Adam Bender

Requiring opt-in customer consent before a carrier shares information with outsiders doesn’t violate carriers’ First Amendment rights or the Administrative Procedure Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, ruled Friday. It rejected the NCTA’s challenge to a 2007 FCC order on customer proprietary network information. “There is nothing” to the NCTA’s argument that “the administrative record does not support the Commission’s Order,” the court said. Judge Raymond Randolph wrote the decision, which was supported by Judith Rogers and David Tatel.

Embarq withdrew a forbearance petition asking the FCC to declare that access fees apply to interconnected VoIP traffic. An FCC official told us the action wasn’t surprising, after the rejection last month of a FeatureGroup IP petition on the subject (CD Jan 26 p4). A few months before Embarq filed, FeatureGroup asked for a ruling that access charges don’t apply to interconnected VoIP. Embarq’s filing seemed tactical, the FCC official said. Embarq may have decided after the FeatureGroup decision that its own petition was no longer useful, the official said. An Embarq spokesman declined to comment.

The FCC released instructions for its new Form 477, to collect information about broadband deployment by census tract. Screenshots and answers to frequently asked questions are also now available on the FCC Web site at www.fcc.gov/form477, the commission said Thursday. The new Web-based interface through which filers will submit forms will be available on fcc.gov “as soon as possible,” the agency said. Filers must submit it by March 2. The FCC’s public notice made no mention of a request by several major rural associations to extend the due date by 120 days (CD Feb 12 p11). The companies argued an extension was warranted because the new form still isn’t available on the FCC site. An FCC spokesman declined comment. Rural carriers are grateful for the FCC’s outreach efforts, but the new information doesn’t get rid of the “logistical problems of filling in the form at such short notice,” said Steve Pastorkovich, senior policy analyst at the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. OPASTCO, one of the rural-carrier groups that asked for a 120-day extension, was making its case on the eighth floor Thursday morning, he said. The group understands the FCC’s desire for speed, he said, but a “short extension” would improve the accuracy of the information, he said.

Verizon violated local number porting rules when it used porting requests from departing phone customers to trigger marketing to them, said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It denied a Verizon petition to review (CD Dec 8 p1) last year’s FCC order on the subject. In a 11-page decision Tuesday, the court called “reasonable” the FCC’s interpretation that Section 222(b) of the Communications Act prohibits using porting information in marketing efforts. The ruling is a “clear-cut” loss for Verizon, and the odds of the carrier winning on further appeal are “very small,” said David Kaut, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus.

The FCC should collect data on special access competition from all providers, including competitors, AT&T said. In a Friday letter to the FCC, senior vice president Robert Quinn condemned a TW Telecom proposal sent in December to President Barack Obama’s transition team (CD Dec 24 p7). Among other suggestions, TW said the FCC should apply price caps to all incumbent carrier special access services, regardless of capacity and technology. If adopted, Quinn said, the TW plan “would deliver a double body blow: destroying incumbent LEC incentives to invest in new infrastructure and, by mandating the leasing of our facilities at below-market rates, also eliminating our competitors’ incentives to invest in their own networks.” TW relied on “incomplete” and “stale” data to make its arguments, Quinn said. Available data is lacking because competitors like TW have “refused” to submit “specific data showing the extent of their networks, facilities, service offerings and market successes,” he said. “The new FCC should put an end to this gamesmanship by adopting rules that require all facilities-based broadband providers to report granular data on their broadband networks and services.” TW Telecom is happy to give more data if the FCC asks, but believes there’s enough on the record already to support its recommendations, said Thomas Jones, an attorney representing the company, in an interview. TW hasn’t submitted data maps detailing the specific location of wires, as AT&T desires, he said. But it has submitted “extensive” price comparisons showing AT&T charges too much, he said.

Government, industry and other officials are pushing for an overhaul of the FCC Web site. It got top honors in a 2002 Brown University report on federal Web sites, but hasn’t received a significant make-over since. With a fresh government focus on transparency, and techie Julius Genachowski expected to take the FCC’s helm, many believe the site might finally see an overhaul. “The site is an embarrassment right now” for the Web-savvy administration of President Barack Obama, said Jerry Brito of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Commissioner Robert McDowell’s “geeky FCC reform wish list” includes enhanced communication, administrative audits and agency restructuring, the Republican said at a lunch Monday hosted by the Federal Communications Bar Association. He gave more details on ideas pitched in a letter sent last week to Acting Chairman Michael Copps (CD Jan 28 p1). Copps and Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein also attended the event, but didn’t comment on their colleague’s suggestions. The three have agreed to boost FCC staff morale, promote transparency, encourage meaningful public comment and create “a more informed, collaborative and considerate decision- making process,” McDowell said.

The FCC should permit hearing consumers to get 10-digit numbers for video relay service phones, said the National Association for the Deaf and five other consumer groups. In a petition last week, the groups asked the FCC to reconsider a provision in a December order excluding hearing users (CD Dec 23 p3). VRS provider GoAmerica agreed in a separate petition, asking the FCC to additionally reconsider a rule about the handling of public safety call backs. Phone numbers have been available to deaf users since Dec. 31.

The FCC should expand Interstate Telecom Relay Service fund support to include TRS calls involving multiple communications assistants, interpreters and technologies, said AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Sorenson Communications, GoAmerica and five other TRS providers. In a Wednesday petition for declaratory ruling, the companies said federal funding for that kind of call is needed to meet Congress’ functional equivalency goals. But the petition may have to overcome concerns on Capitol Hill that the TRS fund is already too large.

The FCC defended its regulatory-flexibility analysis, in an order about local number portability between wireline and wireless carriers, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, representing small rural incumbent local exchange carriers, wants the court to stay the intermodal order and send it back to the commission. But in oral argument Monday judges appeared hesitant to rebuke the FCC.