ADT, PK, CWA Object to FCC Wireline Broadband Draft, ACA Backs Pole-Attachment Provisions

ADT and others criticized an FCC draft wireline broadband infrastructure order tentatively on commissioners' Nov. 16 meeting agenda (see 1710270040), while the American Cable Association supported pole-attachment provisions. The draft "threatens to disrupt vital alarm monitoring services and creates an unfair competitive advantage for [ILEC] alarm company affiliates," filed ADT Tuesday in docket 17-84. "The tilted playing field results from a confluence of changes ... relating to network change notifications, particularly for copper retirement. These changes will enable ILECs to inform their affiliates of copper retirement or other network changes long before a customer's existing chosen outside provider like ADT would be given notice, providing an unfair head start for the ILEC-affiliated companies to plan for such changes and to engage in marketing campaigns focused on converting and upselling their services." Public Knowledge and the Communications Workers of America opposed the draft's rollback of copper retirement notice and discontinuance rules. Proposals to "eliminate the advance notice requirement for retail customers and to reduce the advance notice requirement for interconnecting carriers from 180 to 90 days will leave consumers, small businesses, and anchor institutions confused and unprepared" when incumbents retire copper networks, wrote PK and CWA on a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. They said scrapping a "de facto copper retirement definition will allow incumbent carriers to neglect their copper infrastructure" where consumers lack viable alternatives, and criticized a proposal to eliminate a "functional test" and "narrowly reinterpret the definition of service" under Communications Act Section 214. ACA backed proposals to exclude from pole-attachment rates the capital costs recovered from make-ready fees and create a 180-day shot clock for resolving pole-access complaints. It supported a proposed rulemaking "to address requests by attachers to overlash existing wires or install drops from poles to customers without filing pole attachment applications," meeting with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai.