Comments are due Feb. 19, replies Feb. 26 on GTCR Onvoy Holdings' planned takeover of Communications Infrastructure Investments' operating subsidiaries, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a Friday public notice in docket 16-20. The CII subsidiaries are Broadvox-CLEC, Layered Communications, Minnesota Independent Equal Access, Onvoy and Zayo Enterprise Networks, said the PN, which called GTCR Onvoy Holdings an "investment vehicle created to aggregate the ownership of various investment funds managed by GTCR LLC."
CenturyLink and USTelecom sought to back AT&T's challenge to FCC decisions declining to remove price-cap telco "eligible telecom carrier" obligations to offer voice service in high-cost areas where they no longer receive USF subsidies under a broadband-oriented Connect America Fund (see 1601110036). "The result is an unfunded mandate," CenturyLink said in a Thursday motion for leave to intervene filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is reviewing the case (AT&T v. FCC, No. 16-1002). USTelecom's motion said AT&T is challenging an FCC order issued in response to a USTelecom forbearance petition (see 1512170052). Meanwhile, Bruce Kushnick of the New Networks Institute said the FCC based much of its USTelecom forbearance order "on biased and manipulated information or else major facts were totally ignored." In a filing posted Thursday in docket 14-192, the institute asked the commission to investigate "the data used in this and every related FCC order." Kushnick alleged major telcos have manipulated their accounting to gain regulatory advantages (see 1512230049).
A draft FCC item on interstate inmate calling services is circulating, according to the FCC's list of such items. It's an order that addresses an ICS provider application for commission review of a bureau decision regarding a request by another provider, Pay-Tel Communications, seeking outside counsel access to confidential data in the ICS proceeding (docket 12-375), which is under a protective order, an FCC spokesman told us Friday. The Wireline Bureau had denied Securus objections to granting Pay-Tel's outside counsel access to certain data. The spokesman did not say how the draft commission-level order would decide the matter.
Further motions to stay FCC inmate calling service rules should be filed by Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in a Wednesday order (Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461). The court granted an unopposed FCC motion to file a 35-page consolidated response to stay motions by Feb. 12 (see 1602010027), and gave stay movants until Feb. 19 to file replies. Global Tel*Link, Securus Technologies and Telmate have asked the court to stay ICS rules pending further review of underlying challenges (see 1601270029 and 1601290067). In addition, CenturyLink has asked the commission to stay its own order (see 1601280033). The Martha Wright Petitioners, which prodded the FCC to issue the rules, filed opposition in docket 12-375, saying CenturyLink had provided no support for treating its request differently from the requests of the other three ICS providers, which the agency denied (see 1601220040). On a separate track, the Martha Wright Petitioners asked the FCC to deny a Global Tel*Link petition to waive GTL’s duty to comply by March 17 with a rule prohibiting ICS providers from requiring prison customers to have minimum balances in their accounts. GTL asked that compliance be delayed until a June 20 "no minimum balance requirement" deadline for ICS providers on jail customers. In a filing posted Thursday, the Martha Wright Petitioners asked the FCC to review “certain advice that is apparently being provided to governmental agencies” on the ICS rules that the group suggested appeared to be trying to bypass or game the rules. While the petitioners said they hadn’t confirmed the authorship of a document and aren't asserting it came from an ICS provider, they said the contents were “startling,” particularly in light of a recent Wireline Bureau letter to Securus that had cited the company’s “mischaracterization” of the rules and had warned the agency would remain vigilant in monitoring industry implementation (see 1512040001).
Four South Carolina rural telcos asked the FCC for a waiver to recover access charges they said they were unable to collect from Halo Wireless. In an emergency request filed in docket 10-90, Horry Telephone, PBT Telecom, Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative and Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative sought the waiver in order to include amounts Halo owed them in their "Base Period Revenues" effective as of July 1, 2012. They said they had been deprived of $128,827 that would have been included in their BPR "but for Halo's access avoidance efforts and subsequent bankruptcy." The Wireline Bureau recently sought comment (see 1601150052) on a similar request from five Georgia RLECs (see 1601060013).
The FCC dismissed Comcast's pole-attachment complaint against Duke Energy of Indiana at the request of the two companies after they settled their dispute (see 1601150016). The request was stamped "Granted" by the Enforcement Bureau and posted in docket 15-290 Tuesday. Comcast had alleged the dispute hurt broadband deployment in Indiana.
The FCC terminated a Chattanooga utility's bid for rural broadband experiment funds. The Wireline Bureau denied the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB) a waiver and extension of a June 2, 2015, deadline to submit proof of its designation as an eligible telecom carrier (ETC) in all areas covered by its experiment, which had been provisionally selected to be funded with $710,147 to serve certain rural Tennessee areas. The bureau said the EPB filed a petition for a waiver and time extension so it could submit an ETC application to the Tennessee Regulatory Authority (TRA). "We find no good cause to grant EPB's waiver petition," the bureau said in an order Monday in docket 10-90 that appeared in the next day's FCC Daily Digest. "EPB provides no explanation for, or defense of, its failure to submit its ETC application to the TRA at any point during the 90 days between the provisional selection of its bid and the associated June 2 deadline to submit proof of ETC designation. Moreover, even though EPB commits in its petition to keeping the FCC 'fully apprised of any and all developments throughout the application process at the TRA,' EPB has not filed any additional documentation or otherwise contacted the FCC since filing its waiver petition. Indeed, to this date, EPB has submitted no evidence that it ever even filed an ETC application with the TRA." The bureau found EPB had defaulted on its ETC obligation and removed its rural broadband experiment bid from further consideration. EPB had no comment Tuesday.
The FCC extended an inmate calling service reply comment deadline to Feb. 8 on a further NPRM. In an order posted Friday in docket 12-375, the Wireline Bureau said the seven-day extension was more appropriate than a 15-day extension sought by Telmate and Pay-Tel Communications. The ICS providers said the extension was needed because a reply comment period already had been shortened by a delay in initial comments, and was further compressed by office closings due to Winter Storm Jonas. In initial comments, parties were sharply divided over a possible expansion of ICS regulation (see 1601200053).
Level 3 asked to withdraw a petition it filed last week seeking a temporary FCC waiver (see 1601280045) for classifying certain phone numbers the carrier has given to interconnected VoIP providers or other noncarrier entities under a 2015 commission order (see 1506180060). The withdrawal request posted in docket 13-97 contained no explanation, and Level 3 didn't comment Monday.
The FCC sought court permission to file a consolidated 35-page response to separate motions by Global Tel*Link, Telmate and Securus to stay inmate calling service rules pending further judicial review of underlying legal challenges (see 1601270029 and 1601290067). The FCC also asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for permission to slightly delay its response to Feb. 12, according to a motion the agency filed Friday that it said was unopposed by the stay movants (Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461 and consolidated underlying challenges). The commission already denied the parties' stay requests for administrative relief (see 1601220040) and is considering another stay request by CenturyLink (see 1601280033).