NCIC Inmate Communications petitioned the FCC to partially waive its rule requiring correctional facilities to deploy certain forms of advanced telecom relay services by Jan. 1 (see 2212080063). NCIC sought a one-year extension to comply with the requirement, noting that IP captioned telephone service provider ClearCaptions backed a similar waiver from Securus. The "modest extension" will "give the marketplace time to develop corrections-grade advanced TRS platforms," said the petition posted Wednesday in docket 23-62.
Industry groups expressed caution regarding any adoption of a new support mechanism and fiber mandates for the FCC's high-cost USF programs, according to a reply comment posted Wednesday in docket 10-90 (see 2310240062). Don't require the provision of standalone voice service as a prerequisite for funding, said the Wireless ISP Association. "There is no longer a need to require high-cost recipients to offer standalone voice service," the group said. WISPA also urged tech neutrality and not to mandate fiber connections. "The commission has never required the use of fiber ... or precluded the use of technologies for its high-cost programs, and it should not do so here," WISPA said. The FCC's enhanced alternative connect America cost model should "be based on forward-looking technology and should not require certain technologies that will unnecessarily raise the cost to taxpayers," it added. The record doesn't support the adoption of a new support mechanism for operational expenses, said Incompas, adding no clear path forward has been provided to establish any new support mechanism. The group said there isn't enough time to adopt a new mechanism before states begin soliciting applications for NTIA's broadband, equity, access and deployment program. The FCC should instead "evaluate the continued need of each USF program in order to evaluate the future of the USF most effectively and how it relates to the billions of dollars coming from federal and state funding," Incompas said.
Searchlight Capital Partners and British Columbia Investment Management's purchase of Consolidated Communications will allow the company to "continue its multi-pronged fiber expansion strategy and position itself to become a leading fiber provider across the United States," Consolidated said in a transfer of control application posted Monday (see 2310160065). Consolidated said it plans to expand 1 Gbps coverage in its current network and "improve operational efficiency across its approximately 59,000 fiber route miles and two million fiber strand miles." The company said tariffs will remain unaffected because investors have "no plans to change Consolidated's current rates or terms and conditions of services."
NTCA representatives met with aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington to explain its stance on an FCC proposal on rules to speed the move to next-generation 911 (see 2309110042). NTCA supports “a surgical amendment to the overall approach as found in the NPRM in specifying that the party that is paid by and contractually responsible to state and local governmental entities to implement NG911 should be responsible for the costs of doing so,” it said in filings posted separately Wednesday in docket 21-479.
The FCC is focused on efforts to build a smart power grid, Commissioner Geoffrey Starks told the 2023 Clean Energy Transition Conference, according to text of the speech in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Smart grids “show a clear path to tap into more renewable sources, strengthen our resilience in the wake of more frequent and more severe natural disasters, squeeze power routing efficiencies, and lower consumer costs on their utility bills,” he said. Starks highlighted a USF program push to connect more than 700,000 unserved rural locations with high-speed fixed broadband. “We’re also helping every community in America migrate to mobile 5G by increasing access to spectrum, accelerating deployment and supporting rural buildout through initiatives like our 5G Fund,” he said: “This is about much more than gaming and movies.”
The FCC's USF funding mechanism "violates the original understanding of the nondelegation doctrine, the modern intelligible-principle doctrine, and the private nondelegation doctrine" (see 2310060069), Consumers' Research told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a reply brief Thursday (docket 23-1091). The court should "make clear that Congress cannot delegate such power, let alone to a private entity," the group said.
Lumen won an approximately $110 million contract over a five-year performance period extending an existing network services contract with the Defense Information Systems Agency, the company said Tuesday. Lumen will "operate and maintain DISA's fiber backbone" and provide more than 11,000 fiber miles, per a news release.
The FCC is “beleaguered” and “browbeaten by Congress,” and proposed rule changes on net neutrality and digital discrimination will marginalize the agency, said former agency senior aide Adonis Hoffman Monday in an opinion column that appeared in The Hill and was published on The Media Institute's website. Hoffman, CEO of consulting firm The Advisory Counsel, is a former aide to then-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The FCC is criticized by consumers, and “pilloried in the press,” despite doing “amazing work," wrote Hoffman. Whether its woes are due to lack of leadership, errant enforcement or partisan politics is hard to say.” The agency will “more than likely” lose a court challenge against its net neutrality proposals, Hoffman said. The FCC would also lose legal challenges to a digital discrimination order, he said. “Signs are that the Commission is posturing to adopt a standard different from what other federal agencies have already adopted. If so, the agency’s ruling could once again be overturned by a federal appeals court.”
The FCC draft digital discrimination order’s definition of “economic feasibility” and Public Knowledge’s proposed clarification for it are both bad for America, said the Free State Foundation in an ex parte filing Monday in docket 22-69. The draft item defines economic feasibility “in a way that will induce, if not require,” the agency to “conduct old-fashioned public utility style rate cases,” said the FSF filing. Under the clarification PK proposed last week, when determining if a policy is economically feasible, the agency wouldn’t look at the rate of return in only the area where discrimination was taking place but also at the expected rate of return for similarly situated areas that aren’t low income. “Because rates of return are lower for low-income areas, ISPs generally underinvest in these communities or avoid them completely,” PK said. That change would “render the task of evaluating ‘economic feasibility’ even less practically implementable” than the draft order’s proposal, FSF said. “The draft’s approach to defining the ‘economic feasibility’ standard is misguided. PK’s suggested “clarification” is doubly misguided,” said the FSF filing.
The USF contribution factor will likely increase to 35.4% during Q1 2024, emailed analyst Billy Jack Gregg Friday. Gregg noted that the USF contribution base for all of 2023 was $34.2 billion, the "lowest annual revenues in the history of the USF." The contribution factor could be even greater should quarterly revenues continue to decline, he added.