Telcos Balk at Mandatory Broadband Data Collection By States
Big phone companies urged the FCC to reject a petition on broadband data collection by state regulators. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners had asked the commission to decide that federal rules don’t limit states’ collecting information from broadband service or infrastructure providers (CD Sept 30 p10). But in comments this week, AT&T, Verizon and USTelecom said the proposed rule would represent an unwarranted expansion of state authority.
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The FCC should reject “any efforts … to expand the role of states over broadband data collection in ways that would ignore the interstate nature of broadband services, complicate the process of collecting consistent and useful data, or create unnecessary new burdens,” Verizon said. “Existing federal efforts, with targeted and directed assistance from the states and state-level entities, are best equipped to provide useful and consistent data that will best meet” the needs of national broadband efforts. The FCC already shares with states data it collects using Form 477, the carrier added.
The commission should condone only voluntary data collection programs by states, AT&T said in separate comments. States can’t be allowed to require information from any broadband provider, the company said. State commissions don’t have jurisdiction over interstate services like broadband, and some states expressly prohibit their commissions from exercising authority over broadband, AT&T said. Nothing in the Communications Act allows the FCC to give states jurisdiction to mandate data reporting, it said.
Both carriers said mandatory broadband data reporting to the states would be an excessive burden on companies. “Permitting individual states to compel a broadband provider to produce ‘any’ data the states desire, as NARUC requests, would result in a patchwork quilt of inconsistent and expansive state data reporting requirements across the nation, which would impose incredibly burdensome obligations on providers like AT&T that offer broadband services in all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” AT&T said. Verizon said a “balkanized regime of multiple and conflicting federal and state broadband data submission requirements would result in less useful data -- given the inconsistencies that would inevitably follow.”
But to achieve universal broadband, state commissions must gain an accurate understanding of the availability and uptake of high-speed access, said the California Public Utilities Commission: “The FCC to date has not issued any order limiting the authority of states to collect data directly from broadband facility and service providers. An FCC declaratory ruling acknowledging no such limit of state authority will help facilitate state efforts to identify unserved and underserved areas within their borders.”
Michigan’s Public Service Commission said it needs broadband data to make sound policy about telephone competition. Residents of the state are increasingly using VoIP services that require high-speed connections, so broadband data would help the commission compile its annual report to the Legislature about competition to incumbent local carriers, it said.