FCC Wireline Bureau Details Plans for CAF, Its ‘Highest Priority’

This spring, the FCC plans to release a Web interface to collect states’ boundary mapping data. “There is a role for the states in the data collection,” said Chelsea Fallon, assistant division chief in the Wireline Bureau’s Industry Analysis and Technology Division, during a Sunday panel. “State commissions or telecom associations can voluntarily submit data on behalf of any or all ILECs in their state.” The bureau plans to have filing windows where state entities can submit data, and then a subsequent window where the states’ telcos can view, access and offer feedback on the data, certifying the information as they go, she explained. The FCC wants this data so agency officials can use it in the high-cost loop support analysis for 2014: “Study area boundaries are a key input into regression analysis,” Fallon said, referring to the process by which telcos receive millions in high-cost support. The current policies all emanate from the FCC’s November 2011 USF order, which took effect in July. The FCC now lacks filing deadlines but is preparing the site to accomplish the task this year, she said. She emphasized that the FCC wants the submission and reconciliation process ready.

Regulators and industry representatives applauded the boundary mapping effort but questioned why it wasn’t done sooner. “It seems kind of strange that this is something the FCC hasn’t had before,” said NCTA Vice President-General Counsel Jennifer McKee, calling it “somewhat overdue.” Keith Oliver, senior vice president-corporate operation of Home Telecom, agreed: “It’s a day late [and] a dollar short but at least it’s coming.” The FCC should have gotten the boundaries right from the start, he said, criticizing Chairman Julius Genachowski’s strategy as: “Let’s get ready, fire, and now we'll aim.” State commissions should handle this boundary mapping, he added. Oliver described telcos “seeing multi-million dollar hits because of this [quantile regression] analysis” in South Carolina.

Multiple members of the NARUC telecom subcommittee, comprised mostly of PUC staff members, expressed concern about a spring deadline. Some subcommittee members worried about the level of mapping done at their commission and questioned processes of state data validation as well as state jurisdiction relative to boundary areas. The spring deadline is “not in the cards” for the Oregon Public Utilities Commission unless the PUC leaves out unpopulated areas and comes back to those later, said Senior Telecom Policy Analyst Shelley Jones. Gene Hand, telecom director of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, described detailed work with companies in his state and expected to send “very accurate” data to the FCC. “We are never going to have some master map that’s accurate for all purposes,” said CenturyLink Vice President of Federal Regulatory Affairs Jeff Lanning, questioning, as did state regulators, the likelihood of achieving accuracy within 40 feet: “The real world’s kind of messy.” Vice Chair Anne Boyle of the Nebraska PSC attended the panel and asked Fallon to take these staff subcommittee concerns back to the FCC and consider them, which Fallon agreed to do.

The Wireline Bureau is also planning to release an order on the Connect America Fund cost model, Deputy Bureau Chief Carol Mattey said at NARUC Sunday. “Once we complete this process of soliciting and obtaining public input on these critical issues, we do expect to be going to order,” she said, encouraging them to weigh in during workshops and in response to FCC public notices: “This is the opportunity for public comment.” The bureau isn’t planning another notice of proposed rulemaking, she said. “We have been very, very busy at work on the cost model.” She called CAF planning and implementation “the highest priority of the bureau right now.”