Uniti Group agreed to acquire Bluebird Network fiber through a partnership with Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, Uniti and Bluebird said Tuesday. Bluebird has 178,000 fiber strand miles in the Midwest across Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Uniti will buy Bluebird’s fiber network for $319 million, and Macquarie will acquire Bluebird operations for an undisclosed price. Uniti agreed to sell operations of its existing Midwest fiber to Macquarie, and will lease that fiber and Bluebird’s fiber to Macquarie for $20.3 million annually with a 20-year initial term and multiple renewal options, it said. It’s expected to close by the end of Q3, subject to regulatory OKs and other customary conditions, Uniti said. “The deal structure can be replicated with other operating partners in the future and today’s announcement lays the foundation for similar transactions,” Uniti CEO Kenny Gunderman said. Uniti is weighing sale of its Latin America tower business after getting inquiries from unnamed third parties for the company’s 500 towers in Mexico, Colombia and Nicaragua. Such a move would let Uniti focus on the U.S., Gunderman said.

Comtech's planned buy of Solacom Technologies strengthens its next-generation 911 position, Noble Capital Markets analyst Joe Gomes wrote investors Wednesday. The $33 million buy of the NG-911 solutions provider is expected to close in fiscal Q1 ending April 30, subject to customary closing conditions, Comtech said Tuesday.

PDR Network said its junk fax case in the Supreme Court rests on a "simple" premise that when Congress vests a federal court with power to impose liability for alleged statutory violations, it ordinarily also intends to vest the court with power to determine the statute's meaning. PDR said a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision "proceeds from the opposite premise," reading the Hobbs Act to strip jurisdiction from U.S. district courts "to consider dispositive statutory questions" because an agency had weighed in on those questions. The appellate court "thus treated the Hobbs Act as though it gives agencies, rather than courts, the final word as to what federal law means," the petitioner told the high court Tuesday in PDR Network v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, in docket 17-1705. "The Fourth Circuit was wrong to ascribe such revolutionary meaning to a statute as ordinary as the Hobbs Act." Carlton & Harris sued PDR after receiving its fax advertising a digital version of a physician's reference book. The Supreme Court in November agreed to review whether the act required a district court to accept an FCC "unsolicited advertisement" interpretation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see 1811130027).

Free State Foundation again urged the FCC to use "rebuttable presumptions" to eliminate "obsolete" rules, as it said Congress intended in Telecom Act forbearance and regulatory review provisions. "Use of deregulatory rebuttable presumptions would be a fairly modest but nevertheless important regulatory reform procedural measure that is consistent with the Trump Administration FCC's efforts to eliminate regulations that are not necessary to protect consumers or competition," said President Randolph May in a paper Tuesday. He noted Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's recent process proposals (see 1812200061) included implementing "a deregulatory presumption when reviewing and implementing rules and forbearance requests."

Windstream plans to bring fiber internet services, with speeds up to 1 Gbps, to about 100,000 commercial locations in 16 states, "largely" in Q1. "Approximately one third of commercial locations, primarily small and medium-sized businesses, across Windstream’s rural footprint will have access to Gig services, up from the current 1 percent," the telco said Monday.

Verizon is offering Fios customers McAfee security for its Home Network Protection (HNP), it said Monday. It's said to protect against malicious websites, includes parental controls and protects devices connected to the home network. Users can monitor security activity through the MyFios app. HNP is available through Verizon’s Quantum Gateway Router.

Several requests to discontinue telecom services won't be automatically granted due to the government shutdown (see 1901020048), said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice Thursday in docket 18-324 and others. The Communications Act Section 214 discontinuance applications were from Big Bend Telephone, Windstream, Worldwide Telecommunications and Verizon Delaware. After the resumption of normal operations, the bureau expects to release a PN indicating when the applications will be deemed granted barring further action. This PN also said an application to transfer control of Section 214 licenses from Greenway Communications to H3 Mortgage was removed from streamlined processing. Comments due in any of the proceedings during the shutdown will be due on the second day of normal operations.

Uniti Fiber said its lines were cut at least 33 times by Gulf Power and its contractors and subcontractors in Florida areas hit by Hurricane Michael in October, disputing recent comments by Gulf Power and its then-parent Southern Co. (here and here). "Any claim that these companies cut Uniti Fiber’s telecommunications plant only four times is demonstrably spurious," filed Uniti Thursday, responding in FCC docket 18-339. Gulf Power outside counsel Eric Langley Friday said the Uniti letter is under review. Gulf Power said Dec. 17 the only entities that complained directly to it about fiber cuts during the recovery were Uniti and its carrier customer, Verizon Wireless. "Gulf Power’s own investigation revealed that no more than 4 of these alleged fiber cuts were attributable to Gulf Power (including its contractors and mutual assistance crews)," it commented: "The vast majority of the alleged fiber cuts likely were caused by road-clearing crews within the first 48 hours after the storm." Verizon's comments said the "storm's devastating impact" made coordination initially difficult with Gulf Power, when both fiber and electric power crews raced to restore service. Verizon said fiber was often strung through trees and on the ground on an interim basis as Gulf Power deployed thousands of workers and contractors in a "herculean effort" to replace about 5,600 utility poles: Coordination improved thereafter, as "Verizon worked with Gulf Power in an effort to stop the cuts and also launched a public relations campaign" on the need to avoid cutting fiber. Gulf Power is now owned by NextEra Energy.

Thirteen more rural telcos serving tribal lands are eligible for FCC relief from USF operational expense restrictions, beyond the five carriers identified in April and Mescalero Apache Telecom, whose petition for reconsideration was granted Monday (see 1901020033). The 13 are eligible for opex relief under an April order establishing certain broadband limits, "even though they were not affected by the previous opex cap," said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 10-90. The newly identified carriers are Atlas Telephone, Beggs Telephone, Bixby Telephone, Cherokee Telephone, Cheyenne River Sioux, Lavaca Telephone, Oklatel Communications, Sacred Wind Communications, San Carlos Apache, Shidler Telephone, Tohono O'odham Utility, Totah Communications and Wyandotte Telephone. Sacred Wind petitioned the FCC to reconsider a 90 percent 10/1 Mbps broadband deployment limit (carriers eligible for relief have to be under that threshold), or, if the limit is retained, to find that Sacred Wind was eligible for relief. That petition was "rendered moot" by the PN, said a commission spokesperson Thursday, before the FCC shut down most operations. A Sacred Wind representative didn't comment. Pine Telephone, Terral Telephone, Gila River Telecommunications, Fort Mojave Telecommunications and Saddleback Communications were also listed in the PN. They were the five carriers identified in April as eligible for relief.

The FCC denied a Sandwich Isles Communications request to reconsider a 2016 order saying the Hawaiian telco received $27.3 million in improper USF payments from 2002 to 2015, which it was ordered to repay (see 1612060032). Sandwich Isles petitioned for reconsideration (see 1701050068) of "virtually all aspects" of the order, arguing the FCC ignored its legal arguments and factual submissions, "but in fact, the Commission painstakingly responded to those arguments and submissions and deemed them unpersuasive," said the unanimous agency order issued Thursday in docket 10-90. It was adopted Dec. 4; no commissioner statements were attached. "SIC fails to take account of the text of the [Communications] Act and the reasonable policies underlying the Commission’s universal service rules, which among other things preclude recovery for facilities that are not actually used to provide service in covered areas," said the new order. "While SIC points to evidence that it claims shows that its cost accounting did in fact comply with Commission rules, that evidence is either incomplete, unpersuasive, or else outright contradictory to other facts and claims made elsewhere by SIC." The commission remains committed "to service for customers on the Hawaiian Home Lands," the order added. "SIC still has ongoing obligations to its customers, under both the Communications Act and Commission rules, to continue to provide interstate telecommunications services. SIC may not discontinue service without our express authorization. Nor, however, may SIC ignore our accounting rules and universal service safeguards going forward." An SIC representative didn't comment.