Alaska Communications Systems announced a $332 million sale to ATN International Monday, ending the agreement it originally had with Macquarie Capital and GCM Grosvenor (see 2012150033). The all-cash transaction is expected to close in Q2, and ACS said it paid the $6.8 million termination fee to Macquarie and GCM. The purchase will "allow us to enhance our expanded fiber network services and drive long-term value," said ACS CEO Bill Bishop.

Reject the National Lifeline Association's writ of mandamus, the FCC urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday regarding Lifeline minimum service standards in case No. 20-1460, saying the agency has "repeatedly responded to concerns that the formula it established in 2016 for calculating the minimum standards for Lifeline-funded mobile broadband services could threaten the affordability of those services" (see 2011300069). NaLA sought to block the commission from raising the standards and claimed the FCC failed to take meaningful action.

Florida's Blue Stream Communications bought ITS Fiber and ITS Telecommunications, it said Wednesday in docket 20-256. The transaction expands Blue Stream's footprint in the state, the company said, announcing the deal. Terms weren't disclosed.

The FCC defended its rulemaking on interexchange carrier compensation rules and access stimulation in a brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Great Lakes consolidated case 19-1233 (see 1911200061). Petitioners "engaged in and profited from access stimulation schemes" that the commission's rules now prohibit, the brief said. The FCC argued "substantial evidence" supports the new rules and alternate tests for access stimulation are reasonable.

Reconsider "factual and legal errors" in finding that Potomac Edison charged Verizon unreasonably high rates (see 2011240037), Verizon urged the FCC. Verizon asked the commission to delete two findings saying the company is advantaged because it has guaranteed access to a subset of Potomac's utility poles under a joint use agreement and is allotted space on unused poles. Verizon also asked for clarification that rental rates be cost-based and that both parties "must conform their rate provision to the Commission's decision." Potomac also filed a petition for reconsideration, saying the FCC may have "overlooked" how it calculates its joint use attachment rates. The filings were in docket 19-355.

The FCC Wireline Bureau revised its rules on accelerating wireline broadband deployment, says Monday's Federal Register. The order redefines "technology transition" to exclude any change in service that "does not result in a discontinuance, reduction, or impairment of service requiring Commission authorization," except in instances of copper retirement.

IBM settled with the FCC and agreed to return $24.25 million to the USF for violations regarding the E-rate program in New York City and El Paso school districts, a consent decree said Wednesday.

The FCC Wireline Bureau exempted seven voice service providers from secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) requirements, said a Wednesday public notice. AT&T, Bandwidth, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Verizon and Vonage received exemptions and must still verify that they met full implementation in the second certification round. The bureau denied Nsight's exemption request.

A coalition of consumer advocates and accessibility researchers raised concerns about CaptionCall’s application to the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to add automatic speech recognition (ASR) to its IP captioned telephone service (see 2011190027). The FCC "continues to place the cart before the horse in approving ASR-based applications," the coalition said in its filing, posted Tuesday in docket 03-123. It noted that the commission hasn't established service quality standards for new IP CTS services. Reply comments are due Jan. 5.

Raise the benchmark in the Section 706 report from 25/3 Mbps downstream/upstream to 100/100, NTCA and the Fiber Broadband Association told the FCC. The FCC “persists in positing that a fixed broadband benchmark of 25/3 Mbps -- the same benchmark it has used for the last five years -- is good enough,” said a Friday filing in docket 20-269. “By any measure, this benchmark does not reflect what American consumers need today, let alone tomorrow,” they said. Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to seek a vote on the report before he leaves Jan. 20 (see 2012160051).