Liberty Communications of Puerto Rico petitioned the FCC to waive certain USF reporting requirements for Q2. Liberty sought a waiver of the pretesting performance measurement, performance measures model system reporting requirements, and rules related to withholding disbursements. The company has "encountered numerous technical problems" with the performance measures module system "for multiple months," said its petition posted Friday in docket 18-143. Liberty also said it lacks enough time to deploy equipment to sampled subscribers and complete testing by June 30.

ClearCaptions urged the FCC to increase its rates for IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) providers using communications assistants (CA). It also suggested establishing a $1 floor rate for automatic speech recognition. A "lack of rate certainty" has caused several providers to stop investing in marketing and outreach, ClearCaptions told an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. "This has resulted in three straight years of negative industry growth," ClearCaptions said in a filing posted Friday in docket 03-123. The company noted that a rate plan of "at least two years" would also provide rate stability for the industry.

The National Sheriffs' Association urged the FCC to include safety and surveillance costs in its final ratemaking for incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS), holding separate meetings with aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Nathan Simington, Geoffrey Starks and Brendan Carr. NSA also met with Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff. It said that jails are "subject to a broad array of requirements that necessitate safety and security measures," in a filing posted Friday (docket 23-62). IPCS can also "expose jails to liability for failing to fulfill their obligations to the incarcerated," NSA said. "It is important to recognize that the commission does not have authority over jails," NSA said: "The commission must therefore take care not to interfere with the operation of jails as it develops an IPCS compensation plan." NSA also asked that the FCC "disregard proposals to use industry-wide average costs based on the general telecommunications industry," noting the industry is "largely deregulated." The group suggested developing separate rates for smaller jails "due to the unique cost structure of such facilities" and higher rates for jails based on average daily population.

CaptionMate urged the FCC to give smaller providers of IP captioned telephone services a "fair shot at achieving scale" by establishing an emergent rate (see 2406030062). The company said in separate meetings with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks that the cost of an emergent rate "would be exceedingly small and more than offset by even modest reductions to" the automatic speech recognition-only rate of larger providers. CaptionMate also met with the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics, and the Disability Rights Office, per a filing Thursday in docket 03-123.

NTCA urged the FCC to further refine its broadband mapping process “before bad decisions are locked in and have years-long implications,” Cassidy Hjelmstad, SRT Communications CEO-general manager, and Roger Nishi, Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom vice president-industry relations, wrote in NTCA’s Advocacy Spotlight series (see 2405200065). Current maps encourage companies to overstate coverage areas, and it's "almost impossible" to correct data if an individual provider overstates coverage for thousands of locations, the NTCA members wrote. They recommended the FCC “take a step back and get coverage claims right.” The system “wasn’t built to handle overstatements on a widespread basis," they added.

IP captioned telephone service providers asked the FCC to act on a new IP CTS rate plan (see 2406030062). CaptionCall said in separate meetings with aides to Commissioners Nathan Simington, Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks that the rate plan "should set the basic economic framework for the development of the most functionally equivalent IP CTS." The company also met with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. In addition, Hamilton Relay met separately with aides to Carr and Starks. It told the FCC that a new rate plan should "adequately compensate providers for the higher costs" associated with using a communications assistant (CA). Moreover, a plans should "require all certified providers ... to include an option for CA-assisted IP CTS."

The United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry asked the FCC to keep rates for incarcerated people's communications services (ICPS) "as low as possible" (see 2406120059), according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 23-62. In a call with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the group said safety, security and surveillance costs should be excluded from the rates because those functions "are not the appropriate financial burden of incarcerated people and their families." UCC Media Justice also asked the commission to remove the 50-person average daily population threshold required to provide telecom relay service-related and point-to-point video obligations.

A coalition of industry groups asked the FCC to modify its process for assigning costs to broadband serviceable locations (BSL) as part of the adjustment process for the enhanced alternative connect America cost model (E-ACAM) program. In a letter Wednesday in docket 10-90, the ACAM Broadband Coalition, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA asked the commission to use the "model-provided cost of a nearby BSL in the E-ACAM company’s study area to assign a cost to an uncosted BSL." The groups said the proposed adjustment "provides an equitable, simple to administer means to address" BSLs in the latest version of the broadband serviceable location fabric compared with the version used in the first ACAM program.

Securus urged the FCC to let providers of incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) recover the cost of safety and security features. In a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr (see 2307130070), the IPCS provider said that including such features as recoverable costs is "a long-standing precedent in the commission's IPCS rulemaking." Ending recoverable costs, Securus warned, has the potential of affecting budgets and practices at correctional agencies, according to an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 23-62. In addition, it said shifting costs will "put further strain on the budgets for providing services to incarcerated people" and cause providers to "compete for scarcer funding."

The FCC Wireline Bureau modified the effective date to July 1 on its approval of the National Exchange Carrier Association's proposed average-schedule interstate settlement disbursements. An announcement was contained in an order Wednesday in docket 23-415 (see 2405100062). A previous order set the effective date as July 2.