Joint Board USF Proposals Aren’t Popular, Comments Indicate
The 4 proposals to modify the rules governing high- cost universal service support by the FCC’s Joint Board on Universal Service didn’t received much support in comments filed with the FCC Fri.
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The proposals come from a proceeding launched in Aug. 2004. The Joint Board sought comment on issues referred to it by the Commission related to universal service for rural carriers and the basis of support for competitive eligible telecom carriers (ETCs). Several Joint Board members later proposed solutions for addressing those issues and the FCC sought comment in Aug. 2005 on how each proposal addresses the goals of the Telecom Act and the Commission’s universal service goals (CD Aug 18 p9). The agency also asked commenters to supplement the record with any additional issues or facts raised since the previous proceeding.
Each of the proposals has “some requirements that would jeopardize the sufficiency” of the USF mechanism, NTCA said. It urged the Joint Board to “refrain from including statewide averaging and state block grants of federal USF” in its recommendations. Instead, NTCA said, the Joint Board should recommend to the FCC that it continue to: (1) Allow rate-of-return (RoR) rural carriers to base their universal service support on embedded costs and use their study area average costs to recover investment. (2) Set and enforce “more stringent standardized ETC guidelines and public interest test for CETC applicants in rural ILEC service areas.” (3) Use the statutory definition of a rural telephone company to determine carriers’ universal service support eligibility. The FCC should also eliminate the identical support rule, require all CETC universal service support to be based on their own costs and require IP-enabled service providers to contribute to the USF, it said.
OPASTCO said it couldn’t agree with any of the proposals. “Alterations of the existing high-cost support mechanism for rural ILECs is neither necessary desirable,” OPASTCO said: “Where reform is needed is in the portability rules for competitive ETCs in rural service areas. These rules continue to be the root cause of the unnecessary growth in the rural high-cost program.”
The FCC should reject 4 proposals to change universal service fund (USF) support for rural carriers, USTelecom said Fri. In a statement to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, USTelecom said there’s no need to redefine a rural telephone company, to require carriers to consolidate multiple study areas, or to depart from an embedded cost support basis for ILECs electing to remain on that basis. Nor should the board make recommendations that would distract the FCC from its “more important task of major reform” of the USF program and its funding problems, USTelecom said. USF has problems, but they arise from rules on who contributes, not how much support rural carriers get, USTelecom Pres. Walter McCormick said: “FCC Chairman Martin wants this problem solved quickly. The Joint Board should take its cue from the chairman and not shift the focus…to an area where there’s no need for change.”