The FCC Wireline Bureau on Thursday posted new filing deadlines for a Talton petition seeking a waiver of the commission’s rules capping the rates for audio and video for incarcerated people provided to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Comments are now due May 8, replies May 15, in docket 23-62. The bureau suspended earlier deadlines on the petition (see 2504170020) after public interest groups, led by the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, objected to Talton’s request for confidential treatment.
USTelecom reiterated its position opposing new pole attachment rules (see 2504140049) in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-84. As broadband providers “with operational experience both owning and attaching to poles, USTelecom members urge the Commission to refrain from imposing prescriptive new regulations that will create further disputes, confusion, and inefficiencies,” it said: “Micro-managing the pole attachment process will not speed USTelecom members’ or any broadband service providers’ deployments, whether those are through government funding programs or through massive private investment.”
Incompas CEO Chip Pickering said Tuesday’s White House memorandum on permitting “will accelerate the deployment of high-speed broadband networks, robust energy grids and advanced data centers” and help America win the global AI race, according to a release Friday. “By directing federal agencies to eliminate paper-based processes, implement automation and establish the Permitting Innovation Center, the administration is removing the roadblocks that have hindered our technological advancement,” Pickering said. The memorandum called for the Council on Environmental Quality and the National Energy Dominance Council to issue a plan for modernizing federal environmental review and permitting processes for infrastructure projects. “The administration's commitment to deliver results at 21st-century speeds demonstrates a clear understanding that America's AI leadership depends on our ability to build physical infrastructure efficiently,” Pickering said.
Pointing to a late Connect America Fund Phase II quarterly certification now having been submitted, Aristotle Unified Communications is asking the FCC for a rules waiver that would restore its Arkansas CAF support. In a docket 10-90 filing posted Friday, Aristotle said that despite curing the tardiness, the Universal Service Administrative Co. continues to withhold its Arkansas support, impeding its ability to provide broadband and voice service to Arkansas CAF locations. It said the submission failure was a ministerial error.
The FCC on Thursday suspended the comment deadlines on a petition by Talton seeking a waiver of the commission’s rules capping the rates for audio and video for incarcerated people provided to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We find good cause to suspend the deadlines to file comments and reply comments addressing Talton’s Petition pending Commission review of the merits of Talton’s request for confidential treatment,” the Wireline Bureau said (docket 23-62).
The U.S. reliance on tariffs should have minimal impact on most fiber broadband equipment pricing and deployments, Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen wrote Monday. Key U.S. fiber broadband equipment providers have onshored most of their manufacturing and assembly so they can qualify for BEAD's Build America Buy America provisions, he said. Most commonly deployed components have already been self-certified by vendors and seen big increases in domestic manufacturing.
USTelecom noted that the FCC is looking to get rid of outdated rules through its “Delete” proceeding (see 2504140046) and shouldn’t now layer on new pole attachment rules. USTelecom representatives met with Wireline Bureau staff on the issue, according to a filing posted Monday (docket 17-84). “At a time when the Commission is looking to cut burdensome and counterproductive regulations from its rulebooks, it should avoid imposing prescriptive make-ready rules that fail to account for the operational realities of broadband deployment,” USTelecom said.
Given the scope and scale of the reforms the FCC adopted in its 2024 incarcerated people’s communication services order, pushback by facilities and IPCS providers is to be expected, the Brattle Group and Wright petitioners' representatives told FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's office. In a docket 23-62 filing posted Friday recapping the meeting, the Brattle and Wright reps said there's no compelling evidence necessitating a change to the IPCS reforms. They discussed a Brattle analysis of cost data and argued that the price caps in the 2024 order allow a balance of IPCS providers recovering their costs and a reasonable profit while providing "just and reasonable rates" to consumers. Separately, provider NCIC Correctional Services requested an unredacted version of the Brattle analysis.
States, political subdivisions, tribes and Alaska Native villages or regional corporations have until the July 17 deadline to submit information on the amount of revenue collected in 2024 in 988 fees and charges and how that revenue was used, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Thursday (docket 18-336). The data will be used in a report to Congress, it said.
Lumen's Global Crossing subsidiary plans to end voice service in California, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Texas by Sept. 16, it told the FCC on Wednesday. It said its voice services operate "on aging, legacy network equipment, the majority of which is no longer supported by underlying vendors," so repairs and replacements have "become challenging, if not impossible." The company needs to decommission the network to head off an irreparable failure later, it said. The nondominant carrier said affected customers have already been notified and thus have time to arrange substitute services from other providers.