Embracing States at NARUC, Rosenworcel Finds 'Utility' in ETCs
State eligible telecom carrier (ETC) designation is useful to the FCC, though it might be time to update that and other USF rules from the 1996 Telecom Act, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel at NARUC’s virtual summer meeting. Later Wednesday, the state regulator association's board unanimously adopted a telecom resolution opposing Capitol Hill efforts to scrap the ETC requirement (see 2007200054). Preserving the ETC designation is a top issue for state regulators, said NARUC President Brandon Presley in a Tuesday interview. He pledged to move “swiftly” on the association’s social justice pledge.
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The ETC rules were written “a long time ago” and it's fair to ask if “there are things we want to adjust,” said Rosenworcel, answering Presley's question. “Let’s also recognize it’s got some important features.” It keeps state and local governments involved in telecom, protects consumers and obligates providers to serve everyone, the Democrat said. The FCC recently used the ETC registry for a survey on insecure use of Chinese network equipment, she added. “We’ve got to figure out how to update it, but I don’t think bringing it to its end or clearing it out of the way is necessarily the way to go.”
Rosenworcel supported a closer state-federal relationship. Consumers often think first to send complaints to state authorities, so the FCC should build a system allowing states to transfer complaints to the federal commission, she said: The FCC could answer individual complaints and “look across the country and see what we can learn from the patterns in that data.” Rosenworcel urged NARUC members to participate in its broadband mapping proceeding on how to define verified data. She criticized the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund plan to spend 80% of funds for the next 10 years before the agency improves maps.
Bridging the digital divide should be “front and center” in the next COVID-19 stimulus bill, the FCC commissioner said. “Broadband is no longer nice to have. It's need to have.” The pandemic underscored America’s homework gap, and the FCC should take E-rate and “update it to meet this moment,” she said.
The association is as serious about keeping ETC designation "as a policy issue as anything NARUC has ever been serious about,” Presley told us. “We have had numerous calls with folks on the Hill,” including Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker’s office, he said. Democratic commissioner from Mississippi Presley penned an opinion column last weekend in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal supporting the Accelerating Broadband Connectivity (ABC) Act by the state’s Republican senator. It would preserve the federal-state partnership, said Presley: “Sen. Wicker gets it.”
State commissions use ETC designation to curb waste, fraud and abuse, and it’s not overly burdensome for providers, said Presley. In Mississippi, “certain carriers received $200 million over the last several years” in federal USF, he said. “Does that not merit making sure that consumers are protected?”
The pandemic “accelerated the work” of the NARUC broadband task force, Presley said. The group is looking at the relationship between electric utility infrastructure and broadband deployment, and if electric companies can provide the middle mile, he said. The task force is also studying state and federal funds, both existing and possible, he said. The panel hopes to wrap up work by next July (see 2007210059).
Presley expects NARUC to start on a “rough draft” of next steps for social justice and anti-racism by the end of this month, he told us. “I’m not going to sit around until our NARUC meeting in November to try to get action on these items.” Presley asked Supplier Workforce and Diversity Subcommittee Chair Sadzi Oliva from the Illinois Commerce Commission, and Consumers and Public Interest Committee Chair Maida Coleman from the Missouri Public Service Commission, to lead the effort. The association issued a June 4 statement on the social unrest and Presley is considering turning NARUC’s supplier diversity subcommittee into a standing committee, also possibly changing the name and adding to its mission, he said.