ITTA urged the FCC to give eligible rural telcos more than one chance to opt out of rate-of-return business data service regulation, apparently modifying its previous calls for an annual opportunity. AT&T said it's "reasonable" for RLECs to have a single opportunity as contemplated in a draft order scheduled for a vote at Tuesday's FCC meeting (see 1810110018). ITTA also discussed the rate of return that would apply to the BDS offerings of carriers not electing incentive-based regulation, said its filing on calls its officials had with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, posted Friday in docket 17-144. TDS Telecom urged an annual RLEC opportunity to opt out of RoR BDS regulation, in calls and voicemails to aides to all four commissioner aides. Speaking with a Wireline Bureau staffer, AT&T said the FCC "is poised to resolve the regulatory status of eligible carriers’ low speed TDM transport, and the issue does not mandate the opportunity for annual opt-in in perpetuity, particularly given the risks of gaming the Commission has identified."

The FCC expects to "fully fund" all eligible rural healthcare provider requests for single-year support in funding year 2018 under its $581 million budget, Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday at a Connected Care Health Conference in Boston. "Every rural clinic or hospital seeking to lower its cost of service for this next year is eligible for full funding," he said. "We’re aiming to end waste, fraud and abuse in the program. Each program dollar that’s wasted is by definition a dollar that isn’t going to improve digital health. And unfortunately, some carriers have been treating the program as a piggy bank to be raided and haven’t been complying with our rules. To date, we’ve made real progress in rooting out this abuse, including by taking enforcement actions, and we’re not going to let up until the problem is solved."

CenturyLink said its sale of ex-Level 3 fiber network assets in Tucson to FirstDigital Telecom is complete. It's the last of three metropolitan divestitures DOJ required, CenturyLink said Tuesday, citing its 2017 takeover of Level 3.

The FCC revised Part 36 jurisdictional separations rules to let all telecom carriers "use the simpler" processes previously reserved for smaller carriers. "We harmonize our Part 36 rules with the Commission’s previous amendments to our Part 32 accounting rules," said a unanimous order released Wednesday in docket 14-130. The amendments "further our goal of updating and modernizing our rules to eliminate outdated compliance burdens on carriers," it said. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said federal-state joint board members "may disagree on how to pursue long-term separations reform," but he's "encouraged by the Commission’s progress on extending the existing separations freeze." He looks forward to "further actions to eliminate unnecessary and technologically-irrelevant separations burdens."

ITTA said FCC actions to curtail abuse of 8YY originating access fees should be targeted, not derived from a Further NPRM's "overreaching proposals." Some midsize telco members' 8YY originating access minutes dropped 20-50 percent 2011-2016, despite continued heavy toll-free traffic, "suggesting that there should be standards the Commission can establish to help pinpoint sources of 8YY abuse and arbitrage," the group told an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, posted Monday in docket 18-156. It backed the FNPRM's proposal "to allow only one database query charge per 8YY call," but opposed a proposed transition to a bill-and-keep 8YY originating access regime, which would force LECs to "absorb the revenue loss or recoup the lost revenues from customers." ITTA met last week with aides to Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Brendan Carr (here, here).

NTCA said the FCC should approve small carrier relief from broadband testing duties, after no one opposed its application for review of a Wireline Bureau order and the Wireless ISP Association supported it (see 1810090037). The regulations should be limited to require rural providers to test only "network segments that are reasonably within [their] control," the RLEC group replied, posted Monday in docket 10-90. NTCA "ultimately welcomes measures intended to ensure accountability in performance of networks that leverage universal service support" but any testing requirements should "be deferred until such time as equipment that enables rural providers to complete testing in an economically reasonable and administratively efficient manner is available."

Electric utilities asked the FCC to revisit pole-attachment rate and process changes from an August order (see 1808020034 and 1808090011). Revisions are needed "to prevent one set of attachers from benefiting at the expense of the other, to prevent accidental deaths and injury, to safeguard the public, to protect the integrity of the electric distribution system, to reconcile newly-imposed regulations with other conflicting regulations and the Pole Attachment Act, to add efficiencies to speed deployment, and to eliminate unnecessary roadblocks to future broadband deployment," said the Coalition of Concerned Utilities reconsideration petition, posted Tuesday in docket 17-84. It said existing joint-use agreements already give incumbent telcos many advantages over CLEC and cable competitors, so the FCC shouldn't have presumptively given ILECs the same rate in contract renewals or capped their rate at a pre-2011 telecom rate. The petition also seeks changes to FCC decisions on electric space self-help remedies, overlashing, pre-existing safety violations, make-ready estimates, "joint ride-outs," "double wood," contractor specifications, "one-touch make-ready," and completed applications. "Considering the number of moving parts and safety issues with pole attachments, getting everything right takes time," emailed counsel Thomas Magee of Keller and Heckman. The FCC didn't comment.

Puerto Rico Telephone Co. asked the FCC to further hike fixed service USF support in stage 2 of a Uniting Puerto Rico Fund, calling the current proposed increase insufficient to meet its goals. PRTC said the Connect America Cost Model estimates it would take $553 million in annual operating expenses to run a fiber-to-the-premises network to 1.67 million locations, but expected revenue from subscribers would be just $456 million. A proposed $8.4 million increase in annual support to $44.5 million would cover only half the deficit, said the incumbent telco's filing posted Monday in docket 18-143. The carrier proposed an additional "annual budget for fixed providers of $62 million above the existing legacy frozen support for a total of $98 million" annually. "If offered this funding on a right of first refusal basis, PRTC will be prepared to modernize and expand voice and high‐speed broadband service to a specified percentage of locations within a very aggressive timeframe," it said. "With no guarantee of federal funding, PRTC is currently implementing a build‐out plan that effectively replaces the legacy copper distribution network that was destroyed by the hurricanes with fiber and fixed wireless service that is capable of up to 1 gigabit." PRTC met with Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr and aides to all four commissioners, and with Wireline Bureau staffers, said filings posted Friday and Monday (here, here). Competitors opposed giving the ILEC right of first refusal (see 1808090021).

General Communication Inc. blasted an FCC cut in its rural healthcare funding by 26 percent to $78 million for funding year 2017 (see 1810110062). The Wireline Bureau action exceeds its authority "and is based upon unreasonable and unexplained interpretations," and "means GCI will not be compensated for services that have already been delivered to rural health care providers," said the Alaska carrier Friday, noting it intends to pursue all available remedies. President Greg Chapados said the decision "ignores the fact that our services are competitively bid in a competitive market. It also fails to provide any compelling explanation of the methodology behind the reduction in support payments. It does not even set forth the specifics of the methodology.” The Senate moved Thursday to recess until after November elections without confirming Commissioner Brendan Carr to a full five-year term ending in 2023 because of a hold over concerns raised by Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, both R-Alaska, about FCC handling of RHC funding. The senators told us they believe further action to address their concerns is needed beyond granting GCI's funds. An FCC spokesperson emailed: "Carriers that participate in the rural health care program must comply with the Commission's rules, and GCI's requests for funding did not comply with the Commission's rules. But rather than denying GCI's funding requests outright, as could have been done, Commission staff spent an enormous amount of time working with GCI to obtain the information necessary so that CGI could be provided with all justifiable funding, which was $77.8 million of the $105 million originally sought. This process was delayed in some cases by GCI's failure to provide information to Commission staff in a prompt manner and in other cases by GCI providing the Commission staff with inaccurate information."

The FCC said the Lifeline national verifier will launch in five more states and one territory Monday: Hawaii, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Guam. During the soft launch, Lifeline-eligible telecom carriers are allowed but not required to use the national verifier of consumer eligibility for the low-income USF subsidy program, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Thursday in docket 11-42. It said a hard launch requiring NV use will come later. An initial six states in a soft launch period are scheduled to go to a hard launch Nov. 2 -- Colorado, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming -- drawing some concerns (see 1810040045).