The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the mandate of a panel's partial reversal of an FCC order that largely deregulated business data service rates of price-cap incumbent telcos. An FCC motion to stay the mandate is granted until Nov. 12, 2019, said a court order (in Pacer) in Citizens Telecommunications v. FCC, No. 17-2296. The FCC argued the stay would avoid BDS market disruption while it considers the procedural reversal and remand of TDM interoffice transport pricing deregulation (see 1810100054), which it proposed to reinstate in a recent Further NPRM (see 1810230032). Incompas and Sprint opposed the motion while USTelecom, AT&T and CenturyLink backed it (see 1810220035).
Google Vice President-Policy and Government Relations Susan Molinari moves to senior adviser in January ... Michael Weinberg, ex-Public Knowledge, leaves Shapeways to become executive director, New York University School of Law Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy ... American Public Media Group promotes Chandra Kavati to vice president-content distribution and partnerships ... Tessco Technologies promotes Mary Beth Smith to Ventev general manager.
Google Vice President-Policy and Government Relations Susan Molinari moves to senior adviser in January ... Michael Weinberg, ex-Public Knowledge, leaves Shapeways to become executive director, New York University School of Law Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy ... American Public Media Group promotes Chandra Kavati to vice president-content distribution and partnerships ... Tessco Technologies promotes Mary Beth Smith to Ventev general manager.
LAS VEGAS -- A key telecom challenge is to ensure regional and smaller providers can compete in a market dominated by large national players, Windstream CEO Tony Thomas said Wednesday. He said his company is the No. 5 fiber provider, with half a million locations on-net. "We can't be a national provider without some sort of basic, functioning wholesale market," he said, noting the need to serve business customers with scattered locations. He backed spectrum policies that do more to allow smaller bidders to compete with the big four national wireless carriers and voiced concern about large tech companies gobbling up upstarts.
LAS VEGAS -- CLEC executives at the Incompas Show mixed optimism and hope that the FCC won't grant a USTelecom bid for ILEC relief from wholesale duties to share networks with rivals. They told show attendees that competitor ability to lease access to discounted copper unbundled network elements (UNEs) of large incumbents encourages both sides to deploy fiber. Some cited the importance of maintaining "avoided-cost resale" requirements also targeted by a USTelecom forbearance petition.
LAS VEGAS -- CLEC executives at the Incompas Show mixed optimism and hope that the FCC won't grant a USTelecom bid for ILEC relief from wholesale duties to share networks with rivals. They told show attendees that competitor ability to lease access to discounted copper unbundled network elements (UNEs) of large incumbents encourages both sides to deploy fiber. Some cited the importance of maintaining "avoided-cost resale" requirements also targeted by a USTelecom forbearance petition.
LAS VEGAS -- Telecom provider antitrust immunity under a 2003 Supreme Court case isn't sweeping, said Makan Delrahim, DOJ assistant attorney general, at the Incompas show Tuesday. In Verizon v. Trinko, justices said "the mere violation of an FCC rule that was intended to deregulate a market does not create an antitrust violation," he said in Q&A with Steptoe & Johnson's Markham Erickson. "It doesn't mean the antitrust laws don't apply. … Where there has been deregulation, if it meets our test, we would challenge either the conduct or the transaction.”
LAS VEGAS -- Telecom provider antitrust immunity under a 2003 Supreme Court case isn't sweeping, said Makan Delrahim, DOJ assistant attorney general, at the Incompas show Tuesday. In Verizon v. Trinko, justices said "the mere violation of an FCC rule that was intended to deregulate a market does not create an antitrust violation," he said in Q&A with Steptoe & Johnson's Markham Erickson. "It doesn't mean the antitrust laws don't apply. … Where there has been deregulation, if it meets our test, we would challenge either the conduct or the transaction.”
Incompas and Sprint asked a court to deny an FCC motion to stay the mandate of the court's partial reversal of a commission order largely deregulating price-cap incumbent telco business data services (see 1810100054). Intervenors USTelecom, AT&T and CenturyLink supported the motion. The commission "fails to articulate any standard for the stay that it seeks," said Incompas/Sprint opposition Monday to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Citizens Telecommunications v. FCC, No. 17-2296. "It likewise fails to identify any timeframe for the stay requested, stating only that the Commission 'proposes to file status updates every 90 days to apprise the Court of developments in the agency’s rulemaking.'" The FCC said an indefinite stay is justified because "the agency is diligently working to address this Court's remand, and there is every reason to believe [it will] proceed efficiently to adopt a new TDM transport rule," the opposition noted. But that isn't the Supreme Court's standard, which requires "extraordinary circumstances" or, when a cert petition is pending, "good cause," Incompas and Sprint said. The ILECs, noting the new rules took effect in August 2017, said a "stay is necessary to prevent pointless and costly industry disruption as the FCC moves forward expeditiously ... to re-adopt on remand the same transport rule in effect." If the court issues the mandate "vacating the 2017 transport rule before the remand proceedings are complete," carriers must "file thousands of pages of new federal tariffs," the intervenors said. "Carriers would also have to puzzle through how to apply the resulting regime, a bizarre regulatory hybrid with conflicting geographic units and jumbled service baskets, in which transport is subject to legacy pre-2017 regulations while interrelated, non-transport data services are subject to the new, lighter-touch regime that this Court has upheld."
U.S. broadband capital expenditures rose 2 percent in 2017 to $76.3 billion, said USTelecom's annual report Thursday. The group credited the FCC's recent "internet freedom" and tech transition orders and congressional "tax reform" with helping to reverse a two-year capex decline that "began" when the FCC "moved to impose common carrier" regulation on broadband providers in 2015. The report confirms FCC "policies to promote broadband deployment are working," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. "Investment is pouring back into this space," said Commissioner Brendan Carr at a USTelecom event.