Comments are due May 1 on a Department of Housing and Urban Development demonstration project on increasing broadband adoption and use in HUD-assisted homes, the agency said in a public notice scheduled to be published in the Federal Register Friday. About 20 communities around the country are expected to take part in the demonstration, which will focus on narrowing the digital divide for students housed with HUD assistance, the notice said. Commenters are encouraged to file electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal.

The FCC should set a timetable and move forward with USF contribution overhaul, Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee counsel Andrew Brown, of Levine, Blaszak, told Nicholas Degani, an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai, and Travis Litman, an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, in separate meetings March 31, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 09-51 Thursday. The group represents large businesses in various industries that purchase telecommunications and IT services. The agency made significant progress in USF spending in its 2011 overhaul and temporarily stabilized the fund's size, Brown and consultant Susan Gately told the aides, according to the filing. The agency never finished the updates because it hasn’t dealt with contributions to the fund, the filling said. The fund’s contribution factor will continue to rise and December’s $1.5 billion increase in the E-rate annual spending cap (see 1412110049) threatens the stability of the fund, the ad hoc committee said. An agency federal-state joint board is charged with recommending by Tuesday whether broadband customers should pay into USF, though a footnote in the net neutrality order said the recommendation may be slightly delayed (see 1503120053).

The FCC plans to fine Roman LD, an Irving, Texas, telephone company, $5.9 million for allegedly switching consumers’ long distance telephone services without their authorization, the agency said Thursday. The company is also accused of misrepresenting the company’s identity during telemarketing calls, fabricating authorization recordings purportedly as proof of consumers’ authorizations, and transferring control of the company without Commission approval, an agency press release said. “Consumers should be able to trust that they will not be billed for phone services they did not authorize or agree to,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said in the release. The company did not comment. The bureau reviewed more than 100 complaints from consumers, which were filed at the commission, the Better Business Bureau, state regulatory agencies, and with the company, the release said. Consumers complained that Roman switched their long distance service providers without their authorization, the bureau said. In some cases, consumers complained company telemarketers pretended to be employed by the consumer’s own telephone carrier, the release said. On at least two occasions, Roman was accused of falsifying an audio recording of the authorization to make it appear that the consumer had agreed to the carrier change, the release said.

An additional 55,722 census blocks were recategorized from served to unserved after the Connect America Fund Phase II challenge process, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Tuesday. Meanwhile, another 38,485 blocks were deemed served, resulting in a net increase of 17,237 unserved census blocks, the notice said. More than 140 parties filed challenges on the classification of 180,000 census blocks, the notice said. A list of the agency’s decisions on all the challenges is here.

FCC’s letter of credit requirement for recipients of rural broadband experiment funding would be “onerous” if applied to Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II recipients, USTelecom said in comments posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. Rural broadband experiment recipients are required to obtain a letter of credit (LOC) equal to the amount they’ve previously received through the 10-year program, plus the amount scheduled to be dispersed to them over the following year. The LOC must also remain open for 120 days after the program's completion, USTelecom said. For CAF Phase II, the requirement should be “tailored to the amount of money ‘at risk’ annually or at most within a one to two year range,” the filing said. An LOC could be required for the first two years, with no more than one to two years of disbursements protected by an LOC, the group said. USTelecom also agreed with CoBank’s proposal (see 1503230031) to reduce the credit amount only to cover funds to be disbursed over the following year, the filing said.

The FCC should cap the overall size of USF programs to protect consumers after the agency announced March 13 an increase in the program’s contribution factor to 17.4 percent for the second quarter of 2015, Free State Foundation's Seth Cooper said in a blog post Monday. The contribution factor is up from 16.8 percent. “Reducing USF surcharges should go hand-in-hand with comprehensive reforms that reduce the overall size of the USF subsidy system and improve its efficiency,” he wrote. Wireless customers are hit hardest by USF increases, he said, saying the agency considers 37.1 percent of a wireless consumer's calling plan as interstate long distance and subject to the USF surcharge. Given the commission’s authorization of an E-rate increase of $1.5 billion annually, “it's hard to expect voice consumers will avoid even heavier USF surcharge burdens in the future,” Cooper wrote.

The FCC should reform inmate calling service rates to ensure they're “just and reasonable,” said the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates in a letter to the agency, posted Friday in docket 12-375. The agency has jurisdiction to regulate interstate and intrastate ISC rates, NASUCA said. Commission payments ICS providers make to correctional facilities shouldn't be considered “just” and shouldn't be included in approved rate caps, the group said.

Battery backup power regulations being considered by the FCC (see 1503100063) should reflect “market realities” that customers are migrating to wireless for voice service, American Cable Association officials said in several meetings with agency officials, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 14-174. Consumers switching to VoIP service realize their devices won't work during power outages without a backup power source, and as far as the ACA officials know, cable VoIP customers “have not expressed concern about not having line power during a power outage or with having to use some type of backup power supply,” the filing said. While VoIP subscriptions increased over the past decade, the growth has leveled off and many cable operators are losing voice subscribers to wireless, ACA Chairman Robert Gessner and other representatives of the group told David Simpson, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau chief, and other agency officials March 25, according to the filing. ”This trend would only accelerate if the Commission adopts its battery backup proposal since the new regulations would impose additional costs on VoIP providers that would be passed along to retail consumers,” ACA said. Ross Lieberman, ACA senior vice president-government affairs, and Thomas Cohen, of Kelley Drye, made the same arguments to Chairman Tom Wheeler's aide Daniel Alvarez and to an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in separate meetings the same day, according to the filing. Cohen also met with an aide to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly on the same day.

It's “critically” important for the FCC to require ILECs offer competitive carriers wholesale local transmission facilities on rates, terms and conditions that let competitors compete for retail services, TDS Telecommunications said in a letter posted Friday in docket 05-25. Competitive carriers “remain crucially dependent on incumbent LEC wholesale transmission facilities in order to serve business customers,” the letter said. It's “clear to any industry observer that the incumbent LECs retain substantial and persisting market power over last-mile physical connections needed to serve business customers,” TDS wrote. The failure to adopt regulations “will significantly undermine, perhaps destroy entirely, many competitive carriers’ ability to compete. That outcome would lead to higher prices, less innovation, and degraded service quality for business broadband services across the country,” TDS wrote. Contrary to ILECs' arguments, competitive carriers aren't on equal footing with incumbent LECs when deploying fiber loops and are not able to obtain equivalent services from wholesale providers on reasonable rates, terms and conditions, the TDS said. It said ILECs as incumbents have “significantly lower costs” in deploying new loops to commercial buildings than CLECs. After “the relentless lobbying machine of the large ILECs eventually resulted in FCC and state commission decisions to increase the price and reduce the availability of regulated wholesale loops needed to serve business customers,” it has been “virtually impossible for CLECs to compete for small- and medium-sized business customers in second- and third-tier markets,” TDS said.

Google officials suggested FCC rule changes that would remove barriers to broadband deployment. The officials met with commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s senior counselor Philip Verveer and other agency officials March 24, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 07-245 Friday. Existing rules still permit owners of infrastructure including poles, ducts and conduits to delay network build-outs through protracted make-ready timelines and processes, Google officials said in the meeting. The commission should “expeditiously update and clarify its infrastructure access and make-ready rules to streamline deployment processes,” Google said. Representing the company were Kevin Lo, Google Fiber general manager, Johanna Shelton, Google director-public policy and government relations, and Staci Pies, senior policy counsel. Google met with Wheeler aide Gigi Sohn and Matthew DelNero, deputy Wireline Bureau chief. Earlier last week, NCTA said it's “particularly puzzled” by Wheeler’s comments that cable companies are blocking access to utility poles by competitors (see 1503260052).