A new NTCA study found that its members offer fiber services with average downstream speeds of at least 100 Mbps to about 84% of their customers, the group announced Wednesday. More than 67% of customers have access to Gigabit downstream speeds. "This year’s survey reinforces and underscores NTCA members’ abiding commitment to the communities they serve, advancing broadband built to last in rural America, and highlights how rural consumers are making greater use of these services," NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said. Conducted in August by Association Research, the study found that nearly 60% of the respondents’ customers subscribed to downstream speeds of at least 100 Mbps compared with about 49% in the 2022 survey.

The FCC's rules implementing the Safe Connections Act take effect Jan. 14, said a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. Commissioners adopted the item in November (see 2311150042).

FCC staff granted USTelecom and the Competitive Carrier Association's petition to extend for three additional filing periods the FCC's waiver of broadband data collection rules allowing filers to submit information by a nonlicensed professional engineer, said an order Thursday (see 2309120062). Adopted by the chiefs of the Wireline Bureau, Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics, the order required filers to also preserve "additional network information for expeditious submission to the commission upon request."

OMB approved for three years an information collection associated with the FCC's rural healthcare (RHC) program, according to a notice for Friday's Federal Register. Commissioners approved an order in January revising existing information collection requirements associated with the RHC telecom program to simplify support calculations and streamline invoicing (see 2301260041).

Americans receive an average of 2.1 billion spam calls each month, almost six calls per person, Truecaller reported Tuesday. That's based on data for the year ending Oct. 31. “Americans wasted approximately 195 million hours answering these incoming calls,” the company said: “Every year, these numbers peak during the holidays, with scams such as charity donations, fake deliveries, and vacation upgrades.”

Elliott Investment Management Monday called for "significant changes" to Crown Castle's executive and board leadership. The firm, which manages a roughly $2 billion investment in Crown Castle, cited in its letter to Crown Castle a "history of underperformance" and "profound lack of oversight by the board." "After spending $19 billion on its fiber strategy, performance remains poor and the company's fiber investments now generate yields that are not only below its cost of capital, but astoundingly, also below the risk-free rate of return," the letter said. Elliot called for "comprehensive leadership change," a reevaluation of the company's fiber strategy and "improved corporate governance." Crown Castle said it "remains confident" in its executive leadership. "We look forward to reviewing Elliott’s materials and are open to commencing a constructive engagement with Elliott," it said.

The FCC Tuesday granted two more participants in the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program six-month extensions of their mandate to rip and replace Huawei and ZTE equipment from their networks. Triangle Telephone Cooperative Association’s deadline to remove the gear was delayed from Wednesday to May 29, Triangle Communication System’s deadline from Jan. 13 to July 13, according to a Wireline Bureau order. “Petitioners claim that supply chain disruptions, attributable in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, have increased lead times for equipment delivery well beyond what would otherwise be Normal,” the bureau said in docket 18-89: The providers explain “that these issues have been exacerbated by a lack of available employees and qualified contractors due, in part, to the effects of the pandemic.”

The FCC's digital discrimination order was "one of the most consequential agency actions of the year" in "troubling ways," Free State Foundation President Randolph May wrote in a Federalist Society blog Monday (see 2311150040). Preventing discrimination of internet access is "certainly worthy," May wrote, but the order is "one of the most far-reaching unwarranted power grabs in the agency's history." May warned that the FCC's disparate impact standard may rely on a "shaky foundation" and face legal scrutiny. The FCC's order "goes to extraordinary lengths to weaponize" the standard against ISPs, he noted.

NCIC Inmate Communications petitioned the FCC to partially waive its rule requiring correctional facilities to deploy certain forms of advanced telecom relay services by Jan. 1 (see 2212080063). NCIC sought a one-year extension to comply with the requirement, noting that IP captioned telephone service provider ClearCaptions backed a similar waiver from Securus. The "modest extension" will "give the marketplace time to develop corrections-grade advanced TRS platforms," said the petition posted Wednesday in docket 23-62.

Industry groups expressed caution regarding any adoption of a new support mechanism and fiber mandates for the FCC's high-cost USF programs, according to a reply comment posted Wednesday in docket 10-90 (see 2310240062). Don't require the provision of standalone voice service as a prerequisite for funding, said the Wireless ISP Association. "There is no longer a need to require high-cost recipients to offer standalone voice service," the group said. WISPA also urged tech neutrality and not to mandate fiber connections. "The commission has never required the use of fiber ... or precluded the use of technologies for its high-cost programs, and it should not do so here," WISPA said. The FCC's enhanced alternative connect America cost model should "be based on forward-looking technology and should not require certain technologies that will unnecessarily raise the cost to taxpayers," it added. The record doesn't support the adoption of a new support mechanism for operational expenses, said Incompas, adding no clear path forward has been provided to establish any new support mechanism. The group said there isn't enough time to adopt a new mechanism before states begin soliciting applications for NTIA's broadband, equity, access and deployment program. The FCC should instead "evaluate the continued need of each USF program in order to evaluate the future of the USF most effectively and how it relates to the billions of dollars coming from federal and state funding," Incompas said.