The FCC Wireline Bureau on Monday approved BW Broadband’s acquisition of assets from Winn Telecom, an incumbent local exchange carrier serving Deerfield and Freemont townships in lower central Michigan. BW Broadband was formed for the purposes of the proposed deal and is a subsidiary of the Blanchard Telephone Association, the bureau said. BW will become the new ILEC in that market. The companies state that Blanchard has “substantial expertise in communications infrastructure,” and BW Broadband “will invest in new infrastructure,” the bureau said.

The Fiber Broadband Association announced Monday the launch of its “Engineering Best Practices,” which will offer “practical chapters” on a monthly basis, designed to help broadband providers “improve project planning [and] streamline deployment processes that deliver high-quality fiber networks.” The first chapter covers planning and high-level design, exploring “the strategic decisions that shape the success of a fiber build,” the group said. The series is being developed by FBA’s Engineering Best Practices Working Group.

Lumos CEO Brian Stading plans to retire at the end of Q1, after leading the company since 2022, it said Friday. Stading led the expansion of the company’s "footprint from two states to ten across the Midwest and Eastern U.S.,” Lumos said. Company veteran David Smith has been promoted to COO and Josh Many to chief network officer. Lumos didn’t announce who would replace Stading as CEO, but a spokesperson said the board is conducting a search.

The Department of Homeland Security is backing the FCC's proposed blanket licensing of submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE) owners and operators. In comments posted Thursday in docket 24-523, DHS said SLTE owners "are fundamentally involved" in cable operation and can install equipment that may affect a cable’s operation. SLTE blanket licensing would be "a good step to foster the resiliency of this critical infrastructure." Submarine cable operators and industry groups have raised objections to SLTE licensing (see 2512010043).

AT&T asked the FCC to extend an emergency discontinuance authorization in Los Angeles for 60 days, until March 18, as the carrier continues to experience copper thefts in that market. “Despite AT&T’s efforts, the scale and repetition of the thefts in some instances [has] prevented AT&T from restoring service in a timely fashion, resulting in extended outages for customers,” said a filing Wednesday in docket 25-294. As of Monday, some 21,000 circuits had been out of service for more than 45 days, and about 18,000 of those for more than 65 days, AT&T said. The company has experienced “repeated and pervasive vandalism and theft” affecting its copper facilities throughout Los Angeles County since early 2024.

The FCC should recognize that customers don’t think of VoIP as an information service, said Vantage Point in an ex parte meeting Tuesday with Wireline Bureau staff. “Under current statutory status, a major policy benefit of classifying VoIP as a telecommunications service is the opportunity to have a uniform national policy” instead of the “patchwork quilt of variations across the country differing state to state” that would result from classifying it as an information service, said a filing in docket 25-304. Vantage Point also said collapsing the number of interconnection points to create fewer than one per state would be “inequitable” and isn’t supported in the record.

Comments are due Feb. 4, replies March 6, on Gigapower’s petition asking the FCC Wireline Bureau to preempt local pole-attachment requirements in Rock Hill, South Carolina, to allow the company to provide telecommunications services, said a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. Due to a prior agreement with provider Comporium, Rock Hill “is requiring Gigapower to rearrange attachments to City-owned poles or to replace poles to obtain access, despite the existence of adequate available space” on existing poles, Gigapower told the agency. Rock Hill’s actions “are tantamount to a de facto moratorium that the Commission should preempt,” the petition said.

Comments are due Feb. 5, replies Feb. 20, on Tango Networks' request for a waiver of the FCC's numbering access rules, according to a Wireline Bureau public notice Tuesday. Tango wants the agency to waive the requirement that an applicant for initial numbering resources must show that it's authorized to provide service in the requested area, the notice said.

The FCC Wireline Bureau asked for comment Tuesday on the National Exchange Carrier Association’s proposed revisions to formulas used for average schedule interstate settlement disbursements. Comments are due Feb. 5, replies Feb. 20, in docket 25-339.

ACN Communication Services asked the FCC Wireline Bureau for a waiver of agency rules so the company can revise the data it filed to determine the size of its payments to the USF. ACN said it’s a reseller of telecommunications and broadband services to residential and business customers and has paid into the fund since 1993. “Upon review of the most recent annual USF report,” ACN determined that its reports from 2023-25 were in error and that it had “significantly overreported its USF end user revenue,” said a filing Monday in docket 06-122.