Comments are due Jan. 29, replies Feb. 5, on NEK Community Broadband’s proposed acquisition of Consolidated Communications of Vermont’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support and related buildout and service obligations, said a public notice in docket 24-686 Wednesday.
Commnet Wireless, Mercury Wireless and Mediapolis Telephone Co. have defaulted on some rural digital opportunity fund (RDOF) census block groups in Idaho, Washington, Ohio and Iowa, which opens them to consider other funding programs, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Wednesday. It said the carriers would be subject to penalties, adding that it was referring the Commnet and Mercury defaults to the Enforcement Bureau. In docket 19-126, Plains Internet said it hadn't met its year-end 2024 milestone for the Kansas RDOF deployment. It said while it intended to have deployed service to 40% of three Kansas locations, it hadn't deployed at all. It said it wasn't relinquishing its RDOF obligation for the Kansas locations.
NTCA joined other industry groups in opposing a Fine Point Technologies' request (see 2411270048) that the FCC launch a rulemaking on standardized broadband speed testing protocols. USTelecom, NCTA and the Wireless ISP Association opposed the ask in initial comments last month (see 2412300034). “The final performance testing rules recognize the diversity of the marketplace and accordingly permit covered providers to select pathways toward performance measurements that best meet the individual needs of the company, whether based on company size, technology specifications, or other considerations as may be relevant to the provider,” NTCA said in reply comments this week in RM-11991. “The Petition’s request to impose ‘standardized broadband speed testing protocols’ is unnecessary and would moreover introduce vast and costly ramifications to a program that has demonstrated success in the half-decade since the rules were promulgated,” NTCA said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment on an application by the companies for Citizens Telephone Co-op to acquire rural digital opportunity fund support and related buildout and service obligations at locations in Floyd County, Virginia, from Cox Virginia Telcom. Comments are due Jan. 24, replies Jan. 31, is docket 24-587, said a notice in Monday’s Daily Digest. The companies “contend that the proposed transaction will enable Cox Virginia and its affiliates to devote more attention to other census blocks/locations in each state in which Cox Virginia and its affiliates are RDOF support recipients,” the bureau said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment Friday on a vCom proposal to sell its operations, including FCC licenses, to AppSmart. Comments are due Jan. 24, replies Jan. 31, in docket 24-657. “vCom’s wholly-owned subsidiaries, QuantumShift and QuantumShift Virginia, provide intrastate and interstate communications services entirely on a resale basis, and they do not own or operate any communications facilities,” the bureau said: “Licensees work with a range of facilities-based and reseller carriers, and resell IP services, mobile voice and data, and both traditional local and long-distance switched voice service as well as interconnected VoIP service.” Applicants state that they will “continue to exist and operate under the same name and will continue to provide services pursuant to then-existing rates, terms, and conditions for the near term and any future changes will be undertaken pursuant to customers’ contracts and applicable law,” the bureau said. AppDirect announced in November plans to buy vCom and QuantumShift.
The FCC revised the reporting templates and certification forms for annual reports from incarcerated people’s communications services providers, said an order Wednesday from the Wireline and the Consumer and Public Affairs bureaus. The changes include expanding the reporting to video IPCS providers, moving detailed facility and contract information to a single worksheet and revising the reporting instructions, the order said. The updates are intended to “both enhance the value and usefulness of the Annual Reports and reduce existing or proposed reporting burdens, while continuing to enable the Commission to monitor the IPCS marketplace,” the order said. The changes “will bring increased transparency to IPCS providers’ rates, charges, and practices, help ensure compliance with the Commission’s IPCS rules,” and allow the FCC to “monitor pricing practices and trends in the IPCS marketplace generally.”
Brightspeed ended 2024 with its fiber network passing nearly 1.8 million premises across its 20-state footprint, exceeding its 1.75 million goal, it said Tuesday. The company said it deployed more than 17,600 miles of fiber cable in 2024, with the total amount of fiber deployed since the build began exceeding 103,000 miles.
NTCA urged the FCC to approve Siskiyou Telephone's request for a two-year waiver of agency rules imposing a $200 per-line monthly limit on high-cost universal service support. The California-based provider noted in a November filing it sought the waiver to address the loss in support as customers were disconnected during wildfires in 2020 and 2022. The waiver “will allow adequate time for the lines lost to the fires to be replaced,” it said. “Siskiyou operates in some of the most difficult-to-serve rural (indeed frontier) areas of the nation,” NTCA said in a filing this week in docket 10-90. “Much of Siskiyou’s service area is in mountainous (elevations up to 8,200 feet) and granite-laden terrain, the latter requiring hard rock directional boring and rock saws to install network infrastructure,” NTCA said: In addition, “the company’s service area is vulnerable to the wildfires that have devastated California over the past several years.” WTA also supported the request. The waiver “will allow Siskiyou to continue to provide its valuable services to its remaining customers while the residents who lost their homes rebuild, thus well serving the public interest,” the group said: “Without such relief, Siskiyou may be unable to offer service to residents that lost their homes, thus compounding their suffering.”
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on the latest National Exchange Carrier Association proposal to modify interstate average schedule formulas, said a public notice Monday. “NECA proposes formula changes that would result in a 6.92% overall increase in settlements at constant demand” said the Dec. 19 NECA proposal. Such modifications are historically proposed by NECA and granted by the bureau each year. FCC rules require NECA to annually propose modifications or certify that no revisions are necessary. The latest proposed modifications would be effective July 1, 2025, until June 30, 2026. Comments are due in docket 24-685 on Feb. 5, replies Feb. 20.
Some FCC proposals for improving the Robocall Mitigation Database won’t address bad actors, Incompas said in an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 24-213. For example, the agency shouldn’t assess a base $10,000 fine when telephone providers submit inaccurate but “readily curable” information to the Robocall Mitigation Database, Incompas said. “Providers should not be assessed a base forfeiture unless they have either failed to respond to the Commission requests to update information in their RMD filing or ‘knowingly’ submitted inaccurate data,” Incompas said. In addition, the FCC shouldn’t require a $100 filing fee for RMD filings. An FCC proposal requiring multifactor authentication to access the database is also “unlikely to produce benefits that justify the additional burden,” Incompas added. “Placing an additional layer of security on the RMD will further burden voice service providers that conduct robocall mitigation on a team-wide basis and may make it harder to update the RMD if the multi-factor authentication point of contact is not available.” Accordingly, Incompas “urges the Commission to ensure that the administrative changes it is pursuing are warranted and will have the desired impact of addressing and removing bad actors engaged in illegal activity.”