ComptelPLUS Fall14 Show Daily Day 2

COMPTEL PLUS Fall 2015 Business Expo

COMPTELPlus

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Beka Publishing,

www.bekapublishing.com

DAY 2

Great Plains

Communications

Adds Unique Routes

in Kansas City

Don’t Miss Wednesday’s In-Depth

Open Internet Workshop

t was always expected that the open Internet

issue would continue to be the subject of

lawsuits after the FCC reclassified broadband as

a public utility back in March.

To recap: Last year Verizon won a lawsuit

that defanged the FCC’s ability to enforce Net

neutrality, arguing that the FCC had no jurisdic-

tion over broadband, because it wasn’t a public

utility like phone service. The FCC solved the issue

by reclassifying broadband in March to once again

bring it under its purview.

The Open Internet Order (OIO) prohibits

ISPs from favoring or throttling traffic, or from

establishing a pay-to-play scheme that requires

over-the-top (OTT) content providers to pay for

the privilege of transmission. The rules say that

interconnection agreements (governing traffic

exchange agreements between OTT players like

Netflix and underlying broadband providers like

Verizon) and sponsored data programs are subject

to case-by-case review rather than the bright-line

rules – suggesting a light hand from the agency

on such deals, for now.

“Threats to Internet openness remain today,”

the FCC said in its order. “The record reflects

that broadband providers hold all the tools

necessary to deceive consumers, degrade

content or disfavor the content that they

don’t like.”

Even so, when the FCC’s lengthy order on the

open Internet and Title II regulation went into

effect in June, the lawsuits were quick to show,

from a diverse group of opponents. The outcome

will affect any communications provider that

offers cloud-based or Internet services.

OnWednesday, a can’t-miss, free half-day work-

shop, sponsored by Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

(DWT), will fill attendees in on the implications for

their business from the outcomes of that decision,

with a special emphasis on key changes and chal-

lenges for competitive providers.

Entitled “The FCC’s Open Internet Order: Key

Issues for Carriers and ISPs,” the workshop will

cover what attendees need to know to under-

stand, comply with and perhaps benefit from the

new Open Internet rules. That includes significant

changes to providers’ privacy and security-related

responsibilities as well as the possible extension of

universal service fund (USF) obligations to broad-

band providers.

COMPTEL PLUS attendees can earn 3.25 CA

General Credits by attending.

Beka Publishing

Berge Kaprelian

President and CEO

Neil Ende

General Counsel

Jim Bankes

Business Accounting

Corporate Headquarters

745 N. Gilbert Road

Suite 124, PMB 303

Gilbert, AZ 85234

Voice: 480.503.0770

Fax: 480.503.0990

Email:

berge@bekapublishing.com

Reproduction in whole or in any form or medium without express

written permission of Beka Publishing is prohibited.

Berge Kaprelian

Group Publisher

berge@bekapublishing.com

Tara Seals

Editor-in-Chief

COMPTEL

PLUS

Dailies

tar

a@bekapublishing.com

Rene Galan

Associate Publisher

rene@bekapublishing.com

Percy Zamora

Art Director

perc

y@bekapublishing.com

Photos by

reat Plains Communications, the largest

privately owned Nebraska telecommu-

nications company, has announced its

fifth network expansion for 2015: A unique route

between the Nebraska market and the carrier

hotel at 1102 Grand Ave. in Kansas City, Mo.

“Great Plains Communications continues to focus

on extending our network throughout the Midwest

and beyond,”said Lynn Mead, head of carrier and

wholesale services at Great Plains.“Kansas City made

perfect sense for our next expansion. We are seeing

a great need for more bandwidth in this area and

look forward to serving this newmarket.”

The Kansas City expansion differentiates Great

Plains Communications with unique routes that

provide the capability to bypass Omaha, and to

extend within Nebraska and the surrounding

markets of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,

Missouri, South Dakota andWyoming on multiple

diverse paths. An initial 100G build is in process,

and is expected to be completed by the end of

2015 to support regional and national telecom-

munications carriers, LECs, ISPs, wireless carriers

and other service providers with custom engi-

neering and custom build strategies.

The Kansas City expansion, along with the

entire 5,000+ mile Great Plains fiber network, is

monitored around the clock by the company’s

network operations center, which recently

became the first Tier III organization to become

fully TL9000-certified.

“The significant 2015 investment into ongoing

network expansion by Great Plains fiber has been

in direct response to the ever-increasing need for

more bandwidth throughout the nation, particu-

larly in the Midwestern region,” said Todd Foje,

CEO at Great Plains. “Our company is committed

to continuing this expansion trend to meet the

needs of enterprises and carriers. We want to be

known as the network of choice for true diversity

and redundancy.”

By Tara Seals

Half-DayWorkshop - The FCC’s Open Internet Order:

Key Issues for Carriers and ISPs

Wednesday, 8:30 – 11:45 a.m.

Location: Nob Hill