Provider Securus wants the same relief from interim inmate calling service (ICS) rate caps as Pay-Tel got, Securus said in a petition to the FCC filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1ffVeIv). The FCC approved a nine-month waiver of its caps for Pay-Tel after that ICS provider said it couldn’t recover its costs on a holding company level if it were required to charge such low rates, because of rate restrictions in several states that require Pay-Tel to provide service at below-average-cost rates (CD Feb 13 p14). The waiver “should apply to all ICS providers operating at jails in Pay Tel’s territory,” Securus said. “All of those carriers are subject to the same ‘below-average-cost intrastate rate constraints’ as Pay Tel, and they all face the same challenges in serving city and county jails.” Securus asked that the commission let all ICS providers serving jails in Pay-Tel’s 13-state service territory get the relief Pay-Tel got: being able to charge up to 46 cents per minute for interstate calls. Securus also asked for permission to add a 2 cent-per-minute fee to its interstate calls in order to cover the cost of providing “voice biometric technology” required for secure inmate calling (http://bit.ly/1fD4Oju).

The American Cable Association doesn’t oppose collection of data to examine special access markets, but certain aspects of the proposed data collection “are excessive for smaller cable operators” and violate the Paperwork Reduction Act, ACA told an aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/MBf8Br). ACA proposed that the collection only require those operators to provide data they collect in the normal course of business. On Phase II of the Connect America Fund, ACA said the program shouldn’t provide support to price-cap LECs in areas where unsupported competitive providers have built qualifying broadband service. Competitive providers should also “be given the opportunity to receive support in eligible areas in states where price cap LECs refuse support since competitive providers often can deploy broadband service more efficiently and effectively than the price cap LECs,” ACA said.

Rural telco Nex-Tech met with FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly and an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler to discuss the need for stand-alone broadband support (http://bit.ly/1cn2ks0). “Providing support for loops that are used to provide standalone broadband services would promote and accelerate the ongoing IP evolution,” it said Wednesday. Nex-Tech also discussed “continuing concerns” with regression analysis-based caps on high-cost loop support, and urged the commissioners “to ensure that greater visibility and predictability can be obtained as soon as possible.”

Vonage has been seeking to negotiate direct IP interconnection agreements with ILECs, but “those agreements have been hampered by AT&T’s misinterpretation of the Commission’s VoIP access charge rules,” Vonage told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Feb. 11, said an ex parte filing posted online Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1cn0YNP). “Vonage seeks IP interconnection agreements because the exchange of traffic in IP delivers substantial public interest benefits including cost reduction, improved service quality, and the ability to deliver advanced services such as HD voice.” But “at least one incumbent LEC is unwilling to enter into a direct IP interconnection arrangement unless that arrangement imports the asymmetrical compensation structure that AT&T has argued, incorrectly, was adopted by the Commission” in its 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order, Vonage said. It said it generally prefers to seek bill and keep arrangements when signing direct interconnection agreements with other IP providers. Vonage urged the bureau to take “swift action to enforce the symmetrical compensation provisions” adopted by the FCC, lest an “asymmetrical approach to VoIP intercarrier compensation” give ILECs “perverse incentives to perpetuate legacy TDM technology."

More than 25 percent of Windstream’s Lifeline customers have not been accepted by the National Lifeline Accountability Database, the telco told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1cmZDXq). That’s about 15,000 customers, most of whom are rejected because of problems with addresses, the carrier said. Frequently, however, the error messages “do not guide Windstream to the actual reason for the rejection,” and the addresses often come up valid when put into the U.S. Postal Service database, it said. Windstream asked the bureau to delay the deadline for migration of Lifeline customers into the national database “so companies have time to begin address reconciliation.” Windstream also asked the bureau to work with Universal Service Administrative Co. “to develop more specific and accurate error messages” for the national database, and to delay Lifeline audits until after migration is complete.

CLECs opposed a CenturyLink petition for forbearance of dominant carrier and Computer Inquiry tariffing requirements on enterprise broadband services. In comments filed Thursday in WC docket 14-9, the competitive providers said CenturyLink’s petition only confirmed the importance of wholesale last-mile access policies to provide choice for business consumers. The telco had sought forbearance from dominant carrier regulation of packet-based special access services offered by legacy CenturyTel and legacy Embarq. It’s the second time in a year CenturyLink has asked for such forbearance, and the commission “must put a stop to this wasteful gamesmanship,” said tw telecom, Level 3, Integra, EarthLink and Cbeyond (http://bit.ly/1cmV0fO). The competitive providers urged the commission to use the “traditional market power framework” to evaluate CenturyLink’s petition. Under that framework, or any other “reasonable standard,” the ILEC has failed to demonstrate sufficient competition in the relevant markets to justify forbearance, they said. The correct policy response to CenturyLink’s petition is to reform last-mile access policies for all providers, Comptel said (http://bit.ly/1cmXfjp). Commission forbearance grants have generally put “next generation competition at risk,” the association of CLECs said. Reforming last-mile access will promote investment, and CenturyLink’s claim that no advantages come from “incumbency in fiber deployment” is false, Comptel said. Sprint also opposed the petition. “Nothing has changed since the last time CenturyLink requested forbearance,” the carrier said (http://bit.ly/1cmXQSb). “It retains market power in the provision of enterprise broadband services because of its control of critical last-mile facilities in its service areas, and it has failed to demonstrate that its requested relief is justified.” CenturyLink had asked to be treated like other major providers of enterprise broadband service, which it said are uniformly regulated as nondominant. The widely varying regulation that applies to CenturyLink services undermines its ability to compete, the ILEC said in its December petition: “About the worst mistake a regulatory agency can make is to treat similarly situated competitors unequally” (http://bit.ly/1cnb01r).

The FCC’s proposed reduction in USF rate-of-return support “would negatively impact Big Bend’s operations at a time when the impacts of USF-[intercarrier compensation] reforms are still being implemented and the full impacts are not known,” the Texas telco told officials from several commissioners’ offices and the Wireline Bureau last week, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1ghtkKO). The bureau’s May staff report recommended reducing the rate of return to between 8.06 and 8.72 percent; that would be “a threat to financial stability” and would harm Big Bend’s ability to get new loans to build out broadband, the telco said. “Service and customers in rural, remote, and high-cost areas like Big Bend’s service area will suffer due to lack of ability to maintain and invest in new network.”

"Consumers should cheer the recent appeals court decision voiding the FCC’s net neutrality rules,” said a report published by the Heritage Foundation Wednesday (http://herit.ag/1nwzasd). “Despite the Chicken Little claims of its supporters, broadband consumers were hurt, not helped by the agency’s restrictions,” said the report, written by senior research fellow James Gattuso. “Rather than guarding against market abuses by dominant firms, the rules have been invoked in attempts to hinder innovation, impede competition, and block consumer price protections.” The report urged congressional lawmakers and FCC officials to “not restore these unnecessary and harmful regulations."

Newest FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly took to the official agency blog Wednesday to share his thoughts on E-rate changes (http://fcc.us/1nwynre). There’s widespread agreement that the program is “due for an overhaul,” and O'Rielly supports that effort, he said, with six provisos: E-rate “must not increase costs on consumers” by increasing USF contributions; it “must be offset by reductions elsewhere” within the fund. E-rate “must be refocused on broadband access.” E-rate matching requirements must be consistent with other federal programs; the current local match of as little as 10 percent is “much lower” than other federal programs and “can distort decision making,” O'Rielly said. E-rate funding must leverage private sector networks, “not overbuild them.” E-rate funding “must not over supply,” but rather give schools flexibility to “choose the speeds that best meet their needs.” Finally, O'Rielly said, E-rate program administration must be revised. “By streamlining processes, requiring productive oversight, and providing significant outreach, we can make school participation in E-Rate easier, stretch program dollars, and ultimately benefit more students.”

Inmate calling service provider Pay-Tel was granted a nine-month waiver of the FCC’s interim interstate prison call rate caps, said an order released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1aVHi57). The waiver of the new caps, which took effect Tuesday (CD Feb 12 p12), will give Pay-Tel “sufficient time to pursue any necessary intrastate rate changes” to help it recoup costs it’s facing, now that interstate rates have been capped, said the Wireline Bureau order. In its petition, Pay-Tel said it could not recover its costs “if it is required to charge the Order’s interim interstate rates.” Rate restrictions in several states required Pay-Tel to provide intrastate service at below-average-cost rates. “Because of the interaction between these below-average-cost intrastate rates and the limits imposed by the interim interstate rate cap, Pay Tel asserts that it cannot meet its total company revenue requirement while complying both with our interstate rate caps and the relevant state rate requirements,” the order said. Pay-Tel suggested it would have to either go out of business or close up shop in the smaller facilities it serves. The facts constitute “extraordinary circumstances” that justify a temporary waiver, the order said. Pay-Tel will be allowed to charge 46 cents per minute, which is about double the interstate rate cap adopted by the FCC. The temporary waiver will also give Pay-Tel “an opportunity to address below-average-cost rate mandates at their source -- at the state level and with the individual facilities it serves,” the order said. If the commission takes action on intrastate prison calling caps before the nine months have passed, that new order would supersede this waiver, the bureau said.