The International Connectivity Coalition continues to lobby the FCC to keep 25-year submarine cable system licensing terms and to adopt bright line rules for restricting or prohibiting transactions that have links to a foreign adversary (see 2505200039). In a docket 24-523 filing posted Thursday, ICC reported on a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, at which it also advocated for a fast-track review for parties whose licenses were approved previously.
Comments are due June 6, replies June 16, in docket 03-123 on the telecommunications relay services (TRS) fund administrator’s latest proposed provider compensation formulas and funding requirements, said a public notice Thursday. Rolka Loube Saltzer Associates' proposed formulas would apply from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026. They include per-minute compensation formulas of $7.3512 for interstate traditional TRS, $8.4822 for interstate speech-to-speech relay service, and $3.1893 for interstate captioned telephone service. They also call for a compensation rate of $2.1970 per minute for IP relay service and a total fund requirement of $1,793,361,015 for the 2025-26 fund year.
MoffettNathanson analysts said AT&T’s proposed buy of substantially all of Lumen’s mass-market fiber business for $5.75 billion in cash was a smaller deal than expected (see 2505210078). A deal "was widely expected," but AT&T “proposed a relatively small transaction,” the firm said Thursday: “Lumen is still left with the bulk of its [incumbent local exchange carrier] assets (all its enterprise business, both copper and fiber; all its copper residential plant and subscribers; and all the related infrastructure, like central offices). And AT&T will have a fiber footprint that today reaches only about a quarter of U.S. households, and which, even after eventually meeting all of AT&T’s expansion goals, will be available to less than a third of the country.”
Talton again asked the FCC to approve its petition seeking confidential treatment of its request for a waiver of the agency's rules capping the rates for audio and video for incarcerated people (see 2505090012). Talton, which serves U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, responded this week to a filing from Stephen Raher, principal of Amalgamated Policy Research (AMR) and an advocate of lowering calling rates for prisoners and their families.
The rapid decline in submarine cable wholesale bandwidth prices, which had slowed globally due to supply chain and geopolitical issues, is picking up speed again, TeleGeography wrote Tuesday. It said price erosion is accelerating on some key global routes, as high-capacity submarine cables enter service, but remains slow on other subsea cable routes, where systems have been delayed. Wholesale prices for the U.S.-Latin America route are falling briskly due to the imminent launch of the Google-built Firmina cable and upgrades to existing systems, the analysis said.
The FCC opposed a push by incarcerated persons communications services (IPCS) provider Securus to move the appeal of the FCC’s prison-calling order from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to the 5th Circuit (see 2501280053). The FCC questioned the rationale for the move in a brief posted Wednesday (docket 24-8028).
AT&T reached an agreement with Lumen to buy substantially all the company’s mass markets fiber business for $5.75 billion in cash, AT&T said Wednesday. The business line has about 1 million fiber customers and reaches more than 4 million locations across 11 U.S. states, AT&T said. It said it hopes to close the deal in the second half of this year.
A potential $25.1 million in fines for the surrender of multiple Rural Deployment Opportunity Fund census block groups (CBGs) is "neither reasonable nor proportionate to the harm caused by the forfeiture," Mercury Broadband petitioned Monday (docket 19-126) as it seeks a waiver of RDOF forfeiture penalty rules. Returning the RDOF locations for which it received funding in Auction 904 "was absolutely necessary," Mercury said, pointing to some CBGs already having 100/20 Mbps service. Many of the CBGs awarded were estimated to have far more serviceable locations than are estimated today, "disrupt[ing] the underlying economic foundation of Mercury’s deployment strategy."
Biennial recertifications of incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) study area boundary data are due June 30, the FCC Office of Economics and Analytics and Wireline Bureau said Tuesday. ILECs and state commissions that have volunteered to file study area boundary data on ILECs operating in certain jurisdictions must review and certify that data every two years, according to the public notice.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau sought comment Tuesday on two petitions from ClearCaptions seeking waivers to rules for the IP-captioned telephone service (IP CTS) and the telecommunications relay service (TRS) fund. The company provides IP CTS that's supported by the fund. Comments are due June 19, replies July 7, in docket 03-123.