Judges shouldn't rule on previous FCC inmate calling service rate caps because they were significantly altered in an August reconsideration order, the commission and DOJ told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. There isn't any reason for the court to address the caps in a 2015 order because they have been stayed and "will now never take effect," said the government reply brief posted by the commission Tuesday in Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461 and previously consolidated cases. It said the D.C. Circuit either should dismiss the challenges as moot or consolidate them with new challenges to the recon order, which will raise the tiered rate caps for debit/prepaid ICS domestic calls in prisons and jails from 11-22 cents per minute to 13-31 cents per minute, but without regulating site commission payments to correctional authorities (see 1608040037). If the D.C. Circuit nevertheless decides to rule on the 2015 order, it should uphold the commission decisions, said the brief responding to the arguments of ICS providers, states and sheriffs (see 1606070030). Global Tel*Link said in a release it challenged the FCC recon order at the D.C. Circuit. GTL and others have asked the commission to stay the order pending judicial review of underlying challenges. An inmate advocacy group opposed the requests (see 1609060072). Network Communications International also opposed the stay petitions -- from GTL, Securus, Telmate and states and sheriffs -- in a filing posted Wednesday in FCC docket 12-375.

A group of state and local CLEC associations supported several parts of the Verizon/Incompas proposal on business data services. A letter Monday to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was signed by CalTel, CompSouth, Midwest Association of Competitive Communications, Michigan Internet & Telecommunications Alliance and the Northwest Telecommunications Association. They supported parts of the Verizon/Incompas plan including (1) a competitive market test using three bandwidth tiers, (2) ensuring that price adjustments adopted by the FCC should result in “significant actual price reductions from current levels” for TDM and IP-based services, (3) reductions in price cap levels for TDM of at least 15 percent, and (4) adoption of an X-Factor reducing rates annually by 4.4 percent minus inflation. The groups backed adoption of an enforceable framework of ex ante price regulation for Ethernet services, which “should result in price reductions for Ethernet services that are at least as large as those proposed for TDM services on a one-time and on-going basis.” The CLEC associations supported a proposal of the Wholesale Voice Line Coalition to extend the FCC requirement that ILECs provide a reasonably comparable replacement product for its wholesale voice services when they transition to IP-based networks. Incompas General Counsel Angie Kronenberg said in a statement she welcomed the support from associations “on the front lines of state and local broadband challenges.” In a separate letter in docket 16-143, Verizon proposed an effective date of July 1 for implementing the order if it’s adopted later this year. The date is “aggressive, but Verizon suggests the Commission should align the deadline for implementing the major reforms with next year’s annual filing,” it said.

The FCC sought nominations by Oct. 21 for six seats on the board of Universal Service Administrative Co. "We encourage nominees with expertise relevant to running a large and complex organization with such skills as accounting, finance, auditing, procurement, data management and information technology," said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 96-45 listed in Monday's Daily Digest.

FCC staff adopted an eligible service list for E-rate telecom subsidies for schools and libraries participating in the program for the funding year beginning next July 1. The Wireline Bureau issued an order Monday in which it adopted targeted changes proposed in a public notice in docket 13-184 (see 1606060008), with "small modifications." The order revised the description of eligible leased dark fiber to read, "Leased Dark Fiber (including dark indefeasible rights of use for a set term)," to clarify the distinction with self-provisioned fiber under the rules. It also explained how to classify connections between multiple buildings of a single school: as either "Category One" covering services needed to provide broadband connectivity to schools and libraries, or "Category Two" covering internal connections. Some explanations were in a series of FAQs in an appendix. The bureau declined to make changes in response to comments (see 1607210038), including proposals to add services to the list or provide additional clarifications to previous E-rate orders as beyond the scope of the current proceeding.

U.S. TelePacific's planned buy of DSCI LLC from DSCI Holdings was partially approved in an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice Monday in docket 16-67, granting an application for domestic service license transfers under Communications Act Section 214. The bureau cleared the deal after the DOJ and departments of Defense and Homeland Security said Friday they no longer had objections, as long as the FCC conditioned the deal on commitments U.S. TelePacific made in a letter of assurances. Deal-related applications to transfer authorizations for international services are still pending, the PN said.

USTelecom opposed a business group's petition asking the FCC to revisit a ruling granting incumbent telcos nondominant treatment of their interstate switched-access services connecting local callers to long-distance networks. The petition of the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Group "is late-filed, and thus should be dismissed with prejudice on procedural grounds," said USTelecom in opposition in docket 13-3. "Moreover, Ad Hoc raises no new facts or changed circumstances that have not already been considered by the Commission." Ad Hoc said the FCC provided ILECs relief despite its "failure to finalize access rate regulations for toll-free originating access minutes" (see 1608240045).

The Wright Petitioners urged the FCC to deny Global Tel*Link's request for a stay of an August order raising inmate calling service rate caps without restricting site-commission payments to correctional authorities (see 1609020028). GTL isn't likely to prevail on the merits of a legal challenge to the order and wouldn't suffer irreparable harm absent a stay, said the inmate family advocacy group in opposition posted Thursday in docket 12-375, after similar filings against Securus and Telmate stay requests. State and sheriff interests more recently sought a stay (see 1609060072), which the Wright Petitioners also opposed in a Friday filing.

The FCC sought input on Frontier Communications' plans to offer internet access in 3,146 "unserved" census blocks using Connect America Fund Phase I, Round 2 incremental broadband support. Other providers have until Oct. 24 to indicate whether they already serve the census blocks with 3 Mbps (down) and 768 Kbps (up) data speeds, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 10-90. Frontier must then certify that to the best of its knowledge, the locations it's targeting are in fact unserved before beginning construction, the PN said.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai sought information on the Lifeline oversight processes of Universal Service Administrative Co. to guard against abuse of the program's enhanced low-income subsidies for tribal consumers. Pai noted Blue Jay Wireless recently settled an Enforcement Bureau investigation by agreeing to take compliance steps and pay back $2 million in "wrongful" tribal support (see 1607150031), which can be up to $25 above the regular Lifeline subsidy of $9.25 per subscriber monthly. Blue Jay didn't verify that its beneficiaries actually lived on tribal lands "even when a subscriber's address made him/her clearly ineligible," Pai said in his latest letter to USAC CEO Chris Henderson. Pai said Hawaii Public Utilities Commission staff discovered the excess payments only when Blue Jay reported more subscribers than the total number of households in the Hawaii home lands. Because Blue Jay's consent decree "suggests that there may be substantial gaps" in federal Lifeline safeguards, he asked Henderson to answer by Sept. 21 a series of detailed questions on USAC's ability to verify eligibility and combat waste and abuse of tribal support.

The FCC met its USF duties to price-cap telcos even though a few of their high-cost areas aren't subsidized, the government said, responding to carrier court challenges to 2014 and 2015 commission orders denying telco relief requests (see 1607120073). The FCC reasonably required the telcos to continue to provide "interim" voice service without USF support in about 6 percent of their rural census blocks to protect consumers during a complex shift to broadband-oriented subsidy mechanisms, the commission and DOJ said in their brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit posted Tuesday (AT&T, CenturyLink v. FCC, No. 15-1038 and consolidated cases). The government entities said the arrangements complied with a requirement that qualifying telecom carriers be "eligible" to receive USF support "because nationwide carriers are 'eligible' for and receive, considerable high-cost support," and they can seek support for unsubsidized areas through petitions or a planned Connect America Fund Phase II subsidy auction. The FCC and courts have never found that carriers must receive support in every particular area to be "eligible" for such support, they said, citing the commission's "broad discretion" to balance competing USF principles. Once the CAF II process is fully implemented, carriers "will be supported or receive forbearance in all or nearly all blocks," and the FCC has promised to revisit remaining obligations, they said. For now, carriers are free to prove they need additional support to provide service, "a showing no carrier made here," they said.