The FCC Wireline Bureau said it has an additional $651,832 in Connect America Fund money for category one funding and $64,600 in category two funding available for next-in-line bidders seeking rural broadband experiments support. Six entities that the Wireline Bureau selected earlier this month to receive CAF funding have decided to withdraw from the funding process, the bureau said Tuesday. The Wireline Bureau also sought comment on petitions filed by 15 provisionally selected bidders who are seeking a waiver from providing a required audited financial statement. Interested parties should file comments by Jan. 6, with replies due Jan. 13, the FCC said.

Windstream Communications selected software-defined network solutions provider Cyan to upgrade its regional and metro networks from 10 Gbps to 100 Gbps using Cyan’s Z-Series pack-optical hardware, Cyan said Monday. The company said it has begun initial deployments of new infrastructure in major Windstream markets. The upgrades will allow Windstream to offer advanced IP services to small and medium-sized businesses and higher-speed broadband to residential subscribers, Cyan said. Financial terms weren't revealed.

Any FCC order requiring calls originating or terminating over VoIP to be subject to intercarrier compensation requirements shouldn't be applied retroactively, AT&T said in comments posted Thursday in docket 10-90. Responding to Level 3’s comments saying requirements should be retroactive (see 1412180032), Sidley Austin’s David Lawson, representing AT&T, said “Level 3 misstates the controlling standards.” An order on VoIP calls would be “substituting a new law for an old law that was reasonably clear,” AT&T said. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ruled that in those cases, “agencies are required to ‘deny retroactive effect,’” AT&T said. Level 3 had no immediate comment.

A defendant who the Federal Trade Commission says was involved in a landline cramming operation settled FTC charges against him, an agency news release said. Under the agreement, Nathan Sann will be banned from placing charges of any kind on customers’ phone bills, and will be prohibited from billing consumers without their authorization, the Wednesday release said. The FTC had charged in a complaint that American eVoice, eight other companies, Sann and three other people were placing charges ranging from $9.95 to $24.95 per month on consumers’ landline phone bills for voicemail services they never signed up for and never even knew they had, the release said (see 1301230059). The case against the other entities and individuals allegedly involved in the scheme is ongoing, the FTC said.

Any order requiring calls originating or terminating over VoIP to be subject to intercarrier compensation requirements should be applied retroactively, despite AT&T's and Verizon’s arguments to the contrary (see 1412090017), representatives of Level 3 and Bandwidth.com told officials with the FCC general counsel’s office and Wireline Bureau Dec. 8, according to an ex parte filing posted Wednesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in Qwest v. FCC that adjudications are presumed to be applied retroactively unless there’s a “‘manifest injustice’” in doing so, and neither AT&T nor Verizon has made that case, said the filing in docket 10-90. Representing Level 3 were Joseph Cavender, assistant general counsel, and Harris Wiltshire’s John Nakahata, Chris Wright and Tim Simeone. Morgan Lewis’ Tamar Finn represented Bandwidth.com.

The record before the FCC on net neutrality is “insufficient” to support peering or interconnection regulations, Lauren Van Wazer, Akamai Technologies vice president-global public policy, and Harris Wiltshire’s Scott Harris and Brita Strandberg, representing the company, told aides to Commissioner Ajit Pai, according to an ex parte filing in docket 14-28 Wednesday. Voluntary industry principles could address those issues, Akamai said at the Dec. 12 meeting.

The FCC should act “in short order” to pause, effective June 30, 2014, reductions in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate VoIP traffic, said National Exchange Carrier Association, NTCA and WTA in a Dec. 16 letter to the commission, posted in docket 10-90 Wednesday. The groups filed an emergency petition on July 7, seeking relief from the reductions, and argued they had been approved under the assumption that Connect America Fund reforms would be in place to offset the loss for smaller carriers (see 1409030031). If granted, the pause should remain in place until the USF reforms are enacted, the letter said.

CenturyLink faces tariffing and network-sharing obligations that have never applied to nonincumbents, Melissa Newman, senior vice president-federal policy and regulatory affairs, and Wilkinson Barker’s Bryan Tramont told an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Dec. 15, according to an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-9. CenturyLink is seeking forbearance from those regulations. Other larger and smaller incumbents have received forbearance from the obligations, CenturyLink said, arguing the “disparity places CenturyLink in an extremely difficult position as it seeks to win and retain enterprise customers requiring service to multiple premises.”

Mandating intrastate competition for inmate calling services to try to decrease rates, as FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly suggested, would cause “insurmountable difficulties,” Securus Technologies CEO Richard Smith, General Counsel Dennis Reinhold and Arent Fox’s Stephanie Joyce told O’Rielly and his aide Dec. 4, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 12-375. After the commission’s passage of interstate rate caps, interstate inmate calls rose but intrastate calls declined, Securus officials said in the meeting and in a separate one with Commissioner Ajit Pai and an aide the same day, another ex parte said. Securus also disputed at the meetings claims by jails and prisons of their costs in providing inmate calling services to justify the continuation of commissions paid to correctional facilities. The Securus officials made the same arguments in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, and another with Wireline Bureau officials on the same day.

An idea pushed by FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to have a federal agency determine Lifeline eligibility (see 1411120026) may not be more efficient, officials from companies making up the Lifeline Connects Coalition told Ryan Palmer, chief of the Wireless Bureau’s Telecom Access Policy Division Dec. 5, said an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 11-42. Citing 2013 Universal Service Administrative Co. statistics, the group said administrative expenses were 1.29 percent of USF disbursements, while administrative costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program were 9 percent. Involved in the meeting were Brian Lisle, president of the Telrite Corp.; Jeni Kues, of i-wireless; several Blue Jay Wireless officials including CEO David Wareikis; CGM founder Chuck Campbell; and Kelley Drye’s John Heitmann and Joshua Guyan. Clyburn "encouraged all parties to respond [to her ideas] ... on the best ways to reform Lifeline for the broadband era," Clyburn's office said. "We look forward to a meaningful debate involving all interested parties in order to achieve the goal of affordable broadband for everyone.”