National Broadband Plan Requires Coordination, Say States
Cooperation among federal, state and private bodies is pivotal to the success of the national broadband plan, government officials said Tuesday at an FCC workshop. “If we win, it will be because we figure out that balance,” said Jane Patterson, executive director of the e-NC Authority in North Carolina. Eric Garr, the general manager of the FCC’s broadband plan, agreed. “This is a team sport,” he said. “It certainly requires federal action. It requires great partnerships with industry. It requires very dedicated officials from state and local government to make all this work.”
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The federal government must give states access to carrier data and keep them up-to-date on all policy changes, said Ray Baum, the telecom committee chairman of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. The FCC should make use of joint federal-state groups, including the joint conference on advanced telecommunications services and the joint boards on universal service and separations, he said.
States must have access to detailed date, and the FCC should at least give states information collected on Form 477, Baum said. Without address-level data, “we're not going to be able to accomplish what Congress wants us to do.” The commission must take the lead on collecting information from carriers, he said. “If you leave data collection to the states, you're going to get about a dozen of them that are going to be able to do it right,” Baum said. “If the feds want the plan, they're going to have to put the leverage and get the negotiations going so we can get the information we need.”
States can find it tough getting information from carriers, officials said. Small, rural providers often don’t have address-level data, said Karen Jackson, Virginia’s deputy secretary of technology. Some providers decline for competitive reasons to make data available, said John Conley, Colorado’s deputy chief information officer. In those cases, the federal government should demand the information, he said.
The FCC should also resolve lingering major policy questions affecting broadband, Baum said. Revamping the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation will be the FCC’s biggest challenge, but it’s critical to successful deployment in unserved areas, he said. He also sought improved coordination of universal service programs, calling the current approach too “fragmented.” Baum said, “We should be leveraging the E-rate funds to provide broadband to the businesses in the community and other government institutions. They shouldn’t be limited to certain things.” States should be allowed to “tackle those issues based on our local circumstances” because the “District of Columbia is not Alaska,” he said.
Many state officials emphasized the importance of public-private partnerships to spur broadband rollout. The public option must be “the last option,” Baum said. “What we don’t want is the taxpayers subsidizing the ratepayers because we got into this with public money and found out we couldn’t make it go.” Regulators should serve as advocates to “take down barriers” to investment and create “a more friendly environment for broadband,” Jackson said.