FCC Teeing Up USF Issues in Context of National Broadband Plan
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The FCC plans to seek more information on the Universal Service Fund (USF) as part of its development of a national broadband plan, said Jennifer McKee, acting chief of the FCC Wireline Bureau’s telecommunication access policy division. On a panel Tuesday at the CompTel show, she said she expects an FCC public notice on how USF fits into the plan to surface in “the next couple of weeks.”
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“It could be a year or a couple years before everything is finally implemented,” McKee said. The broadband plan itself won’t include rule changes, she said. Following any recommendations made in the plan, the FCC would have to set an implementation date and hold “rulemakings with public comment and proposed rules,” she said: “Depending on how far reaching and how comprehensive a change we're talking about in terms of what’s funded and how it’s funded, it’s likely there would be some transition period after that.”
USF isn’t “100 percent” guaranteed to be part of the national broadband plan, but Chairman Julius Genachowski has stated that’s what he wants, McKee said. The broadband plan provides “a good chance for the commission to reexamine universal service in the broadband context,” and update the subsidy program’s goals, she said. McKee’s staff is working on revamps for universal service and intercarrier compensation as a single package, she said. The impending USF public notice might not deal with intercarrier compensation, but the FCC believes the issues are linked, she said.
The FCC has authority to change contribution methodology, but a broader overhaul probably will require a “congressional fix,” said Lou Lehrman, vice president of Dutko Worldwide. Congress has had a “long and sustained interest” in universal service, and that’s likely to continue, he said. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., have spearheaded USF legislation efforts, and are negotiating with stakeholders, trying to find consensus “ideally before the national broadband plan is presented” to Congress, he said.
Policymakers need to “redefine what it is we're trying to provide” with universal service, said Level 3 Vice President Bill Hunt. No one has really asked what USF should fund going forward, he said. “Are we going to fund just the landlines, or are we going to fund wireless and landlines?” he asked. “At the end of the day, the eventual evolution is really broadband pipes to everybody’s house. Voice and data are going to be bits.”
Fixing USF need not require sweeping changes in all cases, said Lisa Youngers, XO Communications federal affairs vice president. For example, XO supports a recommendation by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association to keep a revenue-based contribution system, but expand the pool of contributors to all broadband providers, she said. The revenue-based system has problems, but they might be fixed without “torpedoing” the whole methodology, she said.