Tuesday’s net neutrality forum in College Park, Texas, allowed the FCC to hear voices that weren’t heard during the agency's series of workshops on the issue, including those of smaller ISPs, Commissioner Ajit Pai told us after the event (see 1410210049). Representatives of ISPs had said during the panel that they could not handle Communications Act Title II's administrative burdens if the agency takes that path, and that dealing with high demands require network management. Members of the public, unlike during the workshops held at FCC headquarters, were able to speak at the forum at Texas A&M University, added Pai, who sponsored the event. Many who testified complained about a lack of choice in ISPs and the quality of service. Pai did not explicitly oppose a Title II approach when talking to us, but reiterated his past statements that FCC actions on net neutrality should not undermine “the business case” for deploying more broadband. Pai was the only commissioner at the forum. An aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel noted the commissioner had attended a Sept. 4 net neutrality forum convened by Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., in Sacramento (see 1409250037).

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.

Neustar is continuing to protest the North American Numbering Council’s (NANC) recommendation that Telcordia be selected as the next local number portability administrator. The latest complaint came in a letter to the FCC and in meetings with agency officials Oct. 14 and 15, said ex parte filings posted Tuesday in docket 95-116. Neustar has been providing LNPA services “flawlessly” and NANC “fails to provide a sufficient factual basis” for the recommendation, Neustar officials including President Lisa Hook told Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach and other commission officials (http://bit.ly/1FDjZcL). Hook, Neustar Senior Vice President-General Counsel Leonard Kennedy, Deputy General Counsel Scott Deutchman, Vice President-Product Development Bill Reidway, Wiley Rein’s Thomas Navin and Kellogg Huber’s Aaron Panner made the same arguments in a separate meeting with Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aide, Daniel Alvarez, the filing said. The commission should issue an NPRM, Neustar officials said at both meetings, because it does not have before it a record that “adequately addresses the many significant technical, policy, and national-security issues that have been raised,” said the filing. Telcordia’s bid does not address several services Neustar now delivers, including the continued orchestration of large porting requests, access by law enforcement and auto-dialer users, said Neustar, which also continued to question Telcordia and parent company Ericsson’s neutrality. In an Oct. 17 letter (http://bit.ly/1ylbu10) to the commission, Neustar said Ericsson is “uniquely dependent on the success of a few major U.S. wireless providers. Ericsson is thus aligned with and subject to undue influence from the U.S. wireless industry,” the letter said. Telcordia has previously denied all of Neustar’s allegations (see 1408220053). Telcordia is “taking substantial steps to protect the security” of the Number Portability Administration Center database it is building, despite questions raised in the past by Neustar about Ericsson’s foreign ownership, said Telcordia President Richard Jacowleff and several others representing Telcordia, including former Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett, now with Venable. They met Oct. 15 with Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson, Deputy Chief Ken Moran and Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Lisa Gelb and other agency officials, said an ex parte filing also posted Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1oul2Xe). Telcordia is not reusing foreign code but writing its own, Telcordia said. The selection process envisioned working out specifics about security issues during contract negotiation and Telcordia intends to work with law enforcement on a testing process as part of the transition, the filing said.

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.”

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).