The FCC plans to recharter the North American Numbering Council, with an expected starting date this fall, and nominations are due July 8 for membership, said a public notice in Friday's Daily Digest and on docket 92-237. "Prior Councils have provided excellent advice and recommendations on numbering policy and technical issues to the Commission to foster the efficient and impartial administration of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). In its next term, the NANC will continue this ... with a focus on examining numbering in the evolving world of communications." The current NANC meets June 20 (see 1905220045).

NTCA urged FCC officials to adopt both prongs of its proposal to curb terminating access arbitrage in intercarrier compensation and include "appropriate safeguards to protect innocent LECs that do not engage in access stimulation." That resembles comments last summer in docket 18-155 (see 1808060042). The group spoke May 31 with 12 staffers, including Gil Strobel, chief of the Wireline Bureau Pricing Policy Division, and Eric Ralph of Office of Economics and Analytics, said a filing posted Wednesday.

AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, Verizon and USTelecom met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Monday to seek support for USTelecom's petition for forbearance (see 1905130050), the group said, posted to docket 18-141 Thursday. The ILECs ask for relief from continued unbundling of analog loops for resale to competitive LECs and the unbundling of DS1, DS3 loops and digital DS0 loops in areas where cable operators provide robust broadband competition "because retail customers have options for obtaining high-capacity services from at least two providers relying on distinct networks." Attendees included Joan Marsh of AT&T, Ken Mason of Frontier, Kathleen Grillo of Verizon and USTelecom chief Jonathan Spalter. CLECs oppose the petition (see 1906040018). "Contrary to the hyperbole of petition opponents, this is primarily an urban, business issue, not a rural or residential broadband issue," the group said.

The FCC seeks comment on Hamilton Relay's petition to reconsider exogenous cost recovery guidelines when IP captioned telephone service providers collect funds from the interstate telecom relay service (see 1902080054) 15 days after Federal Register publication, replies 10 days later in docket 13-24, said a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau public notice Wednesday. Thursday, a FR notice is to say TRS numbering directory rules take effect July 8 (see in this issue 1906050015).

AT&T wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to side against Iowa Network Services (Aureon) and South Dakota Network in ongoing FCC tariff rate disputes. AT&T asked (in Pacer) the court Tuesday to uphold the agency ruling Aureon is a dominant carrier subject to rate-of-return regulations plus additional obligations under transitional pricing rules, and schedule a proceeding. It asks the D.C. Circuit to continue to hold in abeyance and treat as a separate proceeding a review of an FCC rate from docket 18-60 (see 1905200010). Aureon and SDN want to move forward with court review of the rate disputes (see 1905280057).

Consolidated Communications took adequate steps to remove the cause of a complaint by Brooksville residents (see 1903130002), said Maine Public Utilities Commission staff. It recommended closing docket 2018-00219, in an examiner’s report Monday. It's clear the residents had long-standing, substandard telephone service from Consolidated and predecessor FairPoint Communications, “and that the residents of Brooksville had a difficult and frustrating time trying to get the issues resolved,” said the recommended decision. Outages were “rampant … lasting for a week or more,” but Brooksville residents haven’t complained since January, staff said. “Consolidated's fixes and upgrades in Brooksville, as belated as they were, appear to have solved the vast majority of issues customers were having with their voice telephone service.” The PUC can't address residents' complaints about slow, unreliable internet other than to encourage the company to improve, it said. "The Commission's hands are largely tied” because the state agency “does not have jurisdiction over Consolidated's broadband internet products and cannot require the Company to undertake any specific actions in this regard.” Comments are due June 21.

Incompas and competitive LEC members want the FCC to protect access to unbundled network elements (UNEs) from ILECs, they noted, posted Tuesday in docket 18-141. Members use the UNEs to deliver competitive services to both residential consumers and business customers, offering specialized services that ILECs "cannot or will not provide," Incompas said. Over time, CLECs are able to transition some of their customers to their own fiber-based networks, Incompas added, noted it's more difficult to do so when states approve substantially higher rates that ILECs can charge for UNE access. The Incompas group met with nine FCC staffers, including Wireline Bureau Chief Kris Monteith and Office of Economics and Analytics Associate Chief Eric Ralph, to urge the agency to reject USTelecom's forbearance petition (see 1905130050). USTelecom says forbearance from requirements to sell transport services as UNEs would promote competitive market conditions (see 1905280043).

The FCC is circulating a draft NPRM for its E-rate program that proposes to make permanent a category two budget approach adopted in 2014, a spokesperson said. The 2014 second E-rate order established a five-year pilot program through funding year 2019 to pay for internal connections, such as Wi-Fi, within school and library buildings. The draft NPRM also seeks comment on additional ways to improve the category two budget approach and to reduce administrative burdens on schools and libraries.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau reversed and tossed out slamming complaints against Sprint Nextel and Charter Communications. In the Sprint order on reconsideration Monday, the bureau said the company billed the complainant for usage on its network, but Sprint didn't request a switch of the complainant's line and thus didn't violate slamming rules. In the Charter order on recon Monday, the agency said that as a provider of interconnected VoIP services the company isn't subject to slamming rules and the service involved in the two 2011 complaints was VoIP.

FCC implementation of 2017's Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act (see 1903140051) is effective July 5, with publication in Tuesday's Federal Register.