The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector has no objections to Google's proposed Taihai submarine cable system as long as it meets various national security commitments, NTIA told the FCC Wednesday. Taihai is a 7,000-km line to run between the Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan and the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The committee is also called Team Telecom.
Lumos representatives spoke with FCC Wireline Bureau staff about a waiver the company is seeking to avoid a penalty after encountering difficulties attempting to “properly upload and certify performance testing data” for Q1 2023. Lumos sought a waiver in May. “Representatives explained that Lumos has been a ‘model citizen,’ with the lone exception of not certifying performance testing data for the first quarter of 2023,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 10-90. Lumos partially uploaded data for that quarter “and timely uploaded and certified data” for all other quarters starting in 2021, the filing said.
Landline telephony "is not going away anytime soon," but the trend toward VoIP "is inexorable," TeleGeography analyst Pete Bell wrote Tuesday. Public switched telephone networks peaked in 2006, with 1.22 billion lines in service globally, and has averaged declines of 6% annually since then, Bell said. Last year saw the PSTN subscription total dropping 16%, ending the year at 407 million, he said. By 2031, PSTN should shrink to fewer than 250 million lines in service globally, according to Bell. Mobile substitution and VoIP subscriptions have driven the waning of PSTN voice telephony, he added. Last year saw IP-based voice subscriptions surpass those connected by PSTN for the first time, Bell said, adding that VoIP lines will outnumber PSTN by almost 300 million by the end of 2031.
CEO Jennifer Prather and others from Totelcom Communications discussed concerns about the enhanced-alternative connect America cost model with aides to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty. They raised “potential issues with locations being added to the map that had already been challenged and adjudicated, and concerns that the latest E-ACAM interim file was not complete as it relates to challenges,” said a filing on the Carr meeting posted Monday in docket 10-90.
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Friday opened docket 25-223 on its proposed update of how the agency prepares its Telecom Act Section 706 reports to Congress. Chairman Brendan Carr is seeking a vote at the Aug. 7 FCC meeting on an NPRM soliciting comment on the issue (see 2507170048). The docket is captioned “Inquiry Concerning Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capability to All Americans in a Reasonable and Timely Fashion.”
A 60-day FCC advanced notice requirement for attached midsize orders could slow, rather than speed up, broadband deployments, according to Altice USA. Cable company representatives told the agency that while requiring advanced notice makes sense for larger orders, attachers generally have little advanced notice themselves about midsize orders. Requiring them to provide advanced notice to utilities will delay deployment, Altice told FCC commissioners' offices, said a docket 17-84 filing posted Thursday. The requirement is part of the pole attachment item on the agenda for the commissioners' July 24 open meeting. Altice called the proposed consequences for attachers not providing the 60-day advanced notice for large orders "overly severe." The cable ISP said utilities missing survey and make-ready timelines should be required to refund attachers any prepaid, uncompleted survey or make-ready work.
AT&T is hoping to discontinue legacy plain old telephone service for 21,000 customers in areas of 17 states, it told the FCC in a discontinuance application Tuesday. It said it anticipates discontinuing residential local service and business local exchange access line service on or after June 30, 2026, in the affected areas. The carrier said the customers would have AT&T Phone-Advanced and AT&T Phone for Business-Advanced service available as a replacement service. It said wireless service, including from rival Verizon, is available in the affected areas, as are competitive voice offerings via cable, fiber, fixed wireless and satellite technologies. It said the 17 states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Four carriers have elected to move their business data services offerings to incentive regulation, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The carriers are Amelia Telephone and New Castle Telephone, both in Virginia; Chillicothe Telephone in Ohio; and Union River Telephone in Maine. The shift went into effect July 1.
Reliability, compliance compatibility and functionality issues keep landline phones in use in locations from cell centers and hospitals to trading floors and hotels, wrote Rich Tehrani, CEO of tech consultancy TMC. Hotel rooms are often mandated to have access to 911 via a hard-wired phone in each room, he said Monday. There's also often user resistance to losing desk phones, particularly in front-office or high-call-volume positions, he added.
The Wireline Bureau on Monday issued a limited waiver of the July 1 deadline to file Form 481 for carriers authorized for Enhanced Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM) support. Those that didn’t certify must now do so by July 31, the bureau said in dockets 10-90 and 14-58. The Universal Service Administrative Co. “will calculate any support reductions due to late or missing certifications based on the new deadline.”