Windstream asked to be dismissed from an Iowa Utilities Board probe of call completion and least-cost routing issues involving Mahaska Communication. Windstream doesn’t provide long-distance services to Mahaska and was unable “to recreate any of the calling or voice issues” that company described, the carrier said Monday in docket INU-2018-0003. “Windstream will cooperate fully,” it pledged, but “does not provide long-distance service to these customers and therefore has little, if anything, to offer in this investigation.”

The Q1 USF contribution factor will edge down to 20.0 percent from Q4's 20.1 percent of carriers' U.S. interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, emailed industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg Sunday. Universal Service Administrative Co. projected USF-applicable telecom revenue for Q1 to be $12.29 billion, $117.5 million lower than in Q4, continuing a long-term downward trend, he said, though Q1 USF demand was also down, producing the slight decline in the factor (see 1811050026). USF revenue for the four quarters ending in Q1 will be $2.17 billion lower than for the four quarters ending in Q1 2018, a 4.1% decline, he added.

The FCC and DOJ disputed a court challenge to a 2017 wireline streamlining order intended to speed transition from copper networks to fiber and other systems, arguing it should be dismissed without merits consideration. Consumer group "petitioners fail to carry their burden to demonstrate" legal standing, the government responded Friday to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Greenlining Institute v. FCC, No. 17-73283. "Claim of 'associational' standing -- supported by only a single, unsubstantiated sentence in their brief -- is insufficient. They also fail to identify any individual member who could show the required elements of standing." Even if standing is established, petitioner "claims uniformly fail," said the agencies, citing commission decisions as "procedurally proper" and "reasonable," including repeal of a de facto copper retirement rule. Intervenor USTelecom backed rollback of "regulations that both were unlawful and unjustifiably slowed the evolution" of communications networks. The commission "fully notified the public of its concerns," triggering "extensive comments, including from Petitioners" and "eliminated rules the agency found had become 'unnecessary impediments to modern transformations in network hardware and technology," argued (in Pacer) the group, also disputing petitioners' standing. Greenlining and other consumer groups argued the FCC arbitrarily and abruptly scrapped telco consumer safeguards (see 1809270036).

ATN International told FCC leadership the best way to help the U.S. Virgin Islands through stage 2 fixed-service USF support for hurricane recovery is through its subsidiary Viya (see 1811080024), the sole ILEC "charged with serving the USVI in its entirety as the last resort and the sole operator of a Territory-wide wireline broadband network." USF support must be "sufficient and stable" in the "USVI where the costs of providing service are high and the economic conditions are challenging," ATN wrote of CEO Michael Prior and others' meetings with Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Brendan Carr and aides to all four commissioners, posted Friday in docket 18-143.

The FCC will probe the ILEC benchmark rate used by South Dakota Network in tariff revisions to its interstate switched access service filed Sept. 17. "We designate for investigation whether SDN is using the correct competing incumbent LEC(s) in calculating its benchmark rate, and whether SDN’s calculated benchmark rate is based on the rate(s) for the appropriate service(s) of the competing incumbent LEC(s)," said a Wireline Bureau order Thursday in docket 18-100. "In the Aureon Tariff Investigation Order, the Commission found that CenturyLink was the competing incumbent LEC Aureon should benchmark to, and not the [National Exchange Cooperative Association]. In its Direct Case, SDN must justify its use of both CenturyLink and NECA as the carriers to which it should benchmark."

The FCC Wireline Bureau approved planned transfer of control of Mitel Cloud Services from Mitel Networks to MLN TopCo, subject to compliance with conditions sought by DOJ and the FBI, said a public notice in docket 18-162 and Wednesday's Daily Digest.

Rural healthcare advocates voiced "frustration with the lack of transparency" in the RHC program "and the pace of funding decisions for 2018 applicants." The application window closed in June "and yet the total demand for funding (which is not difficult to calculate) has not yet been released," wrote John Windhausen, Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition executive director, on meetings he and telehealth representatives had with FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, aides and Wireline Bureau staffers, posted Wednesday in docket 17-310. "No applicants we spoke to had received any funding decisions, and ... the lack of information is making it very difficult for applicants to plan." They cited "possible concern" about a recent Universal Service Administrative Co. statement "indicated that eligible single-year applications would be fully funded, which implies that applicants who did not request single-year funding might not be fully funded."

Facilities-based providers with residential voice service that isn't line-powered must offer subscribers an option for 24 hours of standby backup power for customers premises equipment starting Feb. 13, said an FCC Public Safety Bureau notice in docket 14-174 and Wednesday's Daily Digest. It's pursuant to a 2015 order that has required 8 hours of backup power. The public notice reminded the fixed service providers of duties to disclose service limitations and backup power information to consumers at point of sale and annually.

The FCC unanimously nixed two AT&T requests to revisit orders in its tariff dispute with Aureon Network Services (Iowa Network Services). Commissioners dismissed and denied AT&T's Aug. 30 petition to reconsider a July 31 tariff investigation order by calculating a CLEC benchmark rate for Aureon's centralized equal access service using the mileage that AT&T says CenturyLink, the competing ILEC, would charge. The request "fails on both procedural and substantive grounds," said a reconsideration order Wednesday in docket 18-60. Members dismissed and denied AT&T's Aug. 31 petition to further reconsider an earlier recon order that found a 2012 Aureon tariff remained in effect, absent a showing of improper accounting to hide potential rate-of-return violations. AT&T repeats "many arguments that the Commission has already fully considered and rejected," said a second order on recon, in docket 17-56: It's "too late" for AT&T's new argument that the 2012 tariff rate exceeded a benchmark that took effect July 1, 2013, when it didn't make the claim in its original complaint. AT&T is "reviewing the orders and considering next steps," emailed a spokesperson.

Comments are due Jan. 14, replies Feb. 12 on FCC business data service NPRMs on treatment of incumbent telco transport offerings, says a proposed rule for Thursday's Federal Register (timetable). Responding to a partial court reversal and remand on procedural grounds in August, the FCC in October proposed to scrap ex-ante pricing regulation of price-cap carrier TDM and other special-access transport (see 1810230032). It also sought comment on a pathway for ending such regulation of lower-capacity (DS3 and below) TDM transport of rate-of-return carriers electing a price-cap BDS regime. Meanwhile, a Supreme Court spokesperson confirmed Wednesday the clerk's office hasn't received cert petitions seeking review of the August ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely upholding the deregulatory 2017 BDS order, consistent with expectations (see 1811270060). Monday was the filing deadline.