Cisco asked the FCC to restore the five-year budgets for E-rate category 2 services and recognize that network security capabilities are a necessary and integral part of networks, in a filing posted Thursday to docket 13-184. Cisco officials met with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Brendan Carr. The FCC has an order on circulation (see 1910290016). Stakeholders overwhelming favor stability in the E-rate program (see 1911070065).
Mississippi re-elected Public Service Commission Chairman Brandon Presley (D), while electing two Republican commissioners -- Brent Bailey and Dane Maxwell -- in Tuesday’s election. Bailey and Maxwell “are dedicated hard-workers and I know that we are headed for four years of great things for the people of MS,” tweeted Presley, a NARUC executive committee member. Kentucky and Virginia election results could be good news for net neutrality supporters. Andy Beshear (D), who claimed victory in Kentucky’s gubernatorial election despite Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's not conceding, was one of the state attorneys general who challenged the FCC’s 2017 net neutrality repeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That court recently ruled the FCC couldn’t stop states from making their own policies, encouraging some state Democrats (see 1910240024). But Daniel Cameron (R) is taking the Beshear's AG seat, and the GOP controls both houses of the legislature. Virginia, which already had a Democratic governor, flipped both legislative houses to make a blue trifecta. “Virginia is very much on the radar after yesterday’s election,” emailed Gigi Sohn, fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy. National Regulatory Research Institute Telecom Principal Sherry Lichtenberg said it’s hard to predict what will happen. “Although Kentucky joined the state AG appeal, I’m not sure that this will result in state legislation,” and “Virginia has been doing a great deal of work in broadband mapping,” but NRRI hasn’t “seen any movement on net neutrality there,” she emailed. Colorado's Edgewater, Greenwood Village, Lakewood, Mead, Parker and Rico voted to opt out of SB-152, a 2005 state restriction on municipal broadband, emailed Colorado Municipal League Legislative and Policy Advocate Brandy DeLange. “These elections results track with the previous 100+ communities that have passed similar questions,” showing “constituents want faster, better, reliable broadband and that they are comfortable with their local government beginning that conversation.” The vote was narrow in Lakewood, with 50.44 percent in favor. People from Fort Dodge, Iowa, voted to establish a muni telecom utility, and Holyoke, Massachusetts, residents supported a nonbinding referendum showing public support for municipal broadband, emailed Institute for Local Self-Reliance Community Broadband Networks Director Christopher Mitchell. It shows “people really wanting better options for Internet access than the cable and telephone monopolies, even in areas that the FCC would consider to be well served,” he said.
That Iowa Network Services (Aureon) is now subject to both ILEC and CLEC rate regulation though it historically was regulated only as a dominant carrier will keep it from charging what it needs to for providing centralized call access service and thus will be unable to attract capital or maintain its network. That according to Aureon in an initial brief to be posted in docket 19-1087 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the company's challenge of the FCC February tariff rate order (see 1904180053). Aureon said no carrier challenged its 2013 tariff rate, nor did the FCC, and the agency retroactively voiding that rate violates law and court precedent. The FCC didn't comment Monday.
Comments are due at the FCC Dec. 4, replies Dec. 19, on a Sorenson request for clarification or waiver on whether enterprise and public videophones used to access video relay service are subject to rules requiring the administrator of a telecommunications relay service user registration database to remove data of any user who has neither placed nor received a VRS or point-to-point call in a one-year period, the agency said Monday.
Frontier Communications and its Navajo Communications can't negotiate rights-of-way agreements that the Bureau of Indian Affairs told them they need to deploy fiber on Navajo land, the companies petitioned the FCC in docket 10-90, posted Friday. Frontier asks for a waiver of obligations to meet 80 percent broadband deployment obligations for 2019 in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah under the USF Connect American Fund II program. The Navajo Nation didn't comment.
An FCC Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau order granted limited waiver of expiration of an at-home call handling pilot program for video relay service, extending the program through April 30, or the effective date of an FCC decision on at-home call handling, whichever comes first, posted in docket 10-51 and in Thursday's Daily Digest. Some say the VRS pilot needs evaluation (see 1909050046).
CenturyLink wants municipal or cooperative utilities that win or partner to win support from the USF Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to be required to provide access to their poles to telecom providers consistent with FCC pole attachment rules, it posted Thursday in docket 17-84. "Unreasonable rates, terms, and conditions for access to municipal and cooperative utility poles have persisted due to the absence of meaningful regulatory oversight at the federal, state and local levels."
The FCC released an order Wednesday deleting two tariff rules, approved last week 5-0 with little discussion (see 1910250036). The draft and final order were virtually the same, based on a side-by-side comparison. Only Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly submitted statements. “In short, when it comes to eliminating outdated rules, this Commission has gotten the memo,” Pai said. The rule allows a carrier to cross-reference its own tariffs with those of affiliates and removed a requirement providers file a “short form tariff review plan,” 90 days before the effective date of their annual access charge tariffs.
The FCC declaratory ruling on regulatory 911 fee parity between traditional voice and VoIP services, posted Wednesday on docket 19-44 after a unanimous commissioners' vote Friday (see 1910250063), showed no changes from the draft, according to our side-by-side comparison.
The FCC Wireline Bureau granted petitions from rate-of-return carriers Lakeland Communications and Sunflower Enterprises for waivers of intercarrier compensation rules to let the LECs merge study areas, in an order posted Monday on docket 19-103. Sunflower wants to join two commonly owned study areas in Mississippi: Sledge Telephone and Lakeside; Lakeland wants to merge two commonly owned study areas in Wisconsin: the Luck study area code and Milltown's.