Seth Cooper, Free State Foundation director-policy studies, blogged about the Verizon/Frontier deal (see 2504020076).
Pointing to the Quintillion subsea fiber cut in the Beaufort Sea (see 2501220001), Alaska's Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative is asking the FCC to waive penalties this calendar year for not complying with some of its obligations in exchange for Alaska Plan funding. In a docket 16-271 waiver petition Thursday, ASTAC said it's failing Q1 speed/latency requirements due to a service outage stemming from the Quintillion fiber cut -- Quintillion being the middle-mile fiber backhaul provider for ASTAC. It's asking for a waiver of penalties through 2025 to give it time to repair the cut.
USTelecom warned that changes to pole attachment rules could harm broadband deployment under the BEAD program. In a filing posted Wednesday in docket 17-84, USTelecom cited recent filings by ACA Connects (see 2503110021), electric utilities and others. USTelecom members “are working to deploy broadband as quickly as possible and support Commission efforts to speed such deployments, including those funded through BEAD and other government programs,” the group said. “However, departing from the negotiated timelines required under the Commission’s current rules and adopting one-size-fits-all make-ready timelines for large make-ready orders will not speed deployment in BEAD or otherwise.”
The FCC should reform and refocus its annual reports on broadband availability required by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, the Phoenix Center said in an analysis released Wednesday. Historically, the FCC’s Section 706 reports “have been plagued by partisan interpretations and have failed to address the core issues behind broadband deployment gaps,” the center said in a separate news release. The FCC hasn’t created consistent definitions of when a deployment timeline is “reasonable” and “timely,” as required by the statute, and what actions should be taken when deployment doesn’t meet those requirements, the Phoenix Center said.
Global Cloud Xchange is rebranding its subsea cable and data center operations as FLAG -- Fibre Links Around the Globe -- it said Wednesday. A subsidiary of British venture capital and private equity firm 3i, it said its managed services division will continue to operate as GCX Managed Services.
The world's submarine cable infrastructure needs proactive monitoring or sensing tools, consultant Kim Kyllesbech Larsen wrote Tuesday. More than 95% of international internet and data traffic crosses subsea cables, "but these critical assets lie largely unguarded on the ocean floor," Larsen said. Sensing technologies could help detect and characterize disturbances to cables, as well as real-time threat classification, he said. Those sensing capabilities "can serve as a digital tripwire along the seabed, transforming our ability to monitor and defend strategic infrastructure."
The Free State Foundation’s Seth Cooper said Wednesday that Verizon is correct and the FCC should ignore the Coalition for IP Transition's arguments urging conditions on Verizon’s buy of Frontier (see 2504010070). “The Coalition doesn't identify any specific harms arising from the merger,” Cooper blogged: “Under prevailing agency precedents (even if sometimes breached to achieve pro-regulatory ends), merger conditions may only be imposed to remedy transaction-specific harms.” May noted that “on its face,” the coalition’s filing “is addressed to matters pertaining to the entire voice services market.”
Sytel, which sells dialer and contact center products, updated FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on its proposal (see 2502100021) that the agency rethink Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules to focus on “dialing outcomes” rather than the dialing method used. Automated dialing can be deployed without harming consumers, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 02-278.
Verizon representatives urged the FCC to ignore the Coalition for IP Transition's March filing, which raised concerns about Verizon’s proposed acquisition of Frontier. The coalition complained that Verizon and other local exchange carriers “refuse to interconnect on an IP-basis, despite offering IP services to other customers.” The coalition said the transaction “would not yield direct benefits for access customers.”
TDS Telecom asked the FCC to waive a requirement that it file data as part of the Connect America Fund program by July 1. In a Monday filing, TDS blamed the Universal Service Administrative Co. for a delay in submitting the Q4 2023 performance testing data covering Tennessee. It said it attempted to file the data in January 2024, “nearly six months prior to the due date,” but USAC’s performance measures module “prevented the company from doing so (by ‘locking’ the Tennessee fields) apparently because previously submitted quarterly data for Tennessee was undergoing a routine verification review.” TDS said it “uploaded and certified” the data “immediately upon receiving notice from USAC that it could and should do so” on Nov. 7. Absent a waiver, TDS said it stands to lose $3 million in support “all on account of a systems issue” that wasn’t the carrier’s fault.