Verizon lost a dispute about facilities charges in a telephone interconnection agreement before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday, as the court vacated a lower court ruling in Verizon’s favor (http://1.usa.gov/1sOVxNY). But several other lower court findings in favor of Verizon were affirmed. Soon after agreeing to an interconnection agreement, CoreTel and Verizon had found themselves in a dispute on the rates CoreTel was required to pay for interconnection entrance facilities, the court said. CoreTel was entitled to summary judgment in its favor on both its and Verizon’s claims for declaratory relief relating to Verizon’s facilities charges, the 4th Circuit said. But the 4th Circuit affirmed the lower court grant of summary judgment in Verizon’s favor on CoreTel’s “reciprocal compensation” claims. The 4th Circuit also upheld a lower court Verizon victory on its switched-access claims. The opinion was written by Judge Allyson Duncan.

Comptel met with FCC Wireline Bureau officials Thursday to discuss the FCC timeline for action on the IP transition, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday to docket 13-5 (http://bit.ly/1mnwhfV). The conversation focused on three issues Comptel wants the commission to address this year: Adopting rules to prevent the exclusionary impact of special access term and volume discount agreements; confirming IP interconnection rights for the exchange of voice traffic; and revisiting the existing copper retirement rules. Existing copper retirement rules are insufficient to protect the public interest, because they provide only for notification that the copper loop will no longer be available for competitive services, but don’t ensure an alternative form of access to last-mile facilities, said Comptel. “This creates substantial harm, particularly to small and medium size businesses that rely on competitors to provide the affordable broadband services they need to run and grow their business."

The American Library Association met with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other agency staff May 5, to propose the FCC invest a “significant portion” of funding to focus on improving current process in the E-rate program, and incentivizing applicants to take advantage of capacity-building measures already in place, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-184 (http://bit.ly/1iJkgvJ). Libraries in many communities are the only on-ramp to the Internet for those without such access, ALA said.

The FCC should investigate reports that carriers are forcing customers from traditional copper phone service, said a petition from Public Knowledge, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) and eight other organizations filed with the commission Monday. “Complaints often state that customers are being involuntarily moved to fiber or IP-based service (or some combination thereof), even if those new technologies fail to serve all of the user’s needs or will be more expensive. Denying basic phone service to people who have relied on the network for decades violates the network compact that has successfully guided our communications policy for one hundred years.” A commission investigation is necessary to ensure the “continued vitality of the fundamental values that underlie our network, including universal service,” the petition said. The FCC has said in approving the IP trials it wants to preserve longtime principles for customers in the IP transition, “but now, the Commission is at risk of losing control of the network transition by allowing carriers to push their customers off of the traditional networks -- in violation of their obligations as telecommunications carriers -- simply to cut costs or push customers into higher cost services or packages, generating more revenue for the carrier,” the groups said in the filing. Others signing the petition include groups like the Office of the People’s Counsel-District of Columbia, that filed petitions with local PUCs alleging customers are being pushed from copper service against their will or knowledge (CD March 27 p10).

No neutrality rule bars Telcordia from serving as Local Number Portability Administrator, the Ericsson affiliate told the FCC in a letter Friday (http://bit.ly/1mSt6uX). Neustar had argued (CD May 8 p11) that the commission must select the next LNPA by notice-and-comment rulemaking because Telcordia is “barred by rule” from being selected. “These arguments are yet another transparent attempt to delay and derail the selection of the LNPA in order to force an extension of Neustar’s existing $500 million per year contract and to disregard the recommendations” of the North American Numbering Council and North American Portability Management LLC, Telcordia said. Neustar’s argument is “a plain misreading” of the relevant statute, that “attempts to elevate form over substance” -- in the process, “fundamentally” misunderstanding “the difference between a rule and an adjudication,” Telcordia said. “Ericsson continues to show impatience with a process that is not over, and in which the assessment of whether a potential vendor meets the neutrality requirement has only just begun,” a Neustar spokesman said. “Ericsson cannot choose the rules that it would like to follow and ignore the rules that are inconvenient. Our expectation is that the FCC, far from being rushed by Ericsson, will want to address the serious issues we have raised."

Mozilla’s petition to treat remote data services as a Title II service (CD May 8 p25) “represents a legally, and practically, viable path forward,” the company told an aide to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1sb5bbD). It would be a way for the commission to anchor effective open Internet rules, including no blocking, nondiscrimination and no paid prioritization to fixed or mobile Internet access services, Mozilla said. The company discussed the “substantive and procedural intersections” between its petition and the open net neutrality proceeding. It also discussed “ways to support open Internet rules through Title II authority,” the filing said. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is facing pressure to postpone Thursday’s net neutrality NPRM vote. (See separate report above in this issue.)

The FCC should allocate the “maximum possible amount of funding” for rural broadband experiments, the Rural Broadband Policy Group told an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler last week, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1mIPwTM). The group expressed “concern” over the proposed net neutrality rules: Rural communities want “the full Internet” and not a pay-to-play “hand-me-down.” The FCC should not “break the Internet before rural America gets it,” the group said, recommending reclassification of broadband as a Title II common carrier service.

The FCC should declare that remote delivery services are telecom services subject to Title II of the Communications Act, Mozilla proposed in a petition posted Wednesday to docket 09-191 (http://bit.ly/RsjahV). Communications within a last-mile terminating access network between a remote endpoint and an ISP’s local subscribers constitute a “delivery service,” Mozilla said. Classifying them as Title II will “help preserve the future of technology innovation online, particularly for online video communications and smartphone applications and services,” Mozilla said, calling that reclassification a “minimal, yet necessary, action to realize the statutory goals of the Communications Act in the modern era of network management and market operations.” Such an action would create space for “experimentation with pricing and other features of consumer-facing Internet access services, while at the same time separating information-only services further from the core of Commission jurisdiction,” Mozilla said. The rule wouldn’t apply to interconnection or peering functions, which involve “a distinct physical portion of the network infrastructure,” it said. “Our petition asks the FCC to use Title II, but it isn’t reclassification, because it wouldn’t reverse existing precedents,” said Mozilla senior policy engineer Chris Riley in a blog post Tuesday (http://mzl.la/RskzVB). “Our petition would not impose obligations on technology companies, but instead would safeguard them by clearly delineating services.” AT&T Vice President Hank Hultquist tweeted to Riley Wednesday: “Kudos for bringing some fresh thought to an increasingly stale debate” (http://bit.ly/RskMYN). But Columbia University computer science professor Vishal Misra doesn’t think the Mozilla proposal would achieve much. “The ISPs are not ’slowing’ any specific traffic down,” so “they are in the clear per the Mozilla proposed regulations,” Misra told us by email. “The last-mile ISPs will continue to exploit their monopoly positions and will simply find a way to offer a ‘fast lane’ to the netflixes of the world under the umbrella of paid peering. Sometimes I feel that my colleague here at Columbia (Tim Wu) did a disservice to the public by introducing this term ‘network neutrality’ that cannot be even defined properly by anyone.”

Because of lenient net neutrality rules, some ISPs have allowed Internet performance to deteriorate to create leverage over edge providers, Level 3 told an aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai last week, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 09-191 Wednesday (http://bit.ly/RslvJA). ISPs are “acting like would-be robber barons for the Internet era, with control over the only means of access to their millions of residential end users,” Level 3 said. “The Commission should ensure that it doesn’t make the same mistake again,” the transit provider said, asking the commission to “require ISPs to interconnect on commercially reasonable terms.” The “heart” of such a rule would be that “an ISP must offer to interconnect without imposing access charges,” Level 3 said. “The Commission was right in the Open Internet Order to be concerned about the threats that bottleneck ISPs pose to the free and open Internet. That threat is real, and the damage to the Internet is already occurring."

The FCC plans to fine Central Telecom Long Distance $3.9 million for deceptively switching customers’ services and for illegal billing practices, the agency said in a news release Monday. The FCC found that telemarketers for the Colorado telco allegedly tricked consumers into believing that the telemarketers were calling on behalf of the consumers’ existing telephone companies, then changed the consumers’ preferred carriers without their authorization, the FCC said. Central Telecom did not comment.