FCC pole-attachment rules to cut telco rates and restrain cable rates take effect April 1 after being published in Wednesday's Federal Register. The commission issued the rules in November in an order in docket 07-245 that was approved unanimously (see 1511240071). In response to an NCTA petition for reconsideration of a 2011 order, the FCC adjusted cost allocators for telecom carriers covering "poles with 2 attaching entities (0.31 percent of costs) and 4 attaching entities (0.56 percent of cost)," the order said: "When the average number of attaching entities is a fraction, the percentage cost allocator will be located between the whole numbers at the point where it most closely approximates the cost used in the cable rate formula." The FCC said the flexible cost allocators should more fully realize its intent in 2011 to bring parity to pole-attachment rates at the cable rate formula level. "The Commission also adopts this definition of cost to prevent pole owners from charging cable operators that also provide telecommunications service (including broadband Internet access service) pole attachment rental rates that can be approximately 70 percent higher than the cable rate under its existing rules," the order said.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau indefinitely extended a waiver for “a narrow class of e-readers” of accessibility rules for advanced communications services (ACS), said an order released Monday and included in the next day's Daily Digest. “We conclude that this narrow class of e-readers, while capable of accessing ACS, continues to be designed primarily for reading text-based digital works, not for ACS.” The waiver was originally granted in 2014, and extended in 2015. “Commencing three years from the release date of this Order, we will conduct a review of the status and accessibility of ACS provided on the class of e-readers subject to the waiver,” the order said.

Correction: Mutually exclusive FM translator applications filed during the FCC AM-only window will be decided through an agreement between the parties, not an auction (see 1602010059).

While a recent FCC report indicating broadband isn't being rolled out broadly enough or quickly enough to meet a statutory deployment mandate (see 1601280064) got much attention, another recent FCC report comparing U.S. broadband rollout with other parts of the world (see 1602010071) deserves more, NCTA said in a blog post Tuesday. "The FCC’s international report demonstrates that American broadband performance is well ahead of our friends in Europe," NCTA said. "So notwithstanding the doom and gloom that was on display at the FCC’s meeting last week ... the state of U.S. broadband continues to be extremely strong." Given that, NCTA said, "The FCC’s conclusion that deployment in the U.S. is not reasonable and timely is hard to fathom. It does not seem too much to ask that the FCC take its own factual findings seriously rather than continuing to perpetuate the fiction that American broadband is languishing." The FCC didn't comment.

The USF contribution factor for carriers could drop in Q2 to 17.6 percent of interstate and international telecom revenue, but it could be higher if industry revenue declines continue, said industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg in an email update Monday. The Q1 factor is 18.2 percent (see 1512110040), which Gregg accurately estimated once Universal Service Administrative Co. came out with revenue projections (see 1512040003). USAC Monday projected USF demand for Q2 would be $2.211 billion, down $65.5 million, Gregg said. "Out of period adjustments ... accounted for almost all" of the demand decrease, he said. Revenue in the contribution base last year totaled $60.5 billion, "the lowest annual revenues" in USF history, and Q1 revenue was $14.929 billion, "the lowest quarterly revenues" in USF history, he said. "If revenues for the second quarter of 2016 are the same as revenues for the first quarter, the USF assessment factor will decrease to 17.6%. However, if the trend of declining quarterly revenues continues, the USF assessment factor for the second quarter will be higher than 17.6%." He said USAC revenue projections for Q2 are due in early March.

“Broadband" differs from "advanced telecommunications capability" but is key to an ATC statutory mandate, the FCC said in a Broadband Progress Report it released Friday after approving it Thursday (see 1601280064). The report said for simplicity’s sake, the commission sometimes used the term “broadband” to refer to “advanced telecommunications capability” in past inquiries on whether ATC was being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to all Americans pursuant to Section 706 of the 1996 Telecom Act. But it said “advanced telecommunications capability” is a statutorily defined term that differs from “broadband” as it’s used in other contexts. “Thus, in this Inquiry, we do not equate the term 'broadband' with the statutory term 'advanced telecommunications capability,' but we do necessarily consider the availability of various broadband services that contribute to advanced telecommunications capability in our analysis under the statute,” it said. The report cited various data for why the FCC said ATC isn’t being deployed “broadly enough and quickly enough” to meet the Section 706 mandate. It said one in 10 Americans lacks 25/3 Mbps (download/upload) broadband availability, and ATC deployment disparities persist between urban areas and rural and tribal areas. It elaborated on why the FCC believes both mobile and fixed broadband availability are necessary under the statutory mandate. It said there are various marketing, usage and adoption differences that dispel the notion that current fixed and mobile broadband services give consumers the same or substitutable services. “On the contrary, they are distinct services with complementary strengths and weaknesses, distinguishable in capability, pricing, and in the utility they provide consumers,” it said. The report said the FCC couldn’t yet define adequate mobile broadband speed or service standards, and it noted the FCC may consider different mobile and fixed speed benchmarks. The report said there are “many and varied” barriers to ATC deployment, and cited past and ongoing FCC efforts on rural broadband, E-rate and Lifeline USF modernization, and other matters. It said if consumers’ personal information can be protected, that could spur broadband service, investment and deployment, consistent with the 1996 act’s goals. Consumer groups are pushing the FCC to issue an NPRM opening a broadband privacy rulemaking (see 1601190077).

The U.S. has a mixed record in international broadband metrics, said an FCC international broadband data report listed in Monday's Daily Digest that looked at deployment, speed and pricing. "The available international broadband data, though not fully comparable to data on the United States, continue to suggest that although the United States may be among the leaders for developed countries with regard to some broadband metrics, it lags in some other metrics," said the 201-page report. For instance, with 89 percent coverage in 2014, the U.S. ranked ahead of 21 of 31 European countries on the scope of its fixed broadband deployment, it said. But the U.S. ranked only 26th out of 40 countries in 2014 in terms of actual fixed broadband "download speeds (26.68 Mbps) when weighted by sample size," it said. The U.S. also ranked only 23rd out of 33 countries for least-expensive overall fixed broadband pricing plans, though it ranked third least expensive on stand-alone broadband plans with data usage limits when taking those limits into account, the report said. On mobile broadband, the U.S. ranked 23rd least expensive out of 30 countries on price per GB for plans with usage limits less than 5 GB, and 23rd least expensive out of 31 countries on price per GB for plans with usage limits greater than 5 GB, it said.

The FCC is allowing tests of LTE-unlicensed, to be conducted by Qualcomm, on a “very small scale” at two Verizon sites, Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, said Friday in a blog post. OET approved special temporary authority (STA) for the tests in Oklahoma City and Raleigh, North Carolina, Knapp said. “Various parties have expressed concern that LTE-U may not share spectrum fairly with Wi-Fi and other devices operating in unlicensed spectrum,” he wrote. “The Office of Engineering & Technology and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau have encouraged the industry to address and resolve these concerns and considerable progress has been made.” Grants of STA and experimental licenses “don't have any significance relative to whether the Commission may ultimately authorize a device or service,” Knapp wrote. “Significant steps remain” before LTE-U could see widespread commercial deployment, he said. “We believe that this development is an encouraging step in continuing that success.” The news got a bipartisan thumbs up from the leaders of the House Commerce Committee and Telecom Subcommittee. “This is what we have been working toward all along, and it’s the right call for consumers and innovation,” the leaders said in a news release. “An environment that fosters the development of next generation technologies is what makes America the greatest place in the world to do business, create jobs, and develop state-of-the-art communications tools for consumers.” CTIA Chief Technology Officer Tom Sawanobori said, “Fostering innovation in unlicensed bands is key to meeting consumer demand and maintaining our position as global leader in mobile broadband.”

A court set oral argument for March 17 on challenges to an FCC order pre-empting state restrictions on municipal broadband efforts. The consolidated case will be heard by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, with the judges' names to be posted on a court calendar two weeks before the argument, said a short order Thursday (State of Tennessee, State of North Carolina v. FCC, Nos. 15-3291, 15-3555). Despite the scheduled hearing, the order said the judges, as they prepare for the case, could conclude oral argument isn't necessary.

FCC commissioners will look at a notice of inquiry at their February meeting seeking comment on programming diversity issues "and the principal obstacles that independent programmers face" in being carried on video distribution platforms, the FCC said Thursday. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn had said the NOI was in the works earlier this month at the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council's broadband conference (see 1601210031). The meeting is scheduled for Feb. 18.