Ex-Commissioner Deborah Taylor-Tate and Education Networks of America met Nov. 13, 14 and 15 with FCC Wireline Bureau staff and aides to several commissioners, they said in an ex parte filing posted online Tuesday (http://bit.ly/18RnrOi). The group said it supports the FCC’s goals for modernizing the E-rate program, and offered ideas on streamlining the application process for E-rate funds. The E-rate program should also be able to provide partial funding “in situations that merit such treatment,” they said in a presentation that was included with the filing(http://bit.ly/18RnARR). They recommended exemption of schools, libraries and their underlying providers from paying into the Universal Service Fund on services and service components. They also suggested a standing committee of “E-rate constituents” to help ongoing improvement of the rules.

Gannett may get a retransmission consent and cost-savings boost from buying Belo Corp. after the Department of Justice OK'd it with a divestiture (CD Dec 17 p6), a stock analyst wrote to investors Wednesday. The acquirer “could see modest multiple expansion, benefiting from ramping retrans and increased synergies along with strong political inflows helping boost total cash flow and offsetting ongoing weakness in print,” said Ed Atorino of Benchmark. He said Belo means “higher margin revenue streams” for Gannett, which also owns daily newspapers including USA Today.

"The years-long quest upon which the FCC has been embarked to determine whether special access rates are ‘reasonable’ makes Don Quixote’s quest look like child’s play,” Free State Foundation President Randolph May said in a blog post Tuesday bemoaning the special access “debacle” (http://bit.ly/18Rla5C). The FCC is unlikely to ever gather all, or even most, of the requested data, May said, citing an NCTA petition seeking review of the data collection it said violates the Paperwork Reduction Act (http://bit.ly/18RlukP). Even assuming the special access market should be more competitive than it already is, any potential mandated rate reduction would “deter the development of further facilities-based competition,” May said. He also criticized the FCC’s decision to suspend and investigate AT&T’s special access tariff filing proposing to eliminate new long-term discounts (CD Dec 10 p1). “The FCC’s action was a mistake, and it leaves one wondering whether the agency has any appreciation at all of the way its actions can adversely affect the transition to all IP networks that enable less costly, more efficient services,” May said. “The Commission needs to reorient its pro-regulatory mindset in a meaningful way."

Gray Television agreed to buy KEVN-TV (Fox) Rapid City, S.D., from Mission TV for $7.75 million, Gray said in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1jiJxDj). The transaction also includes KEVN’s satellite station KIVV-TV Lead. KEVN is the No. 2-ranked TV station in the Rapid City market, and Gray’s first “stand-alone full-power Fox affiliate,” said the acquirer. Gray has recently announced deals to buy other stations in the region from Hoak Media: An ABC affiliate in Sioux Falls, S.D., and the NBC affiliates in Fargo and MinotBismarck, N.D. The KEVN deal needs regulatory approval and is expected to close in Q1 or Q2, said the acquirer.

The California Public Utilities Commission asked the FCC for an extension of time to implement a third-party identification verification process for its Lifeline program (http://bit.ly/JIdsVK). An extension to May 1 would help the PUC comply with an FCC requirement that the state implement the verification process, it said. The FCC had made the verification requirement a condition on the PUC’s being able to opt out of the National Lifeline Accountability Database, said the PUC’s Tuesday petition.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission asked the FCC for a permanent waiver of rules requiring it provide a copy of the Lifeline subscriber’s certification form to eligible telecom carriers (http://bit.ly/JIcKYL). Ongoing compliance will “result in a significant burden” for the state commission, and a delay in bringing Lifeline benefits to eligible subscribers, said the PSC in a petition Tuesday. “Special conditions” in Nebraska warrant the waiver, it said: The Nebraska PSC “oversees the application verification process, ensures that a compliant certification form is executed by each subscriber, then provides written notification to each affected ETC.” This “should be considered more than sufficient” to ensure compliance with Lifeline program requirements, it said.

Iridium’s petition for reallocating Globalstar’s Big low-earth orbit spectrum will ensure sufficient spectrum to promote continued development and innovation in essential mobile satellite service (MSS), Iridium said in FCC RM-11685 (http://bit.ly/18z3Bwu). The petition is neither anticompetitive “nor would it hinder Globalstar in pursuing its MSS or TLPS business plans,” Iridium said of Globalstar’s proposed terrestrial low-power service. Iridium’s growth is expected to continue, “driven by the introduction of new products and services enabled by upgrades in Iridium’s constellation and its innovative vendor partnerships,” it said. As Iridium prepares for the launch of Iridium Next, its next-generation network, “it will be increasingly important to ensure that it has sufficient spectrum available to support this expansion as well as sustain its core business,” it said. “Iridium offers nothing new in its response and nothing supports its request to take almost 3 MHz of Globalstar’s L-band spectrum,” said Barbee Ponder, Globalstar general counsel.

Several telecom associations asked the FCC for a stay of rules requiring their members to “reconcile and revise study area boundary data” that will ultimately be published in an online map of study area boundaries (http://bit.ly/JIaL6y). NTCA, USTelecom, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Western Telecommunications Alliance and Eastern Rural Telecom Association asked Wednesday for a stay or a six-month extension to let the companies gather the information. The Wireline Bureau’s study area boundary order said the data would be used to implement the USF/intercarrier compensation benchmarking rule, which uses quantile regression analysis to generate capital and operating expense limits for each rate-of-return carrier study area. “The Chairman has indicated that consideration will be given by the Commission to the elimination of the quantile regression analysis ... mechanism in the near future,” the petition said. “Absence of the QRA would remove the stated reason for the study area boundary process, and particularly for the burdensome and time-consuming efforts that will be involved in reconciling many hundreds of overlaps and voids.” If the boundary data are still required, the groups said, a six-month extension is necessary to ensure accuracy. The groups are awaiting details of the QRA replacement FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told Congress the agency is working on (CD Dec 18 p2).

President Barack Obama nominated Elisabeth Cook to continue her membership on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Cook is an attorney with Wilmer Hale and has sat on PCLOB since August 2012. Cook’s reappointment nomination, sent to the Senate Tuesday night, would place her on the board through Jan. 29, 2020. PCLOB, an independent body within the executive branch, has four part-time members and a full-time chairman and is investigating surveillance practices, with the intent to submit recommendations to Obama.

"Illustrative model outputs” of version 4.0 of the Connect America Cost Model are available at http://fcc.us/18RrTfQ, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday (http://fcc.us/18RrU3A). The site also contains lists of the census blocks that would be funded if the bureau adopts this version of the model, it said.