Larry Thompson, CEO of Vantage Point Solutions, was recently appointed to serve on the Streamlining Federal Siting Working Group of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). Thompson was named to the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee in April 2017. Since the committee’s inception, several working groups have been established to focus on developing solutions to specific…
Continue ReadingOn July 7, the FCC released a Report and Order eliminating several reporting requirements of the annual FCC Form 481 that it deems to be either duplicative of other reporting requirements or are simply no longer necessary. The requirements eliminated were: Network Outage Reporting – Detailed information about any outages affecting voice service for at…
Continue ReadingOriginally written July 13, 2015 Re: Connect America Fund, WC Docket No. 10-90 Broadband is a vital part of our modern economy, education, and everyday life. The FCC is to be commended for their efforts to achieve additional fiber deployment across rural America. At Vantage Point we’ve helped hundreds of rural telecommunications providers in more…
Continue ReadingOriginally filed January 5, 2016 Re: Connect America Fund, WC Docket No. 10-90 On July 13, 2015 Vantage Point Solutions filed an FCC ex parte letter examining the accuracy of the Alternative Connect America Model (A-CAM). The Vantage Point analysis compared results of the A-CAM “cost to serve” module to actual engineering data from 144 wire-center-wide fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP)…
Continue ReadingAt the FCC’s Open Meeting held on April 20, 2017, the Commission granted the Petition for Reconsideration filed by NTCA of the Commission’s Rate‐of‐Return Reform Order with respect to the average per location, per project construction limitation on universal service support. Background: In the Rate‐of‐Return Reform Order, the Commission adopted a Capital Investment Allowance (CIA)…
Continue ReadingVantage Point Solutions has analyzed USAC’s newly released budget control mechanisms (BCMs) taking effect on July 1, 2017. There are a number of key takeaways evident from the data: System wide impacts are modest Per line impacts are substantial Demand for HCLS and BLS-Voice are flat Budget shortfall (and budget controls) are driven by CBOL…
Continue ReadingIn today’s May 18, 2017 Open Meeting, the FCC voted to freeze the current rate floor at $18 and potentially later this year eliminate the local service rate floor rule and accompanying reporting obligations. Since 2012, the FCC began the phase in of a national rate floor for carriers receiving high cost support. RLECs were…
Continue ReadingUnder the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may be afforded safe harbor protections from copyright infringement liability if they meet certain requirements including electronically designating an agent to receive takedown notices and other notices of infringement. The Copyright Office has implemented a new electronic registration process and all ISPs must file…
Continue ReadingOn May 12, 2017, a new ransomware program was discovered known as WannaCry, WCry, or Wanna Decryptor. As of May 16, there are over 374,000 unique addresses infected – and growing every minute. WannaCry attacks by encrypting and holding data for ransom, currently set at 0.1781 bitcoins (approximately $300 USD). According to the FBI Cyber…
Continue ReadingSummary Each individual company differs when it comes to Internet pricing. Many factors must be considered depending on the region the company is providing services. Vantage Point’s purpose of this survey is to help RLEC/CLEC/ISPs remain competitive. There are further studies that can be done to examine, in high level detail, the prices set by…
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