Customs Duty

Verizon supported USTelecom’s forbearance request for scrapping the ILEC duty to unbundle (offer discounted wholesale access to) 64 kbps voice-grade connections where the incumbent has retired a copper loop and replaced it with fiber. The requirement has “outlived any usefulness,” said a Verizon filing about a call with FCC officials, posted Friday in docket 14-192. “Customer demand for legacy wireline voice service has dropped precipitously. From 2003 to 2013, ILEC retail switched access lines declined by almost 60 percent," it said. “Similarly, demand for unbundled analog voice loops from Verizon -- which the 64 kbps on fiber channel replaces -- has declined by 65 percent.” Yet the costs of unbundling 64 kbps channels “are so high that they threaten to impede ILECs from retiring copper,” Verizon said. It cited redacted confidential costs of equipment needed to “retrofit the network of the future to accommodate yesterday’s 64 kbps technology,” which don’t include installation and provisioning costs. “And this assumes Verizon can acquire the physical equipment,” because one vendor stopped making it and others might follow suit due to the falling demand, the telco said. “The small subset of customers” for voice-grade service can obtain it from other providers or CLECs, which could continue to serve end-users through commercial platform services such as Verizon’s Wholesale Advantage or resale arrangements, it said.

CTIA’s request that the FCC revisit its Lifeline privacy authority drew opposition from consumer and media watchdog groups, and support from the American Cable Association. The consumer and media groups said Thursday the commission could rely on the two Communications Act provisions targeted by a CTIA petition for reconsideration, which they called substantively and procedurally flawed. The ACA supported the Lifeline USF program and the need for customer privacy, but it backed CTIA’s petition and argued the commission was exceeding its congressional mandate.

LTE-U's backers and critics agree the technology shows immense promise. Beyond that, consensus starts to break down on how to best implement it so as not to cause interference with Wi-Fi, according to panelists at a Monday night FCBA seminar on Wi-Fi-LTE-U. "These unlicensed bands are great [and] there's promise we can still avoid the rocks," said panelist Paul Margie of Harris Wiltshire, whose clients include wireless companies and ISPs.

The FCC has given itself 90 more days to review a USTelecom forbearance petition seeking regulatory relief the ILEC group says would promote next-generation networks, the Wireline Bureau said in a Friday order in docket 14-192. The new due date for deciding the petition is Jan. 4, the bureau said in exercising the agency's discretion to extend forbearance deadlines one time. USTelecom describes the relief it wants from Communications Act and FCC rules as "addressing section 271/272 and equal access obligations, rule 64.1903 structural separation requirements, the requirement to provide a 64 kbps voice channel where a copper loop has been retired, section 214(c) obligations where a price cap carrier does not receive high cost universal service support, Computer Inquiry rules, the requirement to provide access to newly deployed entrance conduit at regulated rates, and the prohibition against using contract tariffs for business data services in all regions," the bureau said. Granite Telecom, a CLEC, opposed USTelecom's proposed relief from Section 271 Bell long-distance entry duties and the 64 kbps requirement. Granite said it needs those provisions to gain Bell wholesale access to provide voice service to retail business customers. "Absent the § 271 and the 64 Kbps requirements, the [Bells] would have the incentives and ability to re-monopolize the portion of the business market served by Granite and other competitive carriers," the CLEC said in a filing posted Wednesday. "The [Bells] could accomplish this by imposing substantial wholesale price increase[s] or by simply refusing to renew current wholesale agreements."

The FCC is expected to take up a controversial privacy NPRM as early as its Oct. 22 meeting, though the proposal may well slip into November, FCC and industry officials said. There were lots of questions about the notice raised at CTIA earlier this month and signs of sharp divisions among commissioners (see 1509110027). Some industry experts predict that the FCC could delve into privacy rules for edge providers like Google, Amazon or Apple, in addition to rules for ISPs.

Former FCC chairmen Reed Hundt and Michael Copps disputed free speech challenges to the net neutrality order (see 1507310042 and 1508070058). “These arguments are unsound as a matter of constitutional principle, and are contrary to common sense and to common understandings that broadband Internet access service providers have long encouraged and benefited from,” said the brief they submitted Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063. “While the very nature of communications regulations makes them likely to generate plausible-sounding 'Free Speech' objections, it has never been the law -- and it cannot be the law -- that the mere provision of facilities over which others’ constitutionally-protected communication occurs is itself 'Free Speech,' making basic common-carrier non-discrimination duties the constitutional equivalent of a government-compelled 'pledge or oath.'” Copps and Hundt said they were encouraged that most industry petitioners “abandoned these mischievous arguments,” but they are taking the speech objections of Alamo Broadband and Daniel Berninger seriously “to prevent them from gaining a foothold.” If accepted, the objections “would imperil the entire project of communications law and Congress’s longstanding and until now unquestioned, power to regulate in this field,” said the brief, which was joined by law professors Nicholas Johnson, a former FCC commissioner, and Susan Crawford, a former technology adviser to President Barack Obama. Also defending the order on First Amendment grounds were Pennsylvania State University Palmer Chair in Telecom Sascha Meinrath, Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout and 45,707 Internet users who joined their separate brief. The Internet is an “essential platform,” net neutrality rules “serve fundamental democratic interests” consistent with “two centuries of commitment to open communications platforms,” and “the idea that ISPs would suppress speech and organizing is not speculative,” they said. “The Internet’s vital role as a conduit between government and the people would be irrevocably damaged if this Court accepts some petitioners’ argument that the Net Neutrality rules violate their First Amendment interest in exercising unfettered ‘editorial discretion’ over the Internet content that their customers choose to send or receive.” Other groups also filed briefs Monday (see 1509220052)

FCC IP tech transition rules could cause confusion, complaints and lawsuits as parties haggle over messy details in incumbent telco attempts to retire copper networks and services used by competing carriers and customers, CCMI consultant Andy Regitsky said on a Wednesday webinar hosted by CCMI. Regitsky said that while the commission provided various requirements and guidance for managing the migration to fiber-based IP services, some regulations are imprecise and “fraught with disagreement potential.” Noting questions about the rates of substitute IP services ILECs must offer CLECs, he said, “you can look at this from both sides and see there’s trouble ahead.”

Sprint shouldn't be allowed to discontinue domestic wireline long-distance service until it satisfies certain duties regarding the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, said the Oglala Sioux Tribe Utility Commission in South Dakota in comments to the FCC in docket 15-186. The OSTUC said Sprint hasn't provided information the tribal commission needs to take a position on the carrier's planned service discontinuation (see 1506190036). To satisfy the FCC public interest standard, Sprint must meet all applicable requirements to discontinue service, including on the PRIR, the OSTUC said. "Sprint has refused to recognize the jurisdiction and authority of the OSTUC," which regulates telecom and other utility services on the PRIR, leading to litigation between the parties, the tribal commission said. A federal court recently denied a Sprint request to block the tribe from exercising jurisdiction over Sprint's telecom service on the PRIR, the OSTUC said. Sprint hadn't met tribal consumer protection duties or provided the OSTUC with any information about its planned service discontinuance on the PRIR, the tribal commission said. "Until Sprint demonstrates that it has met its obligations to 'inform customers prior to termination of service that they may file a complaint with the Commission' and comply with other applicable requirements on the PRIR, the FCC should not allow Sprint's planned termination of service on the PRIR to go into effect." The OSTUC said that Sprint had said consumers could buy alternative long-distance service from wireless carriers such as itself, but the tribal commission said it doesn't believe Sprint provides wireless service on the PRIR and there may not be other alternatives on the reservation. The OSTUC comments were dated Sept. 1, and posted on the FCC electronic filing system Monday. Sprint had no comment, but plans to file a response soon, a company spokesman told us Monday.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed amicus briefs with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Saboonchi. The ACLU and EFF will urge the 4th Circuit to rule government agents must obtain a warrant before searching cellphones, computers and other personal electronic devices at the border. In the case, an Iranian-American U.S. citizen returning from vacation at Niagara Falls, Ontario, had his cellphones and a flash drive taken by law enforcement and searched. Law enforcement charged Saboonchi with violating export control laws after reviewing information on his devices. But the groups argued law enforcement should never have had access to that information. “Because forensic and forensic-like searches of smartphones, laptops, and other mobile electronic devices seized at the border infringe deeply on privacy interests, such searches should only be permitted pursuant to a warrant, or at a minimum upon a determination of probable cause or reasonable suspicion,” the ACLU of Maryland said in its amicus brief. “Information stored on these devices can be deeply sensitive and private, including personal correspondence, family photos, medical records, intimate relationship details, proprietary business information, and more.” The 4th Circuit should “clarify the Fourth Amendment standards governing such searches in order to provide guidance to the government and the traveling public,” the group said. EFF Staff Attorney Sophia Cope said that many individuals traveling either back into or to the U.S. for vacation or business trips can have their emails, texts, photos, videos and voicemails “rifled through and retained, without a warrant or any suspicion that a crime has been committed.” Pointing to the Supreme Court’s decision in Riley v. California last year, which found that police need a warrant to search devices they find on people they arrest, Cope said the “same standard should apply when border agents want to search devices we carry with us while traveling.” There is an exception to Fourth Amendment protections at the border to allow for U.S. border patrol agents to enforce immigration and customs laws, EFF said. Agents can check a traveler’s passport and immigration documents, and search luggage for physical contraband like drugs or other items subject to import duties, EFF said. But the border search exception shouldn't be used as a loophole by law enforcement to “obtain troves of personal information without a warrant,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Hanni Fakhoury.

Frontier Communications and Verizon scored a clear-cut victory in the FCC decision Wednesday (see 1509020064) approving without conditions the proposed transfer of Verizon wireline systems in California, Florida and Texas to Frontier. In granting necessary license transfers on Day 174 of its 180-day nonbinding transaction review shot clock, commission bureaus cited Frontier-Verizon arguments as trumping the concerns raised by the deal’s critics, though it did note certain Frontier commitments provided some further assurances -- something competitors welcomed and said they expected to be honored. The FCC also found Frontier was more likely to build out broadband networks in the affected areas than Verizon was.