The FCC Wireline Bureau dismissed four petitions for waiver of various high-cost universal service filing deadlines, in a public notice Monday (http://bit.ly/1bJoy9t). Hayneville Fiber Transport, Hargray Telephone Co., Pine Belt Telephone Co. and Telenational Communications had their petitions dismissed as part of the FCC’s “ongoing effort to manage its dockets and reduce backlog,” the notice said, because none of the petitions came forward in response to an earlier notice asking if they are still interested in pursuing their petitions.

The FCC needs to act quickly to cease use of the “unpredictable and opaque quantile regression analysis-based caps that have chilled lending and investment” to rural rate-of-return regulated LECs, NTCA told aides to all commissioners except the chairman Thursday and Friday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1k7BN6J). It said such action would be “consistent with the statements of Chairman [Tom] Wheeler,” who has said he would end use of the quantile regression analysis (CD Dec 18 p2). NTCA also encouraged the commission to address the “flash-cut elimination” of Safety Net Additive support to companies that qualified based upon investments made in 2010 and 2011.

The FCC clarified that its IP Captioned Telephone Service rule remains in effect, requiring providers to get third-party professional certification from new IP CTS users who pay less than $75 for equipment. In a public notice Monday (http://bit.ly/1bJnl1P), the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said the interim rule remains in effect until the Office of Management and Budget approves the information collections contained in the final rule, which hasn’t happened yet.

Vonage asked the FCC for another extension to satisfy the agency’s rule banning fake ringing tones. “Due to the inability to leverage its existing system to meet the requirements of the Rule, Vonage is building a new system to play a message to customers in situations where a ring is not received from an intermediate carrier,” Vonage said in a petition filed Friday (http://bit.ly/1bGLar5). The FCC had granted Vonage’s initial waiver request by extending the rule to March 3; Vonage needs until April 2 to comply, it said.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn plans to work with the healthcare sector “to research, review and recommend how our current and evolving communications infrastructure can more efficiently and effectively solve basic health challenges and disparities,” she told the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society pre-conference symposium in Orlando on Sunday, according to prepared remarks (http://fcc.us/MpmUh7). Clyburn’s office will take the lead on coordinating the effort, she said, which will seek “to leverage the human and technical resources we have at the FCC to address health care disconnects in our society.” The initiative, details of which will be released in the coming days, will complement the FCC’s existing work assisting rural healthcare organizations in utilizing “the ever growing promise of health IT,” she said.

The FCC’s E-rate reforms should recognize that digital learning not only requires a broadband connection to each school, but also the infrastructure within the school that can deliver the bandwidth and technology that meet each classroom’s needs, Comcast told agency officials Tuesday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1miTRcv). The majority of connections to that infrastructure likely will be through Wi-Fi enabled devices, and as a result, Wi-Fi will be an “important component of delivering broadband access to classrooms,” Comcast said. The ISP expressed its “firm belief” that broadband Internet connectivity at school “must be complemented by broadband access at home if Americans are to gain the full educational benefits of the Internet.” Comcast touted its Internet Essentials program, which provides low-cost access to low-income Americans at home, “most for the very first time."

Frontier Communications received notice from the FTC of the early termination of the required antitrust waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, it said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1c9mzpL). The expiration of the waiting period satisfies one of the conditions of the completion of the Frontier’s proposed buy of AT&T’s wireline assets in Connecticut, the telco said. The FCC and state regulator still have to approve the transaction, which was announced in December.

Windstream will pay $2.5 million to resolve an FCC investigation into its rural call completion practices, the agency said in a news release Thursday. The telco will also implement a three-year plan to help combat “the serious problem of long-distance calls failing to complete in rural areas,” the agency said. According to the consent decree (http://fcc.us/1mwGucc), Windstream will designate a senior officer to serve as a compliance officer; help the FCC establish a testing program to evaluate call completion performance; and stop using intermediate providers that keep having problems connecting calls. Windstream “cooperated fully” with the agency’s investigation, the consent decree said. “We appreciate the careful, deliberate approach the FCC took in this matter,” said John Fletcher, executive vice president and general counsel. “While we disagree with the agency’s conclusion that our call completion practices were not adequate, we believe this is the best way to resolve the inquiry and enable us to continue providing great service to rural customers."

Provider Securus wants the same relief from interim inmate calling service (ICS) rate caps as Pay-Tel got, Securus said in a petition to the FCC filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1ffVeIv). The FCC approved a nine-month waiver of its caps for Pay-Tel after that ICS provider said it couldn’t recover its costs on a holding company level if it were required to charge such low rates, because of rate restrictions in several states that require Pay-Tel to provide service at below-average-cost rates (CD Feb 13 p14). The waiver “should apply to all ICS providers operating at jails in Pay Tel’s territory,” Securus said. “All of those carriers are subject to the same ‘below-average-cost intrastate rate constraints’ as Pay Tel, and they all face the same challenges in serving city and county jails.” Securus asked that the commission let all ICS providers serving jails in Pay-Tel’s 13-state service territory get the relief Pay-Tel got: being able to charge up to 46 cents per minute for interstate calls. Securus also asked for permission to add a 2 cent-per-minute fee to its interstate calls in order to cover the cost of providing “voice biometric technology” required for secure inmate calling (http://bit.ly/1fD4Oju).

If a company gets consent for autodialing its customers’ numbers, and those numbers are subsequently reassigned unbeknownst to the company, that company should not be liable for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Comcast told FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau officials Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1bPyH4T). Comcast was supporting a similar petition filed by United Healthcare Services in CG docket 02-278. “In this situation, it is unfair and inappropriate for it to be subject to TCPA liability,” Comcast said, explaining it has faced lawsuits in these kinds of situations.