Private submarine cable operators support a regulatory fee structure proposed by AT&T and Verizon for submarine cable systems, FCC and industry officials told us Wednesday. The two sides are working on language and implementation issues, but are near formal agreement, we're told. The FCC has promised to act by Sept. 29 on the issue (CD Sept 5 p8). Level 3 and the other submarine cable operators, which earlier pitched a collective proposal, now believe the AT&T- Verizon plan, while likely to mean higher fees, is more fair, said an industry official close to the proceeding.
Adam Bender
Adam Bender, Senior Editor, is the state and local telecommunications reporter for Communications Daily, where he also has covered Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. He has won awards for his Warren Communications News reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, Specialized Information Publishers Association and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Bender studied print journalism at American University and is the author of dystopian science-fiction novels. You can follow Bender at WatchAdam.blog and @WatchAdam on Twitter.
Legislation requiring pre-paid calling card companies to accurately disclose terms of service unanimously passed the House Commerce consumer protection subcommittee Tuesday. Work on a package of amendments was deferred to the full committee at an afternoon markup session, giving lawmakers more time to resolve disagreements over sections of the bill. Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., suggested in comments he supports the FTC’s request to allow it authority over telecom carriers in policing pre-paid calling card fraud.
Consumer groups for people with speaking disabilities supported stricter rules for speech-to-speech telecom relay services, in comments last week on an FCC notice of proposed rulemaking. Relay providers resisted some of the changes being considered. The sides agreed that Internet-based STS service should get Interstate TRS Fund support.
The FCC seems to be setting up intercarrier compensation and Universal Service Fund overhaul proposals for its Nov. 4 meeting. Whether Chairman Kevin Martin will propose a complete overhaul there was still fluid, sources said. A court order gave the commission until Nov. 5 to explain the statutory basis for its ISP-bound traffic compensation regime. Industry officials said the Wireline Bureau is soliciting comments on several comprehensive proposals.
A bill aimed at curbing call center outsourcing got mixed reviews in a Thursday House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection hearing. The call center bill (HR-1776), sponsored by Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., would require call centers to give their physical locations at the start of a call.
T-Mobile asked the FCC not to adopt new requirements for dual-mode CMRS-VoIP phones as the commission revises rules for VoIP E-911. The dual-mode phone issue loomed large last month as commissioners debated a rulemaking required by the NET 911 Improvement Act. Other commenters said the dual-mode issue appears unique to T-Mobile and asked the FCC to table the issue to focus on the Act’s main thrust: Ensuring that interconnected VoIP providers have access to E911 services.
Only audio bridging service providers supported two petitions to reconsider and clarify a June order that would force Intercall and other audio bridging companies to pay into universal service (CD Aug 12 p10). Unsurprisingly, Intercall backed the petitions, urging the FCC to declare audio conferencing an information service. Multi-Point Communications, another audio-conferencing provider, termed the FCC order “procedurally defective,” because it didn’t give “appropriate notice and comment to the teleconferencing industry.” The FCC provided 11 days to comment, and Multi- Point “was given only last-minute notice that it must adopt and implement procedures to fulfill its new [USF] obligations,” it said. Meanwhile, Verizon demanded that the petition be rejected outright. “There are no grounds for reconsideration,” the carrier said. The petitioners didn’t participate in the initial proceeding, they raise no new questions of law or fact and their arguments lack merit, it said. Others asked the FCC to clarify that the Intercall order changed no rules. Cisco said it believes the Intercall order confirmed existing FCC rules, but could be misread as rewriting them. It urged the FCC to make clear that the former -- and not the latter -- is true. The FCC “should confirm that this decision applied existing precedent, and did not adopt a new test for what constitutes an integrated information service,” said the VON Coalition. Also, the FCC should clarify the decision’s scope and say that it doesn’t cover information services including a functionally integrated voice communications function, the Coalition said.
Qwest’s and Verizon’s forbearance petitions on reporting requirements remain active, though the FCC granted the carriers some relief in Saturday’s order on a similar AT&T petition (CD Sept 9 p1). AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Embarq and Frontier filed petitions seeking forbearance from Automated Reporting Management Information System requirements. A footnote in the AT&T order said, “To the extent that the [other] petitions seek other regulatory relief, those requests remain pending.” The Embarq and Frontier petitions sought less relief than AT&T and so are considered taken care of, but Qwest and Verizon asked for more relief than AT&T. The carriers can withdraw their petitions if they're satisfied with the relief won Saturday. A Qwest spokesman, who told us Monday that the carrier believed its petition had been handled, said Tuesday that the petition is still under review at the FCC. “We continue to ask the relief that it is seeking,” he said. Verizon is “reviewing what is still outstanding in our petition and will make a determination,” a spokesman said. Meanwhile, Frontier plans to ask the FCC to kill cost-assignment rules for all price-cap regulated carriers, it said in a statement sent late Monday. Saturday, the FCC gave Qwest and Verizon relief from the rules, which require carriers to keep records that separate interstate and intrastate costs, among other requirements. AT&T got relief in April. Frontier said it was pleased that the FCC had dealt with its petition for forbearance from ARMIS requirements in the order Saturday. The carrier agrees with the position taken in the attached noticed of proposed rulemaking, it said -- “in the event the FCC determines that collection of certain of that information is warranted, the reporting obligation should be on an industry-wide basis.”
A carrier contesting an FCC order on payphone compensation faced tough questioning from judges in oral argument Tuesday at U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judges David Sentelle, Brett Kavanaugh and Janice Brown heard the case, NetworkIP v. FCC (06-1364). Kavanaugh and Sentelle at times seemed skeptical of NetworkIP’s position. Brown was mum throughout the argument.
The FCC is catching flak for a last-minute decision to give accounting rules relief to Verizon and Qwest in an order granting an AT&T forbearance petition. AT&T sought relief from Automated Reporting Management Information System rules. Saturday, commissioners unanimously decided that, within two years, AT&T and other price-cap carriers should stop filing four ARMIS reports on service quality, customer satisfaction, infrastructure and operating data. But the agency split by party on a controversial Friday afternoon edit that extended to Qwest and Verizon cost-assignment rules relief won by AT&T in April.