Small, independent telcos are deploying some form of broadband services to 96 percent of K-12 schools in their service areas and 98 percent of public libraries, an NTCA survey found. About 75 percent of schools receive fiber to the premises, 17 percent use copper, 5 percent receive fiber to the node and less than 1 percent use fixed wireless, said the association in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1sxQWzu). Nearly 47 percent of public libraries are connected via FTTP, 38 percent use copper, and 13 percent receive FTTN, it said. NTCA members offer an average maximum speed of 435 Mbps down and 62 Mbps up to schools, and an average of 296 Mbps down and 47 Mbps up to public libraries. Schools on average buy 65 Mbps down and 13 Mbps up, while libraries take 17 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, said NTCA. “The results of this survey are a clear indication that NTCA members and other small, rural providers understand the importance of these anchor institutions having high-quality broadband service,” NTCA Economist Rick Schadelbauer. The FCC considers an E-rate order Friday, and it may be a party-line vote (CD July 9 p1) (See related story above.)

Equipment capable of using alternative technologies like TV white spaces that can provide reliable broadband service to schools and libraries should qualify for E-rate funding, even if provisioned by schools and libraries and not by a broadband service provider, Microsoft said in a letter (http://bit.ly/1md8LD9) posted as an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 13-184. School districts in urban areas or near major universities frequently have 1 Gbps connectivity, but more than half of U.S. students are in rural school districts, said the company. Employing alternative technologies “should increase the likelihood and reduce the expense of reaching that broadband threshold in rural areas,” it said. Exempting schools and libraries from competitive bidding procedures when purchasing commercially available Internet connections “creates a poor precedent within the E-rate program and could adversely impact the applicants, the Fund and the competitive providers that are currently active in the program,” a Comptel official told a Wireline Bureau official, said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/TQXOeX). Splits are emerging at the commission on E-rate, with a Friday vote on an order nearing. (See separate report above in this issue.)

USTelecom opposed an American Cable Association FCC application for review of a Wireline Bureau April decision on the Connect America Fund cost model order that calculated costs of serving census blocks in price-cap telco areas. “USTelecom stands by its cost of capital calculation which resulted in a zone of reasonableness above 8.48% and below 9.52%, resulting in a point estimate of 9.00%” and other figures, said that association in an opposition filing to ACA’s request posted Monday in docket 10-90 (http://bit.ly/U1g5GM). “ACA presents no new information to contradict it. Yet ACA rejects the Bureau’s considered conclusion which adopted a cost of capital 50 basis points below the recommendation of the ABC Coalition.” The association said an FCC model used data from the coalition, a USF reform group of telcos that has included USTelecom members (http://bit.ly/1pXdWuo). ACA’s June 20 application for review said the bureau’s model, “for the key input of the cost of money ... adopted a cost significantly in excess of forward-looking market rates” and would mean price-cap LECs get more support than required (http://bit.ly/1vWPFSK). ACA plans to respond to USTelecom’s opposition, in reply comments, said ACA Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman. He declined further comment.

The FCC should reverse a Wireline Bureau order denying Securus the same waiver from interim inmate calling service rate caps as Pay Tel (CD Feb 12 p12), Securus said in an application for review posted in docket 12-375 Monday. The bureau “failed to give appropriate consideration to the extensive cost data that Securus provided, but “simply repeated the Commission’s unreasonable interpretation -- manipulation -- of that data to grossly understate Securus’s costs,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/1oeZl6J).

Reductions in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate toll VoIP traffic should be paused, effective June 30, 2014, until full implementation of the Phase II Connect America Fund, in the case of price-cap telcos, said NTCA and several other groups in an emergency petition for a waiver of FCC rules (http://bit.ly/1mvpDo8) posted Monday in docket 10-90. For rural, rate of return-regulated carriers, the waiver was sought until the implementation of a tailored CAF mechanism for the rural LECs. The reductions would cost Frontier Communications and Windstream $14.5 million total annually, the petition said. The Eastern Rural Telecom Association, Frontier, IITA, National Exchange Carrier Association, WTA and Windstream joined in the waiver request.

Transcom Enhanced Services Monday petitioned for a rehearing en banc on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold the FCC 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order (http://1.usa.gov/1r18uaa) (CD May 27 p1). While acknowledging such rehearings involving an entire court are rarely granted, Transcom attorney Scott McCollough said he was “hopeful.” The petition asks for rehearing on three points, including a panel ruling that “calls do not terminate with Transcom for purposes of the ‘intraMTA rule,'” the petition said. “The panel did not address this issue in the context of ‘wireline,'” the petition said.

FairPoint was given a 60-day extension to file its 2013 Automated Reporting Management Information System reports for its two study areas associated with Northern New England Telephone Operations and with Telephone Operating Co. of Vermont, said an FCC Wireline Bureau order(http://bit.ly/1q0gy6l) posted in docket 86-182 Wednesday.

Global Tel*Link asked for a 60-day extension on data collection on inmate calling rates, which are due July 17, said a motion posted in docket 12-375 Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1kjjrvp). CenturyLink also requested a 60-day extension, in a motion posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/1lCKEcb). Global Tel*Link “does not routinely maintain the data requested by the Commission, and does not keep its books and records in the format of the Commission’s template spreadsheet or detailed instructions for categorizing and classifying the data,” the company’s motion said. The data collection “calls for extensive, highly detailed information organized in a very specific way, and compiling it will require an enormous amount of work,” said CenturyLink.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau denied Patrick Keane’s request that the commission reconsider the $979,000 penalty it issued against him in 2013 for sending at least 100 unsolicited fax ads to consumers as The Street Map Company. The FCC had issued three Notices of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NALs) to Keane between 2010 and 2012 for sending the faxes, which advertised laminated maps. Keane didn’t pay the penalties prescribed in the NALs, prompting the FCC to issue its forfeiture order in 2013, the commission said. Keane responded with a handwritten petition for reconsideration based on his “inability to pay.” Keane’s arguments “do not justify reconsideration of the forfeiture,” the FCC said Wednesday. Petitions for reconsideration must usually be considered by the full commission, but a bureau can act if the facts presented in the petition “plainly do not warrant reconsideration,” the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1xnbEog).

A key presentation at a May 30 closed-door FCC workshop examined whether and how ISPs “can satisfy consumers’ interest in their operation as open and nondiscriminatory conduits, while also ensuring the timely and high quality transmission of video content,” said an ex parte filing Monday by Jonathan Levy, deputy chief economist at the FCC. The filing in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1o9uGsH) offers a few details from the workshop, also hosted by the Institute for Information Policy at Pennsylvania State University. Robert Frieden, a professor at the school, made the presentation and offered “a legal analysis confirming that ISPs can provide higher quality of service to promote the likelihood for speedy delivery of video content bitstreams without degradation caused by congestion and other factors,” Levy said. The opening part of the workshop was open to the public (CD May 30 p9).