The FCC canceled a July 25 status conference in MCI v. Wide Voice docket 19-121, a staffer said Tuesday, and requests the parties meet to resolve or narrow their dispute. The FCC wants a joint statement by Friday on stipulated facts, disputed facts, key legal issues, proposals and disputes. Staff wants both parties to identify, together or separately, competing ILECs to which Wide Voice benchmarks terminating tandem switched transport rates.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in a do not call case (17-3156), in a Tuesday decision that Telephone Consumer Protection Act-mandated statutory damages of $1.6 billion would violate the due process clause, and so upheld a reduction. Appellants Ron Golan and Dorit Golan sued ccAdvertising, billionaire religious activist James Leininger and others for a phone campaign dating back to 2012 that left a message recorded by ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on their answering machines. More than 3 million calls were placed during the weeklong campaign. Lawyers in the case didn't comment.

The FCC is sharing illustrative examples of how Universal Service Administrative Co. recovers money from participants in the alternative Connect America model (A-CAM) program that don't provide the highest level of service they contracted to offer to as many locations as promised. It said in docket 10-90 a carrier's flexibility to serve 95 percent of its required obligations by the end of a 10-year term without penalty "may not be disproportionately applied to 25/3 Mbps obligations, rather than its 10/1 Mbps obligations." The agency upholds separate buildout obligations for tribal lands if the participating carrier elects an offer including an adjustment based on the tribal broadband factor: "Failing to enforce separate buildout obligations for Tribal lands would result in windfall support amounts for some A-CAM II carriers and would thwart the Commission's established goal of broadband deployment in rural Tribal communities." Industry raised concerns models used to develop buildout obligations for some rural USF programs don't resemble reality (see 1906210010). Some groups want to make sure a second broadband connection delivered to a residence for a distinct home office or business counts as a location (see 1907110003).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an FCC motion to consolidate several cases filed in court docket 19-1087 on a tariff rate dispute between Iowa Network Services and AT&T (see 1905200010) into case 18-1258, the court said Monday (in Pacer). The D.C. Circuit ordered removed from abeyance case 18-1007, and asked parties to submit within 30 days of a decision on 18-1007 proposed formats for the briefing of the consolidated cases in 18-1258.

A draft FCC order would reform the Rural Health Care USF program, posted in docket 17-310 and in Friday's Daily Digest. The agency said the RHC updates set for an Aug. 1 meeting vote would reform payment distribution, create a database of payment rates based on geography, direct payment to the areas with the most shortages of healthcare providers if demand exceeds a funding cap, and offer more transparency to applicants. The agency said its steps would "clarify the scope of similar services for rate determination, define the geographic contours of urban and comparable rural areas for rate determination, reassign to the administrator the task of determining urban and rural rates for similar services from health care and service providers, reform the determination of rates based on the median of all available rates for functionally similar services, direct the administrator to create a publicly available database for the posting of urban and rural rates, eliminate the limitation on support for satellite services, and eliminate distance-based support."

Broadband provider groups asked the FCC and Universal Services Administrative Co. how to determine when a home-based business is counted as a serviceable location under a USF program (see 1906210010). In comments posted Wednesday and Thursday to docket 10-90, NTCA, ITTA and Midwestern telecom alliances responded to a petition for clarification or declaratory ruling by Northeast Iowa Telephone and Western Iowa Telephone Association on the definition of locations included in the alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM) for residences that also are businesses. NTCA challenged a discrepancy between FCC rules and orders, plus industry practices and realities in rural America, and a USAC FAQ. The USAC document says for a carrier to count a business run out of a house, barn, shed or other structure on a property as a separate serviceable location, there must be a separate facility line or drop to the business apart from that serving the home. NTCA said the FAQ guidance "does not reflect the realities and challenge of deploying networks and delivering services in rural areas." ITTA wants the FCC to rule that home-based businesses registered with a state or other governmental entity and in eligible census blocks "are considered locations and do not require separate subscriptions to facilities to count as such." Such a separate subscription requirement "can be found nowhere in the Commission's rules and orders," said the Iowa Communications Alliance, Minnesota Telecom Alliance and Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association.

American Network and Hammer Fiber Optics Holdings filed to transfer control of the first to the second, posted Monday by the FCC. American Network provides U.S. local exchange service. Hammer subsidiaries specialize in financing and developing fiber and wireless broadband assets (see 1812170040).

Quintillion Subsea Operations asked the FCC to revise the competitive bidding process for its rural healthcare and E-rate programs to give competitive carriers more opportunity to receive funds to provide broadband to schools, libraries and hospitals in Alaska, it said in docket 17-310 posted Tuesday. Executives met last week with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, Wireline Deputy Bureau Chief Trent Harkrader and other Wireline officials to share analysis that showed a single carrier receives 75 percent of the funding in Alaska from the two USF programs. Quintillion proposes the FCC extend the review period of service providers from 28 to 90 days, or at least 60 days, to "allow all service providers appropriate time to evaluate and design cost-effective solutions to service requests."

The FCC released a schedule for a pole attachment complaint that AT&T Florida filed July 1 against Florida Power and Light Co., the agency said Monday in proceeding 19-187. The FCC said because AT&T didn't file the correct formal complaint intake form and the complaint "contains no legal analysis relevant to AT&T's argument that a five-year statute of limitations applies to its claim," AT&T should file an amended complaint by July 12, Florida Power its answer by July 31 and AT&T's replies by Aug. 12. The FCC wants both parties to meet to narrow as many issues as possible, and to file detailed joint statements by Aug. 29. An initial status conference is scheduled Sept. 12, and all discovery and briefing due by Oct. 8.

The FCC should revise an earlier order to allow IP captioned telephone service (CTS) providers to be compensated for additional costs to implement a telecom relay service user registration database, ClearCaptions commented in docket 13-24 posted Wednesday. "There should be no net effect on a company's financials as a result of incurring these incremental costs." CaptionCall cautioned in comments posted Friday that uncertainty of cost recovery "risks significant harm to the IP CTS market" that could reduce service quality if not addressed. Hamilton Relay submitted a petition for reconsideration earlier this year (see 1906050059). IP CTS providers and advocates raised similar concerns (see 1902080054).