The FCC is making the nearly 2.5 million net neutrality reply comments it received available in a zipped XML file, Gigi Sohn, Chairman Tom Wheeler’s special counsel for external affairs, wrote in a blog post Wednesday (http://fcc.us/1zkXRmz). The proceeding’s initial comments are also being released in a zipped XML file, she said. Noting that researchers, journalists and others like Quid, Sunlight Foundation and TechCrunch have analyzed the agency's data “so that the public and the FCC itself could discuss and learn from the comments,” Sohn wrote that the agency encourages “those with the requisite technical skills to analyze the raw data and build visualizations or other tools and to share them with the public. This will help the FCC and the public have a more fully formed understanding of the content and source of the reply comments.” In sum, the FCC received 3.9 million comments in the initial and reply rounds.

The “rants and wails of Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T over net neutrality" are like “Chicken Little, Henny Penny, and Ducky Lucky rushing to warn their friends of impending doom," wrote former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who is special adviser to Common Cause's Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, on the Benton Foundation’s blog (http://bit.ly/1x9Zv5b) on Wednesday. “'The sky is falling, the sky is falling,' they clucked and quacked ... But the sky wasn’t falling; it was just a tiny acorn bouncing harmlessly off Chicken Little’s head,” Copps wrote. The FCC’s decision on whether to base net neutrality rules on Title II “is much less dramatic than ‘The Sky is Falling ISP Threesome’ endlessly contend,” wrote Copps. “It is whether to ensure that the government agency charged since the 1920s with protecting consumers, competition, and innovation in telecom still retains these responsibilities in the advanced telecom world of the broadband era,” he wrote. “Why anyone other than self-interested businesses would ever have argued otherwise has always been beyond me, but three successive chairmen of the FCC bought into the idea out of some bizarre combination of ideology and industry friendliness.” AT&T, Comcast and Verizon had no immediate comment. Those who argue reclassification under Title II would be easy are “at best, naïve,” wrote Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology Executive Director Fred Campbell on his organization’s blog (http://bit.ly/1sQg19M) Wednesday. Campbell wrote that he met with members of the FCC’s General Counsel’s office, arguing among other things that broadband does “not meet the statutory definition of 'telecommunications.'” The meeting was Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-28 (http://bit.ly/1DBtUgQ).

An FCC order on circulation would modify complaint and pole attachment rules to implement a 2011 order (see 1102080088) to begin making Communications Act sections 208 and 224 complaints available on the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS), an agency spokesman told us. No more details were available on the proposed rule changes, but several industry attorneys told us at first glance the item does not seem significant. The 2011 order required the docketing and electronic filing of all new Section 208 formal complaints against a common carrier and new Section 224 pole attachment complaints. The Enforcement Bureau at the time said it was delaying implementing the order because the commission’s “formal complaint rules and pole attachment rules must be modified in certain respects to facilitate the docketing and electronic filing changes,” a public notice about the order said (http://bit.ly/1nzihmw). Making complaints available on ECFS would allow complaints to be examined without going to the agency, the spokesman said. “By moving things to the electronic docket, more folks can review, and perhaps learn more as to the status of pole attachment agreements and disputes,” said Best Best attorney Gerard Lederer, who represents municipalities.

A study on the one-time costs of deploying fiber to schools and libraries submitted by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition supports the coalition's contention that additional E-rate funding is needed to connect schools and libraries to scalable, high-capacity broadband, said a Friday letter the group sent to the FCC, posted in docket 13-184 (http://bit.ly/1vW7LJ2) Monday. Investing in state-of-the-art fiber networks will save money in the long run, because the recurring costs of operating such networks are often less than the costs of maintaining outdated network technologies, said the SHLB Coalition. It said the study also documents the need to close the broadband gap between urban and rural areas.

AT&T should be required to make public the timeline of its IP trials, Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney Jodie Griffin and Edyael Casaperalta, an Internet rights fellow at the organization, told FCC Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Matthew DelNero Oct. 9, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 12-353 (http://bit.ly/1ptVHaO) Friday. Making the timeline public is important to allow stakeholders to give “meaningful input on the proposals,” Public Knowledge argued. An objective third party should be used to collect and evaluate data from the trials, and the agency should heed any concerns the third party raises about the trial’s design before allowing it to continue, Public Knowledge said.

Toshiba’s Telecommunication Systems Division said its VIPedge cloud-based business telephone system is now eligible for the FCC’s E-rate program, meaning it will be available to schools and libraries “at a significant discount.” Thousands of schools nationwide already use Toshiba’s IPedge and Strata CIX business telephone systems, which “can be networked together for a Hybrid Cloud solution, enabling a comprehensive, integrated solution for schools, school districts and libraries,” said Brian Metherell, Toshiba general manager-Telecommunication Systems Division, in a Tuesday news release.

Comptel’s request for the FCC to act on long-term “lock down” special access contracts 1409230002 “would be both unlawful and a waste of resources” before the FCC finishes its special access data collection effort, AT&T said in a letter to the agency, posted as an ex parte filing in docket 05-25 Monday (http://bit.ly/1veijSq). “The competing carriers have a good reason for trying to jump the gun on the Commission’s data collection: the real-world data will undoubtedly show that these carriers have many marketplace alternatives,” AT&T said. Requiring a re-write of the contracts would be illegal, AT&T said, because “the type of terms and conditions attacked by complaining carriers are common both in the industry and in competitive industries throughout the country.”

AT&T said it will expand its U-verse with GigaPower gigabit Internet service into Chicago (http://soc.att.com/ZqTW7a) and four Georgia cities, including Atlanta (http://soc.att.com/ZqTW7a). The other Georgia cities named in Tuesday’s announcement are Decatur (http://soc.att.com/1trFR7x), Newnan (http://soc.att.com/1rtePFb) and Sandy Springs. The five municipalities were part of the list of 100 cities that AT&T identified in April as potential markets for the GigaPower expansion. AT&T said it will release specifics on deployment timing and pricing later.

The Phoenix Center said ithe FCC has consistently reverse or threatened to reverse “the most significant bi-partisan deregulatory achievements of the past two decades” in the past few years, in a study released Tuesday. Recent examples of reversal include the commission’s current consideration of municipal broadband preemption petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the city of Wilson, North Carolina, as well as special access and forbearance, the Phoenix Center said. That “lack of stability in the FCC's policies combined with a pro-regulatory bias at the agency creates an uncertainty that is especially insidious” to incent broadband investment, the Phoenix Center said (http://bit.ly/1z8m7Zh).

XO Communications sought FCC authorization to discontinue services that provide narrowband, dial-up Internet access, due to “a limited number of customers,” in a Section 63.71 application (http://bit.ly/1uRQ77J) posted in docket 14-168 Friday. Affected are consumer dial, corporate dial, wholesale dial, enterprise dial and managed modem services, the company said. The services are expected to be discontinued Nov. 24. They are offered in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and the state of Washington, the application said.