching decisions, that route a VoIP call to (or from) the VoIP customer over the broadband line that connects to the end user’s premises.” Companies that provide “over-the-top VoIP services -- e.g., Skype and Vonage -- have not invested in facilities to serve the end user customers who initiate and receive voice calls. Neither have their LEC partners,” Verizon said. ISPs, not the LECs or VoIP providers, “own, control, or maintain the physical routers, lines, and other equipment that performs analogous switching functions,” Verizon said. Also representing Verizon was Kellogg Huber’s Scott Angstreich, said the filing. Level 3 “uses the exact same facilities to provide local switching for calls terminated to TDM loops, over cable VoIP facilities and over-the-top,” Harris Wiltshire’s John Nakahata, representing Level 3, wrote in a letter to the agency sent and posted on Monday. To allow the access charges terminated to TDM and cable VoIP facilities, but not over-the-top VoIP, “moves in exactly the wrong direction” from the agency’s USF overhaul order, he said.

The FCC’s past actions prevent the agency from “using its forbearance authority as a way to establish some sort of ‘Title II Lite’” on net neutrality, said a Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies press release Monday about a new study by the organization. The study, Section 10 Forbearance: Asking the Right Questions to Get the Right Answers, said “the agency's Phoenix [Arizona] Forbearance Order rejects the validity of forbearance in the presence of either monopoly or duopolistic competition. Given the Commission's repeated finding that Broadband Service Providers are ‘terminating monopolists’ as a justification for implementing Open Internet Rules, the Commission cannot reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service and then easily use its forbearance authority to create what is colloquially referred to as ‘Title II Lite,’" the release said. Also, Verizon responded to Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld’s blog post that said forbearance is so easy it makes him “want to puke.” Verizon on its blog Monday pointed to Friday’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision turning down Verizon and AT&T’s petition challenging the commission’s denial of a forbearance petition (see [Ref.1410310055]) to make the point that the court and the FCC “have provided more evidence that the forbearance process is nauseating, but not because it is easy,” wrote Verizon Senior Vice President for Public Policy Craig Silliman. “It is a mark of true desperation to portray a decision affirming the FCC's vast discretion on forbearance as somehow limiting discretion,” Feld responded in an email. “What part of ‘the court affirmed the FCC’ do you not understand?”

Level 3 Communications completed its acquisition of tw telecom, said the acquirer in a news release Friday. The companies had argued through the regulatory approval process that the deal would make the combined company more competitive, a position with which the FCC agreed in granting approval last week (see 1410270047). Level 3 President Jeff Storey said "the combination of tw telecom's rich metro footprint with Level 3's global network, positions the company to provide local-to-global business solutions and deliver a world-class customer experience." The release said tw telecom stockholders are receiving $10 of cash and 0.7 shares of Level 3 common stock for each share of tw telecom common stock owned.