The Education and Library Networks Coalition asked FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington to prioritize school districts in E-rate's Category I discount matrix if demand exceeds available funds to "ensure that urban and rural areas with the lowest income students are first in line," a filing said Thursday in docket 21-31. Participating in the conversation were the American Federation of School Administrators, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National School Boards Association, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others. The groups backed allowing funds to be used for home internet access services and said the commission will need to determine what's considered a reasonable reimbursement for costs associated with eligible equipment. They "noted that costs for hardware may have increased in particular regions of the country or throughout the country as a result of scarcity." Waive competitive bidding and bid evaluation rules because "state and local procurement rules are sufficiently rigorous to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in the program," the groups said.

IP captioned telephone service providers disagreed on whether the FCC should grant T-Mobile's petition for reconsideration on behalf of Sprint on parts of a November FCC order cutting IP CTS rates, per comments posted Wednesday in docket 13-24 (see 2011190026). Grant the petition because the rate cuts "adversely affected providers’ ability to provide functionally equivalent service to individuals with hearing disabilities," said Hamilton Relay: "The commission cannot ignore the fact that the decision to slash compensation rates and authorize [automatic speech recognition] has incentivized providers to either cut costs or offer lower-quality services." ClearCaptions disagreed: ASR is "more accurate, more consistent, and faster than what is generally available in the IP CTS industry today." If the commission isn't going to continue granting conditional approval for IP CTS providers to use ASR, "should reconsider the rate cuts that were based in part on providers’ ability to use ASR to achieve cost efficiencies" (see 2012110020), the company asked. Deny the petition because "Sprint continues to press the commission to adopt a tiered rate methodology that would increase compensation to Sprint," said CaptionCall: The petition "offers no new evidence."

The FCC declaratory ruling last month that new attachers shouldn't be charged the full cost of a pole replacement when they aren't the sole reason for the replacement "draws an appropriate bright-line that will reduce disputes in these situations," the Edison Electric Institute and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association told staff for acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington, per filings posted Tuesday in docket 17-84 (see 2101190027). The electric industry "supports the national goals for the deployment of broadband networks," and "regulatory certainty regarding full cost recovery" for pole replacements allows utilities to "voluntarily replace poles to accommodate new attachers to support broadband deployment," the groups said: Pole replacement disputes are "infrequent," and any disputes regarding red-tagging certain poles or cost responsibility should be addressed "in an adjudicatory proceeding."

Remove the word "written" from the consent requirement to receive more than three prerecorded telemarketing informational calls to residential lines per 30 days, USTelecom asked the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 02-278. The group backed the American Bankers Association's calls for changing the FCC December order related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see 2101280027).

The FCC Wireline Bureau granted Zoom's Dec. 9 application for interconnected VoIP numbering authorization, a public notice said Monday (see 2102050034).

The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment by April 7, replies by April 22, in docket 09-197 on dozens of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction winning bidders' petitions for eligible telecom carrier designation, a public notice said Monday. ETC designation is required to receive RDOF funding.

Employ an independent body to "determine the metrics, measurement methodology, and performance criteria" for IP captioned telephone services, commented deaf and hard of hearing advocates last week in docket 13-24 on the FCC proposal to amend minimum performance standards (see 2101290025). Commenters included the Hearing Loss Association of America, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf and National Black Deaf Advocates. An American National Standard Institute-accredited standards organization has due process, notification of standards development, and no "dominance by any single interest category," the groups said. Standards should "meaningfully assess whether service providers are delivering functional equivalency and avoid unintentionally establishing the wrong types of provider incentives," said the Clear2Connect Coalition of disability and veterans service organizations. CaptionCall, ClearCaptions, Hamilton Relay, InnoCaption, T-Mobile and CapTel submitted a copy of an industry request for proposal to have an independent third party "test participating providers and validate methods of measuring IP CTS quality metrics." Procedures should be flexible so they "incentivize, not hinder, technological improvements," the providers said. InnoCaption urged encouraging providers to meet a minimum speed for calls using automatic speech recognition: "A requirement would run counter to the FCC’s statutory directives to ensure technological neutrality and functional equivalence."

Roughly 75% of small and medium-sized businesses have experienced a cyber breach at least once, and 45% were hacked in the past year, reported USTelecom and CyberRx Thursday. SMBs took an average of five months to fully recover and spent $170,000 to resolve each cyber breach. About six in 10 report breaches that stopped daily productivity; 46% reported lost customers. "SolarWinds and the recent attack at a water plant in Florida demonstrate that companies need to immediately take stock of their cyber defenses -- and get ready" (see 2103040066), said Robert Mayer, USTelecom senior vice president-cybersecurity and innovation.

The telecom relay service market will top an estimated $6 billion by 2027, Global Market Insights reported Thursday. GMI said North America will likely hold a major market share for TRS due to the "expansive presence of enterprises and the penetration of diverse relay services." Avaya, Bell Canada, Cisco, Relay UK BT and Sprint Relay are the major players, GMI said.

Inmate calling services providers must submit annual reports and certifications by April 1, an FCC public notice said Wednesday in docket 12-375. Forms are here.