Comments are due May 9, replies May 16, on applications to transfer control of Colorado-based Strasburg Telephone Co. from TDS Telecom to the Eastern Slope Rural Telephone Association, a public notice said Friday. Strasburg Telephone Co. served a total of 1,036 subscriber access lines in its service area as of September, the notice said. Comments are also due on the same dates on the proposed transfer of Delta County Tele-Comm from TDS to Elevate. Also based in Colorado, Delta County Tele-Comm served a total of 2,673 subscriber access lines in its service areas as of September.
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Friday delayed the Aug. 20 deadline for larger carriers to meet the Safe Connections Act's requirements. The act's goal is to help domestic violence survivors gain access to safe and affordable communications services. The FCC approved an order implementing the act in November 2023 (see 2311150042).
With the 25-year license of its South America-1 submarine cable network set to expire, Telxius Cable is seeking a renewal. In an FCC application posted Thursday, Telxius said the SAm-1 cable network continues to operate, so the company wants to relicense it until 2051. SAm-1 connects Florida, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru, offering bulk capacity to wholesale and enterprise customers, the application said.
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.