Q4 USF revenue is projected to be around $9.5 billion, the Universal Service Administrative Co. reported Wednesday, as expected (see 2108030062). The quarterly contribution factor will be 29.1%, emailed analyst Billy Jack Gregg.
Apollo affiliate Connect will acquire nine of Lumen's winning Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction bids to serve 32,580 locations if the FCC approves the companies' proposed $7 billion sale, said a transfer of control request filed by Lumen Wednesday (see 2108030077). Lumen asked for a waiver of the prohibition on major changes to RDOF applications to facilitate the proposed transaction. The deal would also include the transfer of one international Communications Act Section 214 license. Lumen has started filing its state applications where required, emailed a spokesperson.
The FTC and six states "continue to misrepresent" Frontier advertising of its DSL speeds, the telco said in docket 21-cv-04155, asking the U.S. District Court for Central California Monday to dismiss the claim against it (see 2108160049). Plaintiffs "continue to tout their incredible shrinking advertisement to argue that defendants’ explanatory language is 'tiny' and 'inconspicuous,'" the carrier said. The ISP said the ad cited in the complaint was "purposefully rendered illegible" and "shrunken by 80%." The FTC declined to comment Tuesday.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted CaptionCall conditional certification to provide automatic speech recognition-only IP captioned telephone services supported by the Telecom Relay Service Fund, said an order Tuesday.
United Church of Christ and Public Knowledge asked the FCC to reconsider some "legal conclusions" in its order on interim interstate inmate calling services rates (see 2105200044), said a petition for reconsideration in docket 12-375. The groups asked the commission to exclude site commissions from the rates, reconsider allowing contractually negotiated site commissions of up to 2 cents per minute, and preempt state actions allowing site commissions. Don't "allow these anti-ratepayer biases to control rates for even the interim period," the groups said. NCIC sought changes to capping third-party and single-call transactional fees, in a petition for recon also posted Monday. It asked that rates be capped at $3 for automated payments and $5.95 for live-agent services. It asked to reconsider regulating site commissions for prisons and jails with an average daily population of 1,000-plus.
The FCC Wireline Bureau removed Zoom's application for its proposed buy of Five9 from streamlined treatment "for further consideration of the transaction," said a public notice posted Monday in docket 21-316 (see 2108100058). Zoom didn't comment.
The FCC Wireline Bureau denied CenturyLink's application for emergency impairment of its wireline telecom services and "other real-time two-way voice communications services" in areas of Mound City, Missouri, due to "severe flooding that damaged its facilities and caused a service outage" March 15, 2019, said a public notice posted in Monday's Daily Digest. The bureau also denied CenturyLink's request for a waiver of the 65-day filing deadline because it "became aware of the deficiencies in its internal tracking system over a year ago and could have exercised diligence at that time to ensure that other outages necessitating emergency discontinuance applications had not occurred." CenturyLink, now Lumen, "provides no indication that it took prompt steps to address the outage" as it did for a 2020 outage in Michigan, the notice said. Lumen didn't comment.
Edison Electric Institute asked the FCC to extend the reply comments deadline for its petition for declaratory ruling on pole attachment rates, said a motion posted Friday in docket 17-84 (see 2108240079). It asked for replies to be due on Sept. 10 instead of Sept. 7 because of upcoming Labor Day and Jewish holidays.
The FCC Wireline Bureau wants opposition comments by Sept. 13, replies Sept. 23, on Puerto Rico Telephone Company's application for review of the selection of Liberty Communications of Puerto Rico as the winning applicant in certain municipios for the Bringing Puerto Rico Together Fund Stage 2 competitive process, said a public notice posted Friday in docket 18-143 (see 2106210047).
LTD Broadband asked the FCC Wireline Bureau to reconsider its order denying LTD's waiver request to obtain eligible telecom carrier designation in California for its winning Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction bids, said a petition for partial reconsideration posted Thursday in docket 19-126. The bureau's order "[leaves] out critical facts concerning serious professional misconduct and deception by LTD’s former counsel before the FCC and the CPUC that LTD unknowingly submitted into the record of the waiver proceeding," it said about the timing of its ETC application being filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (see 2106230047). LTD said it shouldn't be held liable for its former counsel's actions because it "innocently hired him to perform legal services and could not have foreseen that he would behave improperly." Kristopher Twomey, LTD's then-counsel, didn't comment.