The Edison Electric Institute urged the FCC to maintain its rules on contractor qualifications for electric utility pole work and large pole orders (see 2408190053). EEI said in a meeting with Wireline Bureau staff that the record "demonstrates the need for a flexible approach to timelines" for larger pole orders, per an ex parte filing Friday in docket 17-84. A "one-size-fits-all timeline would be impractical," EEI said. Utilities also "have a legitimate interest in ensuring that contractors who work on their poles meet certain safety and reliability standards," the group said: "Allowing contractors to unilaterally select their own contractors to work above the communications space bypassing utility vetting and training through a utility’s onboarding process could compromise these standards."

The FCC Wireline Bureau granted Alaska's Lower Yukon School District's request that broadband services "to and within on-campus teacher housing owned by the school district is eligible for E-rate funding." In a declaratory ruling Thursday in docket 02-6, the bureau said the district "serves a unique population of students who reside in 10 remote, impoverished villages in a part of rural Alaska with an extremely harsh climate." It determined that the district-owned on-campus housing provided for Lower Yukon teachers "is a non-instructional facility in which the use of broadband service meets the definition of an educational purpose, and thus such service is eligible for category one and category two E-Rate support." In addition, it noted the ruling is limited to the Lower Yukon school district. The on-campus teacher housing is necessary for the district's "unique student population" because Lower Yukon’s "severe weather conditions and remote geography prevents students from having their educational needs met during the unusually frequent on-campus school closures."

OMB approved for three years a revised information collection associated with the FCC's rules for the Lifeline program. The approval was announced in a notice for Thursday's Federal Register. The revisions reflect an order adopted in November providing survivors of domestic violence access to safe and affordable communications services under the Safe Connections Act (see 2311150042).

Poka Lambro Telecom will acquire TDS Broadband Service's telephone subscriber base, it told the FCC in a letter Friday (docket 00-257). The company said it will continue providing interconnected VoIP service to TDS customers. Poka Lambro noted that the FCC "has not determined" whether interconnected VoIP services are telecom services or "ruled that its carrier change rules apply to interconnected VoIP services." The anticipated date of transfer will be Oct. 1 "or as soon thereafter as the necessary arrangements are in place," Poka Lambro said.

The FCC addressed several pending petitions for reconsideration concerning the commission's rules for incarcerated people's communications services. In a notice for Monday's Federal Register, the commission granted Hamilton Relay's petition on certain aspects of the 2022 IPCS order. Hamilton sought reconsideration of the requirement that an incarcerated person's video relay service and IP-captioned telephone service registration information be updated within 30 days of the user being released from incarceration or transferred to another facility. It dismissed the United Church of Christ and Public Knowledge's joint petition on the commission's 2021 order (see 2302240041). It also dismissed Securus' petition for clarification regarding site commissions in the 2021 order and dismissed in part and otherwise denied Securus' waiver request for alternative pricing plans.

Incompas urged the FCC to provide more certainty to prospective pole attachers and adopt "specific timeframes" for make-ready for larger pole orders. Providers also should be allowed to engage in self-help "when warranted," the group said in a meeting with Wireline Bureau staff per an ex parte filing Wednesday in docket 17-84. Providers "continue to experience barriers when seeking to attach to utility poles," Incompas said, noting that timelines for orders exceeding 3,000 poles would be a "significant improvement over the current standard." The group noted that allowing providers to qualify their own contractors for self-help work would remove the "bottleneck at the estimate phase."

The Utilities Technology Council asked the FCC not to adopt timelines for larger pole orders in its pending proceeding on pole replacement and attachment applications. Doing so "will not promote broadband deployment as a practical matter and will likely delay deployment," UTC said in an ex parte filing Monday in docket 17-84. It recommended to Wireline Bureau staff (see 2408120038) that the FCC give utilities the "flexibility" to process larger orders "in a manner that makes efficient use of the limited resources that are available." Utilities can't "solve the shortage of qualified workers alone," the group said, and "different utilities may require different contractor qualifications." The group backed requiring attachers to give pole owners at least 60 days advance notice of any major deployments to ensure "more efficient processing of larger orders."

The FCC Wireline Bureau Friday published its annual list of the hundreds of counties with conditional forbearance from the obligation to offer Lifeline-supported voice service. The forbearance applies only to the Lifeline voice obligation of eligible telecommunications carriers receiving high-cost and Lifeline support and not to Lifeline-only ETCs, the notice said. A 2016 Lifeline order established conditional forbearance from Lifeline voice obligations where specific competitive conditions are met (see 1807230027). For a county to be eligible, at least 51% of Lifeline subscribers must have broadband internet access.

The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment on claims from Arvig Enterprises and Rural Communications Holding that their enhanced alternative connect America cost model support offers were “incorrectly calculated” because Midcontinent Communications “was incorrectly classified as an unsubsidized competitor offering voice service.” Comments are due Sept. 13 in docket 10-90, a notice in Thursday’s Daily Digest said.

Representatives of the Coalition of Concerned Utilities met with FCC Wireline Bureau staff about the group’s stance on pole attachment rules. “We emphasized that pole owners, existing communications attachers, and new communications attachers all must act responsibly and collaboratively to promote the deployment of broadband service to unserved and underserved areas,” a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-84 said: “We discussed efforts by utility pole owners to accommodate the volume of new attachment requests, and the considerable workforce constraints to be overcome.”