The FCC should permit hearing consumers to get 10-digit numbers for video relay service phones, said the National Association for the Deaf and five other consumer groups. In a petition last week, the groups asked the FCC to reconsider a provision in a December order excluding hearing users (CD Dec 23 p3). VRS provider GoAmerica agreed in a separate petition, asking the FCC to additionally reconsider a rule about the handling of public safety call backs. Phone numbers have been available to deaf users since Dec. 31.
The FCC should expand Interstate Telecom Relay Service fund support to include TRS calls involving multiple communications assistants, interpreters and technologies, said AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Sorenson Communications, GoAmerica and five other TRS providers. In a Wednesday petition for declaratory ruling, the companies said federal funding for that kind of call is needed to meet Congress’ functional equivalency goals. But the petition may have to overcome concerns on Capitol Hill that the TRS fund is already too large.
The FCC defended its regulatory-flexibility analysis, in an order about local number portability between wireline and wireless carriers, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, representing small rural incumbent local exchange carriers, wants the court to stay the intermodal order and send it back to the commission. But in oral argument Monday judges appeared hesitant to rebuke the FCC.
State regulators lack authority to set rates under section 271 of the Communications Act, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled Monday. The court affirmed a district judge’s decision granting AT&T declaratory and injunctive relief and denying relief to CompSouth, an associate member of CompTel. Section 271 relates to the sale of long distance services by Bell operating companies. In 2006, BellSouth sued the Georgia Public Service Commission when it tried to set some of the company’s unbundled network element rates by invoking section 271 authority. BellSouth, since purchased by AT&T, argued that the FCC alone had Section 271 power. The district court agreed with BellSouth, prompting an appeal by CompSouth. The 11th Circuit ruling is consistent with decisions by the 1st and 8th Circuits, said Bill Magness, attorney for CompSouth. Competitors may next take their case to the FCC, because the courts have all pointed to the commission as the rulemaking authority on jurisdiction, he said.
The FCC’s denial last week of a forbearance petition by FeatureGroup IP “is not the end of the story,” CEO Lowell Feldman said Friday. FeatureGroup, a competitive local exchange carrier serving VoIP providers, still wants a ruling that access charges don’t apply to Internet-based traffic which interconnects with public switched telephone network carriers. But a reconsideration petition isn’t necessarily the company’s next move, Feldman told us.
The FCC should reset the special access rates of AT&T, Qwest and Verizon, overhaul the agency’s methods for assessing competition, and collect more market and pricing data, said a report commissioned by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (CD Feb 21/07 p5), and written by the National Regulatory Research Institute.
The FCC denied a FeatureGroup IP forbearance petition late Wednesday, avoiding a decision on whether access charges apply to interconnected switched-IP traffic. The commission was required to release an order by midnight Wednesday under a statutory deadline. Commissioners voted 3-0 to deny the forbearance petition, which asked the FCC to rule that the competitive local exchange carrier doesn’t have to pay access charges for VoIP traffic that interconnects with traditional public switched telephone network carriers.
Officials debated the effectiveness of government grants for spurring broadband deployment, at a New America Foundation forum Friday. A House economic stimulus bill announced Thursday called for $6 billion in spending on broadband loan and grant programs throughout the government (CD Jan 16 p5). Broadband stimulus should include tax incentives for higher speeds and capital spending, said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. Atkinson estimated that tax incentives would inject almost 80 percent of the government’s money into the economy within the first year, double the proportion of grants. But others said it would be harder for the government to direct money using tax credits. “That’s a way to quickly lose the money and not know where the money is going,” said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press. Fortune 500 companies are more likely to use tax credits to increase speeds in markets where they already do business than build into rural areas, said Wally Bowen, founder of the Mountain Area Information Network. “Any CEO who redirects his company’s investment strategy toward markets that aren’t a good fit for that Wall Street business model is putting his career at risk,” he said. Some said the economic stimulus bill isn’t the place to pass major broadband reform. The point of stimulus is to create jobs, and there will be more opportunities in the future to pass broadband reforms, said Debbie Goldman, research economist for the Communication Workers of America. The government’s one goal should be “as much investment in as fast a time as possible,” Atkinson said. Attaching rules to broadband stimulus, as the House has with speed and openness requirements, will discourage investment by major broadband providers, he said. Turner disagreed, saying open access conditions would ensure that the U.S. builds the kind of networks that led to today’s open Internet.
The FCC could face a court deadline to respond to a 2005 remand on its Universal Service Fund high-cost rules. In a petition for writ of mandamus filed Wednesday, Qwest and three state regulators urged the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to force the FCC to respond within 90 days of the writ’s release. Qwest, the Maine Public Utilities Commission, Vermont Public Service Board, and the Wyoming Public Service Commission said the FCC unreasonably delayed issuing new rules for its non-rural, high-cost fund, ignoring mandates from Congress and the 10th Circuit.
As a Feature Group IP forbearance petition on VoIP access charges heads into its final week, the company is seeing little support and much opposition from the rest of the industry. Feature Group IP, a competitive local exchange carrier serving VoIP companies, wants the FCC to rule that VoIP providers need not pay access charges to interconnect with traditional public switched telephone network carriers. Chairman Kevin Martin has circulated two orders, one granting and one refusing relief. The FCC must issue a decision by Jan. 21.