Verizon has fewer than one million customers remaining on copper facilities in areas where Verizon fiber is available, the telco told aides to FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday and Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/18DERmF). Verizon discussed its work to “facilitate IP VoIP interconnection through voluntary commercial agreements,” citing its agreement with Vonage to exchange voice traffic in IP format (see related story in this issue). Verizon’s agreement with Vonage is its “second voluntarily negotiated commercial IP interconnection agreement for VoIP,” and the telco expects other agreements will follow, it said.

President Steve Berry and others from the Competitive Carriers Association met with top aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to discuss a new CCA report on competition, A Framework for Sustainable Competition in the Digital Age: Fostering Connectivity, Innovation and Consumer Choice. “The white paper urges the Commission to conduct a holistic review of the major obstacles and opportunities to sustain a competitive wireless industry, so as to drive economic growth and job creation, maintain our nation’s global competitiveness and promote continued innovation, enhance consumer welfare, and to prevent the need to artificially recreate a competitive marketplace through regulation in the future,” CCA said in a filing (http://bit.ly/1l1TArP).

LoJack urged the FCC to grant a request by the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI) for a limited waiver of FCC rules so some anti-theft devices already installed in vehicles wouldn’t have to move to narrowband frequencies by a May 27, 2019, deadline (CD Dec 18 p10). LoJack is the primary maker of vehicle locator units (VLUs). “The end result of the waiver would be that a very small number of VLUs will occasionally emit wideband (20 kHz), low power and low duty cycle tracking messages over a limited geographic range,” LoJack said Friday (http://bit.ly/1cii6Wl). “The benefit will be that law enforcement will be able to fight crime by being able to track and recover older stolen vehicles, which are at high risk of theft, and uncover other crimes associated with these thefts. For these reasons, the waiver is supported by good cause and is in the public interest."

The FCC’s trial giving VoIP providers direct access to numbers has been a “resounding success,” said the largest trial participant, Vonage, in a report released Friday (http://bit.ly/1i8eJUa). Direct access has helped advance key policy goals like IP interconnection, Vonage said. “The trial confirmed what Vonage has long explained: direct access to numbers furthers the public interest without harming call routing, number porting, or intercarrier compensation.” During the trial, Vonage and Verizon entered into an IP interconnection agreement, the VoIP provider said, and other companies are currently negotiating interconnection agreements with Vonage. “Even this narrow trial, in other words, facilitated IP interconnection agreements,” it said. Vonage call routing and number routing both proceeded successfully during the trial, and no intercarrier compensation disputes have arisen in connection with its directly assigned numbers, it said. Vonage did face two obstacles, it said: First, one carrier was “slow to enable direct porting to Vonage.” Second, “some carriers proposed inefficient PSTN interconnection arrangements that will likely delay the transition to IP interconnection,” it said. Vonage decided not to deploy numbers in the Phoenix area because CenturyLink “demanded inefficient routing arrangements,” it said. “CenturyLink’s approach is a step backwards with respect to the Commission’s goal of transitioning to all-IP networks.” Generally though, the trial was a success, and the commission should “expressly recognize that interconnected VoIP providers may demonstrate facilities readiness by showing the combination of an agreement between the interconnected VoIP provider and its underlying carrier and an interconnection agreement between that underlying carrier and the relevant ILEC,” it said. CenturyLink did not respond by our deadline to a request for comment.

Comments on a further FCC rulemaking notice on matters left over from the commission’s rulemaking on accessibility rules for user interfaces and programming guides are due Feb. 18, and replies March 20, according to Friday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1chY9im). The accessibility rules for user interfaces and programming guides adopted by the commission in October (CD Nov 1 p2) take effect Jan. 14, said the same issue of the Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1l1PNLg). The FNPRM seeks comment on whether the commission should adopt a specific definition of the word “usable” for implementing user interface rules from the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, and how entities covered by those rules should be required to notify consumers of accessibility options. The FNPRM also asks for comments on whether the FCC has the authority to compel pay-TV providers to provide detailed channel and programming information, including symbols identifying accessibility options and whether manufacturers should make the secondary audio stream used for emergency information available through a single “button, key or icon."

News Corp. acquired Storyful, a self-described social news agency, said a Friday release (http://bit.ly/18CSHG3). Storyful will remain a “stand-alone business” and work with News Corp.’s existing publications, including The Wall Street Journal. “Storyful has become the village square for valuable video, using journalistic sensibility, integrity and creativity to find, authenticate and commercialize user-generated content,” said Robert Thomson, News Corp. CEO: “Through this acquisition, we can extend the village square across borders, languages and platforms.” News Corp. acquired Storyful for about $25 million, according it said. Storyful CEO Mark Little said in a statement the News Corp. sale allows Storyful, launched in 2008, to “quickly transform its vision into a global reality."

Iridium and Aireon signed binding agreements with three major air navigation service providers (ANSPs) for $120 million in new equity into Aireon, the planned satellite-based global air traffic surveillance system. The ANSPs are Italy-based ENAV, the Irish Aviation Authority and Denmark-based Naviair, Iridium said in a press release (http://bit.ly/1cWHHlW). Aireon is a joint venture between Iridium and NAV Canada (CD Nov 20/12 p14). Aireon LLC, the developer of the system, plans to pay $200 million in hosting fees to Iridium “for the integration and launch of Aireon’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) receiver payloads on each of its Iridium NEXT satellites,” it said.

The FCC Media Bureau should continue its stay of the benchmark condition in the FCC order approving Comcast’s buy of NBCUniversal, said representatives of Disney, CBS, Viacom and Time Warner in a meeting Monday with bureau Chief Bill Lake and Chairman Tom Wheeler’s staff, according to an ex parte filing in docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/1kqh7VP). The condition allows online video distributors (OVDs) to license Comcast-NBCUniversal programming if a similar deal is reached with an industry peer. The filing also asks the commission to act on the companies’ application for review of the benchmark condition, which would require OVDs invoking it to share information about third-party contracts with Comcast-NBCUniversal. “Allowing C-NBCU agents to amass a body of information about competitors and about the OVD programming marketplace would benefit C-NBCU and run counter to sound competitive policy,” said the filing. “The disclosure of highly confidential information to C-NBCU agents would transform the Benchmark Condition into a potential new advantage for C-NBCU; such exchanges of information are discouraged and prevented by competition and antitrust law for that very reason."

Allowing in-flight cellphone calls raises “serious concerns,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in a letter Thursday. “The ability to make a call on one’s cell phone is not worth compromising the safety of a flight,” Rockefeller said in the letter that was released Friday. He “strongly” supports the Transportation Department’s pending consideration of banning such calls as well as the FCC’s proceeding for allowing different stakeholder voices to weigh in.

FilmOn, free TV streaming platform and live TV app, launched ShockMasters, a channel dedicated to the some of the more obscure movies, TV shows and documentaries of Alfred Hitchcock, it said Friday. The channel will include the complete TV series Suspicion and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, plus Hitchcock movies such as Murder, Manxmen, Number 17 and a “vast selection” of his early British films, it said. The channel also features Hitchcock’s “best documentary works” from the end of World War II, “when the director traveled to Europe to film the horrors of the Holocaust that were revealed during the liberation of Dachau, Buchenwald, and six other camps,” it said.