Advocates for the deaf and hard of hearing said they are concerned about the potential impact of ongoing compensation rate cuts on larger video relay service (VRS) providers, despite the agency's proposed temporary freeze on rates for smaller providers (see 1511030064). "We have seen and been alarmed by the deterioration of the quality of interpreting in VRS calls across the board, which appear to be exacerbated each time the Commission reduces the rates," said the National Association of the Deaf and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, in a filing Tuesday in docket 10-51 on a meeting with commission officials. "Any decision by the Commission to cut rates has the unintended consequence of cutting the quality of services. Instead, rates should be tied to the level of quality of services through the establishment of quality measurements." VRS provides video-connected interpreters for the deaf and hard of hearing to communicate with hearing phone callers. The groups noted commission officials said they hadn't seen a significant number of complaints about VRS service quality. "As consumers unfortunately do not have confidence in the complaint process, we responded that the FCC’s continued reliance on complaints to decide what to do here is vexing, especially given the lack of private rights of action," they said. "Although we are not in a position to objectively determine specific VRS compensation rates and measure whether the rates are reasonable or not, our stance remains that VRS providers must be compensated sufficiently to improve the quality of VRS through innovation, and to adequately train and pay their interpreters."

Comcast of Indianapolis and Duke Energy of Indiana settled a pole attachment dispute, the companies told the FCC Friday. In a joint motion filed in docket 15-290 Thursday, the companies asked the commission to dismiss a related Comcast complaint that said the dispute hurt broadband deployment (see 1511190006 and 1511200026).

CenturyLink asked to intervene in support of Global Tel*Link's court challenge to an FCC inmate calling service order and in cases consolidated with it. The order restricting ICS rates will require providers such as CenturyLink to operate at a loss, the telco said in a motion Friday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. CenturyLink said its harm would be redressed by GTL's challenge. The D.C. Circuit Thursday consolidated GTL's case with a Securus Technologies case (Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461, and Securus Technologies v. FCC, No. 15-1498) (see 1601140068). Both companies and Telmate have asked the FCC to stay its rules pending further judicial review.

Google and Level 3 signed a settlement-free multiyear interconnection agreement for their global backbone networks, the companies said in a news release Friday. Seeking "bit mile balance," the companies "commit to carrying equitable amounts of bit miles," factoring in both traffic amounts and the distance traveled over each network, they said, noting either side can improve its balance by delivering traffic to the other network closer to its end users. The accord also will facilitate growth in interconnection locations, they said. In a note to investors, Wells Fargo analysts said Level 3 had entered into interconnection pacts with AT&T, Comcast, Telefonica and Verizon in 2015. "We view this announcement as an incremental positive for LVLT," they said, referring to Level 3's stock symbol. "We continue to believe Google is an important and growing customer for LVLT in many facets of its business (IP transport, fiber, data center and cloud connectivity, among others)."

The National Exchange Carrier Association backed a FairPoint Communications request for an FCC declaratory ruling on cost recovery the telco said it's due under Connect America Fund (CAF) and intercarrier compensation (ICC) transition rules. "NECA agrees the specific CAF-ICC rules governing such calculations are unclear, and supports issuance of a ruling by the Commission clarifying application of the rules in the particular circumstances faced by FairPoint," said a filing posted Friday in docket 10-90 from the group, which administers certain telco cost-recovery pooling mechanisms. "NECA stands ready to revise and refile with the Commission FairPoint’s [eligible recovery] amounts for the periods beginning January 1, 2015 and forward as directed by the Commission, should the Commission agree with FairPoint." FairPoint, which receives USF support as a price-cap telco but is regulated as a rate-of-return carrier under the ICC transition, said rules to prevent double recovery are unjustly preventing it from collecting $4.2 million in annual revenue it formerly received from local switching support (LSS) (see 1512110070). If the FCC disagrees with FairPoint's interpretation, NECA asked it to clarify that FairPoint isn't entitled to recover LSS-related revenue requirements through NECA pools. The FCC invited comments by Tuesday (see 1512180033).

Global Tel*Link and Securus challenges to the FCC's inmate calling service order were consolidated in a one-sentence order issued Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on its own motion (Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461, and Securus Technologies v. FCC, No. 15-1498). The companies have asked the FCC to stay the order pending judicial review.

The FCC teed up a Global Tel*Link waiver petition seeking an extra 90 days to implement a "no minimum balance requirement" for prisons so it corresponds with the implementation deadline for jails -- duties that were imposed in the agency's inmate calling service order (see 1510220059). The current ICS provider deadline for implementing the requirement for prisons is March 17. "If the waiver were granted, GTL would have until June 20, 2016, to comply with rule 64.6100(a) for both prisons and jails," the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday in docket 12-375. Initial comments on the petition are due Jan. 25, replies Feb. 1. The rule says "no provider shall institute a minimum balance requirement for a Consumer to use Debit or Prepaid calling."

AT&T compared FCC partial relief for telcos to a kid shoveling only half a sidewalk after a snowstorm. In a blog post Wednesday, Vice President-Federal Regulatory Hank Hultquist noted the FCC in December partially denied a USTelecom petition that the agency forbear from applying various regulations, including a request that price-cap ILECs be relieved of universal service obligations where they no longer receive USF support (see 1512170052). “In explaining this denial, the FCC sounds an awful lot like a kid explaining why he shoveled only part of the sidewalk,” he said. “Of course, the FCC knows that it has not provided sufficient universal service support for these high-cost and extremely high-cost areas. But it hopes to escape its responsibility by invoking the farcical claim that price cap ILECs continue to be 'eligible' for other universal service support (e.g., Lifeline) in these areas.” Hultquist termed “ridiculous” FCC arguments that USTelecom didn't make the case for USF relief and that AT&T data was lacking because the agency didn’t adopt a related cost model. "If the FCC doesn’t want to fund universal service obligations in these areas, it should just get rid of them, as USTelecom asked it to do,” he said. “Unfortunately, the FCC appears determined to try to maintain the obligations without taking responsibility for them. I think it’s time for someone -- like an appellate court or Congress -- to tell them to pick up the shovel and do the job right.” AT&T has challenged the order and a related previous order in court (see 1601110036). The FCC had no comment Wednesday. Chairman Tom Wheeler had proposed some extra USF voice support for carriers, but Commissioner Ajit Pai said it was inadequate and an agency majority didn't vote for it.

The FCC Wireline Bureau approved Hawaiian Telcom's compliance plan, said a public notice posted Tuesday in docket 12-61. Hawaiian Telcom's plan appropriately addressed the conditions that are required for the requested forbearance, the bureau said. The telco has been granted forbearance from cost assignment rules, effective immediately. The one exception is the condition involving the affiliate transaction rule, the PN said.

NTCA said many rural carriers can't estimate their company-specific impact of the FCC’s “potential bifurcated approach” to updating rate-of-return USF mechanisms for broadband coverage. Reform details remain unsettled, the RLEC group said, and “average schedule” carriers have access only to “industrywide aggregate ‘price-outs’ that” are unlikely to reflect their particular results, and to their own spreadsheets consisting of “hundreds, if not thousands, of inputs,” which also remain works in progress. “We encouraged the Commission to remain open to simpler, more straightforward ways of achieving the same goals of reform via 'modules' (e.g., new limits or policy changes) that could be applied to any distributional mechanism rather than creating substantial new complexity by remaking the underlying distribution calculations,” NTCA said in a filing on an FCC meeting it had that was posted Monday in docket 10-90. It backed “sensible transitions” to how the costs of prior investments would be treated -- such as operating expense limits -- under an overhaul, including the proposed bifurcated approach, which would generally treat old investments under old rules and new investments under new rules. It's unclear how new limits or caps on prior investments, most of all sunk costs, would be consistent with the bifurcated approach, the group said, but if they're instituted, carriers would need time to adjust.