The FCC released additional guidance Monday for affordable connectivity program providers as it continues winding down the program. "Absent additional funding from Congress, the ACP can only provide a partial reimbursement for May 2024," said a public notice docket 21-450. ACP providers "have the option to claim and pass on that partial reimbursement amount to enrolled households," it said: "After May 2024, the ACP will no longer support any benefits to enrolled households." Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel urged lawmakers to fully fund the program, saying many enrolled households have contacted the commission with concerns about losing service.

Incompas urged the FCC to "reinstate its oversight authority over" broadband internet access service providers’ interconnection agreements (see 2402080082). "Net neutrality is competition policy as it brings more choices and opportunities for consumers and small businesses," the group said in a filing posted Friday in docket 23-320 on separate meetings with aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez. Incompas also warned the commission against taking a "regulatory drift into areas of internet regulation," noting that content delivery networks and virtual private networks are "areas in which the FCC has not traditionally had a role."

Don't grant Wavelength's request for confidentiality regarding its application for review of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I long-form application, TWN Communications urged the FCC in an opposition filing posted Thursday in docket 19-126 (see 2401190055). Wavelength "sought to justify confidential treatment and denial of access to the material designated confidential" in its application for review, TWN said. The information Wavelength sought to keep confidential is based on "a generic statement that information in the AFR is confidential" and "does not mention access to capital at all."

Don't adopt a "model carrier" approach for determining rates for incarcerated people's communications services, Securus parent Aventiv told the FCC. The company met separately with Commissioner Anna Gomez and staff, aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and aides to Commissioner Brendan Carr. The FCC "must take into account the increased costs of labor and services resulting from inflationary pressures in recent years" when setting permanent rate and ancillary service charge caps, Aventiv said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-62 (see 2205240056). It also urged the commission to allow "alternative pricing structures" and "experimentation with bundling arrangements."

USTelecom and NCTA want the FCC to abandon its proposal to reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service, the organizations said in a joint letter posted Monday in docket 23-320 (see 2401180042). "Regulating usage-based billing is unnecessary and would only serve to eliminate options for consumers," they said. USTelecom and NCTA said regulation is "unnecessary" because there is "no evidence that network operators exercise market power in negotiating interconnection agreements." The proposed bill-and-keep model would also be "affirmatively harmful" to consumers because "forbidding ISPs from charging for interconnection would exert upward pressure on consumer broadband prices," they said.

The FCC Wireline Bureau extended until March 13 the deadline to submit reply comments on a Further NPRM on proposed revisions to pole attachment and replacement rules (see 2402140048). Additional time will allow interested parties to also file replies to oppositions regarding a related petition filed by the Edison Electric Institute, the bureau said in an order Friday in docket 17-84.

The Utilities Technology Council and Edison Electric Institute requested additional time from the FCC to submit reply comments on EEI's petition for reconsideration of the commission's December declaratory ruling on pole attachment and replacement costs. The groups want the deadline extended until March 19, noting in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 17-84 that initial opposition comments were due on the same day as comments on a related NPRM (see 2402140048).

The Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM) Broadband Coalition asked the FCC for an extension until June 1 on the deadline for challenging broadband location data as part of the enhanced ACAM program. The group said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90 that the current March 8 deadline was concerning because it doesn't give participating carriers "enough time to fully review and analyze the current dataset and to prepare and file challenges that contain the evidentiary support required by the commission." Meeting with Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff, the coalition also expressed concern about the use of service availability data through Dec. 31, saying providers "could be incentivized to overstate their available broadband speeds" because the commission's guidance on the program "made them aware that by doing so they could potentially deny support to E-ACAM companies." Instead, it asked that the commission use data as of June 30, or "not penalize proactive E-ACAM companies" that deployed speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps between June 30 and Dec. 31.

Essential Network Technologies and MetComm.net filed a petition to review last week at the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit challenging the authority of the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. to stop processing the reimbursement of discounts for IT and broadband services that MetComm and Essential provided to schools under Section 254 of the Communications Act. Also at issue is whether the FCC’s failure to conclude numerous extended USAC investigations within a reasonable time violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution's due process clause by seriously impairing the ability of MetComm and Essential to adequately defend themselves against USAC’s “unspecified allegations,” said the petition (docket 24-1027). This isn’t “an ordinary agency delay case” but instead is a case in which the FCC “has a duty to act,” it said. The commission is failing its “statutory reimbursement duty while embroiling the schools and their service providers in endless proceedings before a private company, USAC, that lacks any authority to decide the legal issues involved,” it said. If the petition to review is denied, the petition seeks, in the alternative, mandamus relief compelling the FCC to comply with the duties Congress included in the Communications Act and the APA, it said.

The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comments by March 15, replies by April 1, on a proposal to use data from the broadband serviceable location fabric to "update and verify compliance with certain high-cost program support recipients’ deployment obligations," said a notice for Wednesday's Federal Register. Comments are due in docket 10-90.