Parties continued to dispute the merits of CenturyLink's petition asking the FCC to allow local carriers and VoIP partners to collect higher end-office switching charges in certain cases even if the VoIP providers don't control last-mile facilities. A court reversed a previous VoIP symmetry order. AT&T (here) and Verizon (here) remained opposed, while CenturyLink (here), Teliax (here), and O1 Communications and Peerless Network (here) argued again for granting the petition. Replies were posted Tuesday and Thursday in docket 01-92, responding to initial comments (see 1806190029). Bandwidth weighed in this time, saying the FCC "should accept the Court’s invitation to explain why the call control functions performed by [LEC] together with its [VoIP] partner are specific to end office switches and affirm its 2015 Declaratory Ruling. Because the Court’s Remand questions whether an [IP] switch also should make physical connections between trunks and loops to meet the functional equivalence test, and the [ILECs] suggest reversing the 2015 Declaratory Ruling on that basis alone, the Commission should reiterate the differences between interconnection in TDM and IP networks and explain why it was not and is not necessary to adopt a distinct functional equivalence criterion for 'interconnection.'"

ZVRS and Purple Communications asked the FCC to clarify that video relay service providers participating voluntarily in a call-handling pilot program using at-home sign-language interpreters don't have to provide 30-day notice of changes in call-center location. Alternatively, they asked to waive the rule and require three days' notice. "Nimbleness is needed in deployment of qualified at-home interpreters in order to quickly ramp up the availability of Communications Assistants ('CAs') in response to user demand," said their request posted Tuesday in docket 10-51. "There is no good policy justification for strict application."

The FCC gave AT&T and Aureon more time for commission-mediated talks to settle their intercarrier compensation dispute. The Enforcement Bureau granted the companies' unopposed motion to extend until July 27 a stay of a review related to an Aureon petition to reconsider an order partially granting an AT&T complaint, said a letter dated Monday in proceeding 17-56. The stay was due to expire Friday (see 1806060042).

The FCC issued an agenda for a Connect America Fund Phase II auction workshop Monday 2-4 p.m., said a public notice Tuesday of the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force, along with the Wireless and Wireline bureaus, in docket 17-182. The agenda includes process overviews and a "walk-through of the CAF II Bidding system." Attendees are "strongly" encouraged to view an online tutorial at the website for Auction 903, set to begin July 24.

ITTA and members voiced their views to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and an aide, who spoke at a membership meeting that included executives of Blackfoot Communications, CenturyLink, Cincinnati Bell, Comporium Communications, Consolidated Communications, Consolidated Companies of Nebraska, Great Plains Communications, Hargray Communications, Ritter Communications and TDS Telecom. "Attendees expressed positions consistent with ITTA’s prior advocacy related to the universal service high-cost program budget for rate-of-return carriers; the need for reforms of the universal service contribution methodology; support for stay of the rural call completion rules adopted in April 2018; proposed Commission action related to 8YY originating access charges; and a proposed Commission rule to withhold federal [USF] disbursements to any USF recipient purchasing equipment or services from any communications equipment or service providers identified as posing a national security risk to communications networks or the communications supply chain," said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90.

Incompas and fiber providers pressed FCC commissioners to reject a USTelecom petition to forbear from requiring large ILECs to provide competitors unbundled wholesale access discounts. The providers "leverage unbundled network elements (UNEs) in key places while they are entering a market and building out their fiber networks," said a filing on a meeting with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly attended by executives of IdeaTek, Sonic Telecommunications, Socket Telecom, Mammoth Networks, First Communications and Access One, posted Tuesday in docket 18-141: If some "experience significant price increases, similar to those they faced" after business data service deregulation, "it could eliminate their ability to provide critical services." Some met Commissioner Brendan Carr (here), an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (here) and Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1807020046). USTelecom and Windstream proposed to delay UNE elimination until February 2021 (see 1806260028).

Comments are due July 16, replies July 23, on the planned sale of Inmate Calling Solutions from TKC Holdings to Securus, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice Monday in docket 18-193.

Comments are due Sept. 4, replies Oct. 1, on an FCC toll-free 8YY call Further NPRM on intercarrier compensation arrangements, under a proposed rule in docket 18-156 scheduled for Tuesday's Federal Register (calendar). The FNPRM released June 8 proposes a three-year transition for 8YY originating end-office and tandem switching and transport charges to bill-and-keep under which carriers don't pay each other. FCC technical amendments in docket 10-90 and in Monday's FR correct errors in rules providing high-cost USF relief from operating-expense restrictions to some tribal-oriented carriers.

USTelecom proposed updated methodology for distributing USF voice subsidies in high-cost and extremely high-cost areas not otherwise supported by Connect America Fund Phase II. The group proposed distributing $105 million in annual high-cost USF funding as the starting budget for the voice support -- equal to $95 million in frozen support currently given to price-cap ILECs and $10 million to account for Alaska Communications support. There would be another $35 million in transition support the first year that would be phased out by year three. USTelecom said it and incumbent telco members previously submitted proposals for how the FCC should support price-cap ILEC voice services for unsubsidized locations not given voice-related USF forbearance relief from eligible telecom carrier (ETC) voice duties in states where they accepted model-based CAF II support offers. This plan "encapsulates those areas but also expands to encompass other high cost areas that will remain unsupported after the CAF II Auction" (scheduled to start July 24), said a filing posted Monday in docket 10-90. "This expansion required a fresh look towards a simple and readily implementable interim proposal." Otherwise, it said, price-cap ILECs will have an "unfunded ETC obligation" where not replaced as ETC.

Incompas and IdeaTek Telecom urged the FCC to dismiss a USTelecom petition for forbearance relief from unbundling discounts and other wholesale regulations, but Windstream and CenturyLink Link backed the petition. IdeaTek CEO Daniel Friesen told FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Kansas native, that his company focuses on deploying fiber to the home and small businesses in underserved areas of rural Kansas, with plans to invest "even more significantly" in coming years, said an Incompas filing posted Monday in docket 18-141. "Continued access to unbundled network elements [UNEs] is crucial to his ability to continue to provide, and expand, these vital services in unserved and underserved areas," it said. Friesen "focused on his use of the unbundled dark fiber interoffice transport." Incompas and IdeaTek said other fiber builders need UNE access. Windstream, which jointly proposed a three-year transition for eliminating such duties (see 1806260028), met with Pai and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Brendan Carr, said postings Friday (here, here, here): "The proposal represented a reasonable compromise between parties with competing interests and that the transition period specified therein reflected the minimum amount of time necessary." CenturyLink discussed UNE details with Wireline Bureau staffers in response to their questions about the data the company provided to USTelecom in support of its petition, said a posting Monday: "CenturyLink has not discontinued the provision of DSL in any market where it has been made available, and we are not aware of any case in which a carrier customer is utilizing UNEs purchased from CenturyLink to provide DSL in areas where CenturyLink itself does not provide DSL."