AT&T is hoping to discontinue legacy plain old telephone service for 21,000 customers in areas of 17 states, it told the FCC in a discontinuance application Tuesday. It said it anticipates discontinuing residential local service and business local exchange access line service on or after June 30, 2026, in the affected areas. The carrier said the customers would have AT&T Phone-Advanced and AT&T Phone for Business-Advanced service available as a replacement service. It said wireless service, including from rival Verizon, is available in the affected areas, as are competitive voice offerings via cable, fiber, fixed wireless and satellite technologies. It said the 17 states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Four carriers have elected to move their business data services offerings to incentive regulation, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The carriers are Amelia Telephone and New Castle Telephone, both in Virginia; Chillicothe Telephone in Ohio; and Union River Telephone in Maine. The shift went into effect July 1.
Reliability, compliance compatibility and functionality issues keep landline phones in use in locations from cell centers and hospitals to trading floors and hotels, wrote Rich Tehrani, CEO of tech consultancy TMC. Hotel rooms are often mandated to have access to 911 via a hard-wired phone in each room, he said Monday. There's also often user resistance to losing desk phones, particularly in front-office or high-call-volume positions, he added.
The Wireline Bureau on Monday issued a limited waiver of the July 1 deadline to file Form 481 for carriers authorized for Enhanced Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM) support. Those that didn’t certify must now do so by July 31, the bureau said in dockets 10-90 and 14-58. The Universal Service Administrative Co. “will calculate any support reductions due to late or missing certifications based on the new deadline.”
Prison-calling providers and the National Sheriffs’ Association supported the FCC’s request at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the court hold the case in abeyance while the commission reconsiders rules approved last year. The Wireline Bureau recently delayed incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) deadlines until April 1, 2027 (see 2506300068).
The FCC seemingly has moved away from shortened license terms in its pending submarine cable rules rewrite, we're told. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is reviewing the FCC's proposed rewrite, according to the OIRA website. All agency regulations now go through OIRA review as of this spring (see 2505090004). The commissioners unanimously adopted a subset cable NPRM in November (see 2411210006).
The FCC Wireline Bureau approved two companies' applications using the commission’s streamlined procedures for interconnected VoIP numbering authorization, said a Friday notice. The companies were Ahoi and Cornfield Voice.
The FCC Office of International Affairs has signed off on the requested transfer of the PPC-1 submarine cable landing license from one Australian company, TPG Telecom, to another, Vocus Group, as part of Vocus' purchase of TPG's subsea cable business (see 2411150001), said a public notice Thursday. PPC-1 connects Sydney to Piti, Guam.
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding the USF (see 2506270054) was a win for consumers, questions about the future of the fund won’t go away, Pillsbury lawyers wrote Thursday. Carriers that pay into the USF “get to decide whether to pass those costs through to their customers or absorb [them], and due to the high cost, most choose to pass some if not most of that fee on to customers in the form of a line-item USF charge on their phone bill,” the lawyers blogged. Now that the fund has survived judicial challenges, “advocates will look to Congress and the FCC to expand the contribution base to ensure sustainable funding in the face of eroding revenues from traditional telecommunications sources and the rapid growth of broadband and other connectivity services.”
Comments are due July 24 in docket 25-195 on Consolidated Communications’ application to discontinue legacy voice services in three exchanges in New Hampshire, said a public notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The application will be granted automatically Aug. 9, unless the FCC notifies the company otherwise. The agency is also soliciting comments on Consolidated's discontinuance request for Vermont (see 2507080060).