FCC Democrats Tout Lifeline Broadband Support; Incentive Auction Timing Details Cited
The FCC's Democratic majority renewed its support for extending Lifeline USF subsidies to broadband service to low-income consumers as part of a broader restructuring of the program. Opening a meeting of the agency's Consumer Advisory Committee, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler also continued to push for fomenting more competition in the cable set-top box market and continued to count down to the March 29 incentive auction. "We are 54 days away from the world's first incentive auction, not that anybody is keeping track," he quipped.
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Broadcaster reverse auction "clock rounds" are projected to begin in May and the mobile wireless forward auction is estimated to begin sometime in June or early July and could wrap up in Q3, depending on how the bidding process goes, said Mary Margaret Jackson, legal adviser to the FCC's Incentive Auction Task Force. After the FCC's January meeting, Wheeler declined to project when the auction would end, but Gary Epstein, chairman of the Incentive Auction Task Force, recently said he believed the forward auction likely would conclude in Q3 (see 1602020069).
Wheeler said he and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn were working closely on Lifeline and agreed on two basic concepts: that support should be extended to broadband, "the most important communications vehicle of the 21st century, and that the agency needed to overhaul program administration to further cut abuse and fraud. Clyburn and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel also endorsed Lifeline broadband support at the meeting. Clyburn said the expanded coverage would help bridge the "digital divide" for those on the wrong side of it due to affordability issues, which she believed was "the No. 1 barrier" to broadband adoption. Rosenworcel said Lifeline broadband support also would help address the "homework gap," and she endorsed further efforts to combat waste, fraud and abuse. The Consumer Advisory Committee adopted an amendment to a Lifeline recommendation on consumer outreach and education.
Wheeler plugged his draft NPRM to open a rulemaking on cable set-top competition, which is scheduled for a Feb. 18 vote. "I think it's pro-choice; I think it's pro-innovation; I think it's pro-competition, and therefore I think it's pro-consumer. But beyond that, it's obeying the law," he said, calling Section 629 of the Communications Act "very explicit" in its set-top competition mandate. "The FCC shall," he said. But 99 percent of consumers have no set-top alternatives, he said. "That's not choice. That's not competition," he said. Wheeler said he was amused the FCC is being criticized for what he called simple enforcement of "black-letter law," when it so often is accused of exceeding its authority. He said a lot of "wild accusations" and "irrelevant" arguments are coming from parties trying to redefine what the FCC was looking to propose. He said there would be no changes to cable or satellite programming practices. Clyburn also said she was encouraged by a notice of inquiry the FCC was planning on the independent programming market.
Wheeler and senior Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staffers also discussed FCC efforts to implement a new law amending the Telephone Consumer Protection Act on debt-collection robocalls regarding debt owed or guaranteed by the U.S. government.