The FCC Wireline Bureau denied a motion to extend the reply deadline in its Lifeline USF rulemaking, leaving the date at Sept. 30. In an order issued Wednesday in docket 11-42, the bureau noted it had already granted one extension and said a further extension was "not warranted under the present circumstances." The extension was requested by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates and other consumer groups (see 150918005).

The FCC Disability Advisory Committee will meet Oct. 8, starting at 9 a.m., in the Commission Meeting Room, said a notice in the Federal Register. The DAC is expected to take up a recommendation from its Communications Subcommittee on ways to address the needs of people with disabilities in new and emerging technologies and a report on the activities of its Emergency Communications Subcommittee, among other business, the FCC said Wednesday.

The recommendations on deployment from the White House’s Broadband Opportunity Council, released Monday (see 1509210053), send “a clear and vital message: access to broadband means access to opportunity,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement Tuesday. “The FCC remains committed to working with government and private-sector partners to harness the power of broadband to grow our economy and improve the lives of American people.” TechFreedom lashed out at parts of the report. The document “stops short of saying what should be uncontroversial: Federal money shouldn’t fund government-owned broadband networks before the Dig Once approach has been tried,” President Berin Szoka said Tuesday. “Letting private providers bid to lease Dig Once conduits and deploy their own networks gives private companies an opportunity to upgrade their networks -- or deploy new ones, as Google Fiber has started doing. If no private providers come forward, state and local governments can still deploy their own networks in that conduit. But at least they won’t have wasted taxpayer dollars building networks that private capital would have paid for.” PCIA lauded elements of the report, such as its focus on creation of “an online inventory of data on Federal assets, and maintain the points of contact tasked with overseeing broadband build-out.”

Neustar asked a federal court to overturn an FCC order giving Telcordia conditional rights to be the next local number portability administrator (LNPA). In a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit filed Monday, Neustar argued that the commission violated the Administrative Procedure Act "by failing to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking." The agency's review of competing proposals was "arbitrary and capricious" and its selection of Telcordia was based on a cost assessment that contained "an unsupported and erroneous assumption about transition costs," said Neustar, the current LNPA. Neustar also said the FCC "provided no reasoned explanation for refusing to consider" its best offer. The case is Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is scheduled to speak at a "Presidential Series" breakfast Friday sponsored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) and CEA. The event begins 7 a.m. at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia. Walker scheduled a 6 p.m. EDT news conference Monday, where he was expected to announce his withdrawal from the race for the Republican presidential nomination. NVTC representatives didn't comment Monday on how Walker's withdrawal might affect Friday's event.

The FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture will take up a final report from its working group on optimal resource allocation at a meeting next week at commission headquarters. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. Sept. 29, the FCC said.

The Department of Justice and the FCC asked a court to push back remaining briefing in its review of an AT&T challenge to the commission's VoIP symmetry order. In a motion Friday that they said was unopposed by other parties, the DOJ and the FCC asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to give them until Oct. 5 to file their government brief responding to AT&T's opening brief, which has already been filed (see 1507310057). FCC/DOJ also asked that the brief of intervenors supporting the commission be due Oct. 26, the reply brief of petitioner AT&T be due Nov. 9, and that briefing close Dec. 7.

Video relay service users will be able to communicate directly with each other starting in May because of accessible communications for everyone (ACE) software, said an ITU blog post Thursday by Peter Hayes, CEO of VTCSecure, a tech company focused on serving those with disabilities. Hayes said the open-source software addresses the lack of robust interoperability that the FCC identified as a major problem for deaf and hard-of-hearing users of VRS and other telecom relay services. "Reaching VRS and [TRS] services using their existing mobile phones (Android and iOS) and computers (Windows and Mac OSX), users will be able to engage in simultaneous real-time video, text and voice communications," he said, noting ACE uses ITU and Internet Engineering Task Force standards. "The FCC has committed to updating code to operate with newly released operating systems, meaning that developers around the world will be able to design reliable communications applications based on ACE that will work with widely available consumer devices, now and in the future. This solution could mean global relay services for all, and is already linked with Sweden, France and other European countries." Because ACE is open source, it can be modified for those with other disabilities, Hayes said: "The possibilities are endless. One modification already in the works is Video Remote Assistance (VRA) which is designed to assist blind individuals. It sends real-time video to the next available visual interpreter in a call center who then tells the blind user what the phone’s camera is seeing. This allows a blind user to get help reading documents or navigating inside a new building."

Odyssey Acquisition's buy of ExteNet Holdings units got FCC approval in a Wireline Bureau notice released Thursday in docket 15-189. The ExteNet companies are "carrier's carriers" that operate in 19 states and Washington, D.C., running point-to-point telecom connections to distributed antenna systems and small cells for use by wireless service providers, while Odyssey owns and operates distributed network systems and other wireless assets, a bureau public notice in August said, inviting comment on the transaction (see 1508180042). No comments were posted in the docket.

Verizon workers represented by the Communications Workers of America plan to leaflet and confront Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York City Thursday, said a news release from CWA. It said Verizon Wireless illegally fired a union leader Tuesday. A few weeks ago, workers rallied against the company for the "retaliatory firing" of a union leader (see 1509090048). Verizon is committed to meeting with union leaders and engaging in meaningful discussions, a company spokesman said, but union leaders "seem to feel it’s more effective to reach a new contract by holding pointless street rallies, rather than meeting with the company and engaging in productive, issue-oriented negotiations." A new contract isn't going to be reached on the streets of New York, but by coming to the table with a "realistic understanding of how the company is working to make its wireline unit more competitive and successful," he said.