Alaska Communications Systems agreed to an increase in its takeover price of 20 cents a share, or about 6.6%, to about $320 million cash, from a previously amended deal also with Macquarie Capital (see 2011050054), ACS said Thursday.

FCC staff granted Long Distance Consolidated Billing's petition for reconsideration of two orders saying LDCB changed six consumers' service providers without proper authorization verification (see 1903210047). The decision partly was based on existing rules at the time of the verifications. The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau warned that LDCB will be in violation of carrier change rules if it continues to use third-party verification scripts that "fail to confirm that the person on the call is authorized to make a carrier change and wants to make such change.”

Reconsideration petitions on Minnesota clearing Frontier Communications’ bankruptcy reorganization are due Dec. 28, the Public Utilities Commission said Tuesday. Answers to petitions are due 10 days later. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) raised concerns about the OK (see 2011200040) before the PUC posted the final order Monday (see 2012070057). The commission asked for comments filed in that period to be refiled, in Tuesday’s notice. Consumer complaints about Frontier rose in Minnesota and some other states in recent years (see here).

USTelecom and Lumen separately urged caution in the supply chain security order set for an FCC vote Thursday (see 2011190059), in calls with aides to the five commissioners. The draft “correctly defines the scope of obligations and responsibilities in that they apply only to eligible telecommunications carriers (ETC) and reimbursement participants,” USTelecom said in a filing in docket 18-89, posted Monday. A requirement to replace equipment should kick in “only if Congress appropriates the funding required for removal and replacement,” it said. Take a “broad approach” on reimbursement, Lumen said: “Although Congress has yet to appropriate funds to support the reimbursement program, legislators are actively pursuing legislation that would continue to advance this important policy.”

Fifty-one percent of American households used the internet for telehealth in 2019, NTIA reported Monday. Families with annual incomes exceeding $100,000 were more likely to use the internet to access health records or communicate with health professionals. The percentage of households in urban areas doing so increased by 4 points from 2017 to 2019, while rose in rural areas grew by 6 points. Despite still lagging behind white households, use of telehealth services by Hispanic and Native American households grew the most.

Comments are due Jan. 4, replies Jan. 19, on four requests to extend the deadline to fully implement secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) requirements, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice Friday in docket 17-97. AT&T, Lumen, UScellular and Verizon sought extensions (see 2011230044).

Comments are due Jan. 11, replies Jan. 21, on a petition for reconsideration of the FCC's 2020 inmate calling services order on remand, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Thursday in docket 12-375. GlobalTel*Link seeks recon of the new standard for determining the jurisdictional nature of a telecommunications service (see 2008060053). “The jurisdictional nature of a call depends on the physical location of the endpoints of the call and not on whether the area code or NXX prefix of the telephone number associated with the account, are associated with a particular state,” GTL said.

Alcazar Networks agreed to settle with the FTC Thursday on charges the VoIP service provider "provided a gateway for tens of millions of illegal calls." Investigators said Alcazar knowingly allowed customers to use its services to call numbers on the FTC's Do Not Call registry by displaying spoofed numbers, including 911. Alcazar agreed to pay a $105,562 civil fine and will be required to implement automated procedures to block spoofed calls, follow secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) requirements for all calls after June 30, and screen customers before providing them with VoIP services. This is the FTC’s second case against a VoIP service provider.

OMB approved information collection services for Kari's Law and Ray Baum's Act, the FCC announced Thursday (see 2002180020). Fixed service providers must comply with both laws by Jan. 6, non-fixed providers by Jan. 6 the following year.

About 83 area codes will need to transition to obtain access to the 988 suicide prevention hotline, said the FCC North American Numbering Council Thursday at its final meeting for 2020. Monthly reports will now include the status of the 988 hotline implementation. Tim Kagele, co-chair of North American Portability Management, said the goal is to address potential conflicts where 988 may be the first three digits of a number. One call participant suggested the FCC consider establishing a national 10-digit number for the 988 hotline. NANC will provide input in Q1 2021 on the feasibility and costs of including an automatic dispatch location of a 988 call.