The Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations is seeking comment on whether jurisdictional separations of telecom costs and revenue for rate-of-return incumbent local exchange carriers are still needed, said a public notice Friday. The notice also seeks comment on whether the rules should be reformed “when the industry is naturally transitioning away from legacy technologies and cost-based ratemaking” and whether there should be a permanent freeze of the separations rules "while considering the future course” of them. The FCC referred the issue to the Joint Board in a November order extending the current temporary freeze for up to six years (see 2411130043). Comments will be due 30 days after the item is published in the Federal Register.

Former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday that he expects the White House to focus on getting Americans broadband connections and that as chair, he would have handled the rural digital opportunity fund (RDOF) differently if he had known the BEAD program would follow it.

The FCC Wireline Bureau on Monday approved vCom's application to sell its operations, including FCC licenses, to AppSmart. The bureau noted that it sought comment last month (see 2501100041), and none were filed. “Applicants claim that the public interest benefits associated with the transaction include providing Licensees with access to Transferee’s and its affiliates’ financial and operational expertise and their larger client base, and permitting Licensees to continue to provide robust communications solutions to their customers and to better compete in the U.S. communications marketplace,” said the notice in docket 24-657. “We find that grant of the Application will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”

Fixing copper cable vandalism damage at a wire center in suburban Seattle-Tacoma will take more time, CenturyLink told the FCC Friday (docket 24-293). It sought 60 additional days for its requested emergency impairment of service given repeated vandalism. It said it needs to evaluate whether to restore the cable, find a cable placement alternative or discontinue the impacted service.

AT&T sought additional time to complete restoration work in parts of California damaged by last summer’s Park Fire. It asked to have until April 19. In addition, the carrier requested that the FCC continue the suspension of its interstate telecommunications services in a “small” part of the state. “AT&T continues to diligently work to restore service, but due to the scale of the damage to AT&T’s facilities, the remote nature of the affected locations, and delays related to winter weather, portions of AT&T’s network remain out of service,” said a filing last week in docket 24-331. AT&T initially filed for a suspension of service in September.

Members of the Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM) Broadband Coalition raised concerns about the latest FCC thinking on ACAM support in a call with FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff. They “discussed the support adjustment methodology contemplated by Commission staff and the Coalition’s position that the methodology under consideration could lead to inaccurate and insufficient support levels,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 10-90. The coalition “maintains that the most accurate and equitable method to recalculate support is to rerun the cost model to reflect the network required to serve the final location counts,” the filing said.

Rural Americans' access to fiber is already increasing swiftly and will accelerate due to BEAD spending, said Meg Corriveau, manager-strategy and analytics at Cartesian, which conducted the Fiber Broadband Association's annual fiber deployment study, released Thursday. The fiber industry is "at an encouraging point," with record levels of fiber deployment going on despite economic headwinds, Corriveau said. Deployments "aren't going to slow down anytime soon."

AT&T Alabama and Alabama Power have settled AT&T's 2019 pole attachment complaint alleging that the utility was seeking "egregiously high" rates (see 1904250010), they said in a joint motion to dismiss posted Wednesday (docket 19-119). The motion didn't provide terms. The proceeding has been stayed since 2019 as the sides pursued arbitration (see 1908080034).

The National Sheriffs’ Association and ViaPath, a provider of incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS), separately filed in support of challenges to the FCC’s July order implementing the Martha Wright-Reed Act of 2022 (see 2501280053) in briefs filed this week at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The order reduces call rates for people in prisons while establishing interim rate caps for video calls (see 2407180039).

While there's a tendency in the media to see any subsea cable fault as the result of an attack, faults are common and long have been so, said Tim Stronge, vice president-research at telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography. Between 2010 and 2023, there were four a week on average; most were accidents caused by fishing and transport vessels, Stronge wrote Monday. Most never get publicly disclosed, he said.