AT&T saw wide support from other carriers on its appeal of a decision by the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC), which found that the telco submitted inaccurate line count filings during an audit. USAC uses line counts to determine USF support for carriers. In separate comments last week, Verizon, Qwest, USTelecom and the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance urged the FCC to revise the quantitative standard that USAC used when it determined that three regional AT&T companies’ noncompliance with FCC rules was “material.”
Adam Bender
Adam Bender, Deputy Managing Editor for Privacy Daily. Bender leads a team of journalists and reports on state privacy legislation, rulemaking and litigation. In previous roles at Communications Daily, he covered telecom and internet policy in the states, Congress and at the FCC. He has won awards for his reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW). Bender studied print journalism at American University and is the author of multiple dystopian sci-fi novels. Keep up to date with Bender by reading his blog and following him on social media including Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn.
International comparisons are important to the FCC’s development of an effective national broadband strategy, but the commission can’t rely on them alone, panelists said Tuesday at an FCC broadband workshop, about lessons from abroad. “No single equation or set of equations will replace reasoned, well-informed judgment,” said Yochai Benkler, a co- director of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
Video providers are covered in a draft FCC notice of inquiry on truth in billing, commission officials told us Friday. The notice asks about extending existing wireline and wireless rules to broadband and video providers and about expanding the rules’ scope, they said. The FCC will vote on the notice at its Aug. 27 meeting. Few companies have been meeting with the commission about the item, which states no tentative conclusions (CD Aug 13 p4).
The FCC broadband team assigned “homework” to groups participating in the development of the agency’s national broadband plan. At a broadband workshop Thursday about fixed broadband, FCC moderators urged “rigorous” input on appropriate minimums for speed, latency, jitter and other broadband attributes. “We need to come up with a very real definition of broadband,” said Stagg Newman, the team’s lead technologist.
An intercarrier compensation overhaul would prevent disputes regarding access fees charged for VoIP traffic, said AT&T and other wireline carriers in comments filed Wednesday at the FCC. AT&T urged the FCC to reject a petition by Texas competitive local exchange carrier UTex asking the FCC to arbitrate a dispute with AT&T over $7.5 million in access fees charged by AT&T for VoIP traffic terminating on the public switched telephone network (CD July 29 p8). The dispute isn’t the right context to make rules, but FCC guidance on the switched-IP access charge issue is needed, the carrier said.
Raising the initial cash to build out broadband is the biggest barrier to rural deployment, said industry executives and others at an FCC broadband workshop on wireline deployment. Spurring more adoption is also key to making a business case for broadband, they said. “You have to think about the return on investment of capital for the players, because at the end of the day, unless they are earning an acceptable return on capital, then what we're doing as a country is not viable,” said Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett.
Reform of the FCC should include more focus on issues important to deaf individuals, said executives from consumer groups and telecom relay service providers. It’s unclear how FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski views TRS issues, because he’s said little about them in public. But some matters, like the November transition to 10-digit phone numbers for Internet-based TRS, could demand significant FCC attention in the next few months.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski urged staff to collaborate and not be afraid to make mistakes as they get to work on the national broadband plan. He held an all-hands meeting Wednesday to introduce new staffers on the broadband team (CD Aug 5 p12) and kick off broadband workshops starting Thursday. “From this point forward, there really is no letting up,” he said.
Midsized and competitive wireline companies, in comments filed Monday, resisted broadening the number ports covered by a time limit of one business day. Big voice providers asked the FCC to apply the newly shortened deadline in additional situations. And MetroPCS called a day too long. In May, the FCC shortened to one business day the interval for “simple” wireline and intermodal number ports (CD May 15 p4). The commission also opened a rulemaking asking about ways to improve the requirement, including whether it should apply to more than simple ports.
Broadband providers played tug-of-war with states and public interest groups in comments last week on how the FCC should release combined broadband data based on Form 477 submissions while maintaining confidentiality. Companies asked the commission to protect their deployment and speed information strongly. But others asked the FCC to share as much information as possible with the state bodies and others involved in broadband mapping eligible to see it. The Broadband Data Improvement Act requires the commission to provide aggregated data by census tract.