The FCC Wireline Bureau granted several petitions for waivers of the March 1, 2018, deadline for uploading geocoded location data to Universal Service Administrative Co.'s high cost universal broadband (HUBB) portal, in an order Monday in docket 08-71 (see 1906120027). The bureau called the waivers warranted "because the petitioners all describe confusion with the new HUBB filing requirements," and they acknowledged "there may have been technical difficulties with accessing or certifying information in the newly deployed HUBB." Because eligible telecom carriers should be familiar with HUBB procedures by now, the bureau said, it's unlikely to grant similar petitions in the future. Waivers went to Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative, Fremont Telcom, Cascade Utilities, Trans-Cascades Telephone, Rio Virgin Telephone, Farmers Mutual Telephone, Ketchikan Public Utilities, North-Eastern Pennsylvania Telephone, Olin Telephone, Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative, Manawa Telephone, Sand Creek Communications, Telephone Electronics, Westphalia Telephone and West River Telecom.

Aureon Network Services asked the FCC to reconsider a recent order eliminating access arbitrage (see 1909300023), in a petition filed Wednesday in docket 18-155.

Verizon filed two notices of formal complaint with the FCC Enforcement Bureau Wednesday, one against Metropolitan Edison, Pennsylvania Electric and Penn Power (EB-19-MD-008), the other against Potomac Edison (EB-19-MD-009). The first group of defendants must answer the complaint by Dec. 20, replies from Verizon are due Dec. 30, and the parties are scheduled to meet for a status conference Jan. 30. Potomac Edison must answer the complaint by Dec. 23, the FCC said, and Verizon must answer by Jan. 2. A status conference is scheduled for Feb. 3.

The FCC proposes precluding anyone or entity debarred or suspended from a government funding program such as the USF from serving on an FCC advisory committee "or comparable Commission groups or task forces," said the final NPRM on docket 19-309 and in Tuesday's Daily Digest. That's an addition from the initial draft.

An NPRM to modernize telecom network unbundling and resale requirements seeks "comment more generally on the impact of the Commission policy changes, including the recently concluded USTelecom forbearance proceeding, on the voice and broadband marketplace," the FCC said Tuesday in the Daily Digest for docket 19-308.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied a motion for stay by Great Lakes Communication and other CLECs that seek review of a recent FCC order revamping access stimulation rules, in Great Lakes Communication v. FCC, the court said Monday in case 19-1233 (in Pacer). It said petitioners "have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review" (see 1911150006).

A Vermont agency's ignoring customer-service improvements by Consolidated Communications, the incumbent complained in a Friday reply at the Public Utility Commission in docket 18-3231-PET. The Department of Public Service (DPS) urged the PUC this month to require Consolidated to pay customers an automatic enhanced bill credit of $5 daily for troubles not cleared in 24 hours (see 1911010065). The department provides no legal authority to support its request for enhanced bill credits, nor “any factual support for its claim that such future, enhanced bill credits will ‘incentivize’ Consolidated,” it said. The PUC has authority to impose penalties for violating commission rules, and it doesn't have to impose them strictly in the way the violated order describes, said DPS in a separate reply Friday. "There is good cause" to "adopt a more meaningful and appropriate remedy in the form of enhanced bill credits," it said. "Unlike penalties that are distributed into the Vermont general fund, enhanced bill credits directly address service quality and are therefore in the public interest."

Standardized compensation rates in traditional video relay services don't cover specialized video relay service costs, the National Association of the Deaf said, posted Wednesday in docket 10-51. Along with NAD, representatives from the Cerebral Palsy and Deaf Organization and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Inc. met Monday with officials from the FCC Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau and the Disability Rights, Managing Director, and Economics and Analytics offices to "express grave concerns with the lack of movement on the trial periods of the provision of deaf interpreters."

If an FCC access stimulation order isn't stayed, it will cause interexchange carriers to "immediately shift their traffic routing and call flows to older, lower-capacity tariffed routes to take advantage of the free service the commission intends to give them," said the petitioner in reply comments Wednesday in Great Lakes Communication v. FCC, case 19-1233 (in Pacer) before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It said "traffic will suddenly be forced onto routes that are not engineered to handle the traffic volumes" and would cause "significant traffic disruptions, impacting all types of calls routed to the Iowa or South Dakota" centralized equal access providers.

The FCC asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to deny the motion for stay by two access-stimulating LECs that petitioned for review of a recent commission order to eliminate access arbitrage (see 1909260055) in Great Lakes Communication v. FCC, (19-1233). The FCC filed Thursday that petitioners "have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits." A stay would harm interexchange carriers and their customers, the agency said. Even if "petitioners could establish that the new rules will substantially harm them, the balance of equities weighs heavily against a stay," the FCC said.