The Vermont Department of Public Service asked the FCC to terminate the state's waiver from the FCC Lifeline Reform order. The federal commission allowed the state to opt out of the National Lifeline Accountability Database, but in a petition released Monday in docket 11-42, the DPS said it now wants to participate. “Vermont has reconsidered its position with respect to NLAD,” the department said. “After reviewing the implementation of the NLAD system, Vermont believes that participating in NLAD will allow for a more streamlined transition to and alignment with the requirements set out in the 2016 Modernization Order. While it is possible for Vermont to continually invest in upgrading and managing its own system, this seems unnecessary when a robust alternative is available via the NLAD at the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC).” After reviewing USAC processes, Vermont believes it can participate without violating state law, it said. The Vermont Department for Children and Families (DCF) worked with USAC to better understand its data management practices and is reassured, DPS said. “These two organizations are now likely poised to reach an agreement to share data and will enter into a formal contract that will provide the legal privacy protections necessary for the DCF to protect the vulnerable populations it serves,” it said. “The DPS believes that this contract will have adequate safeguards to ensure that the data exchange will satisfy the requirements for exemptions to Vermont's privacy law.” Also, pending draft legislation will better align the Vermont and federal Lifeline programs, DPS said.
National Grange endorsed TracFone's bid to clarify an FCC Lifeline "port freeze" rule, which is "being used to limit access to true broadband service and broadband-suitable devices" (see 1701230039). The farm group said mobile service can help bridge the rural connectivity gap, but it requires "meaningful broadband access, not a standard cellular telephone" suitable for just phone and text service. "Lifeline providers should offer true broadband access in conformance with the service standards" in the FCC's 2016 order, National Grange told the FCC in a letter posted Thursday in docket 11-42. "Those standards are not met with a 'feature phone' and especially not one purporting to 'provide' 500 MB of mobile broadband data (while really offering 10 MB along with Wi-Fi access, where Wi-Fi is available) -- the minimum service standard for broadband data codified in the Commission's rules. ... To meet these needs and to close this gap, we believe the port freeze rule must be clarified, so that companies are required to provide meaningful broadband Internet which fully meets the minimum service standards." Sprint and two consumers also backed TracFone's request, but Telrite voiced concern (see 1703020059 and 1703030025). Earlier this week, the Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights cited concern about FCC revocation of nine Lifeline broadband provider designations. In a letter asking for a meeting with Chairman Ajit Pai, the group also cited concerns about FCC policy on joint sale agreements and media ownership, and on prison phone rates.
Expect the Senate Commerce Committee to work on “Mobile Now-plus kind of ideas,” said GOP Telecom Policy Director David Quinalty Tuesday during an FCBA event. Senate Commerce cleared the reintroduced Mobile Now spectrum bill (S-19) last month, a key initiative for Chairman John Thune, R-S.D. The committee is believed to be eyeing a spectrum hearing at the Communications Subcommittee level for early March (see 1702100051).
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai defended a rollback of Lifeline broadband provider designations amid criticisms from Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and others (see 1702030070 and 1702060062). "It’s vital that low-income Americans have access to communications services, including broadband Internet, which Lifeline helps to achieve," Pai wrote in a Tuesday blog post, which also reiterated his broader, initial efforts to close the digital divide. He recognized there are questions about why the Wireline Bureau issued a Lifeline broadband provider (LBP) reconsideration order Friday.
Chairman Ajit Pai will further change the way the FCC releases information to the news media and public, he said in a statement Monday, vowing not to release items publicly or to the news media until all commissioners have seen them. “During the past few years, the Chairman’s Office often briefed reporters or issued a blog about matters to be voted upon at the FCC’s monthly meetings before sharing those matters with Commissioners,” Pai said in a statement. “As a Commissioner, I thought that actions like these were inappropriate and disrespectful of other Commissioners.”
NARUC and 12 states said an FCC Lifeline order improperly bypassed state authority to designate USF-eligible telecom carriers (ETCs) under the federal Communications Act. NARUC said the commission's Lifeline broadband provider designation process order "displays a purposeful disregard of the Congressional scheme and lack of reasoned decision making" and deserved no judicial deference under the Chevron precedent. "Congress specified that State commissions, in the first instance, designate all ETCs," said the state regulators' association brief (in Pacer) Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in NARUC v. FCC, No. 16-1170. The order "claims to 'preempt' that §214(e)(2) State procedure based on the facially illogical claim that this Congressional mandate 'thwart[s] federal universal service goals.' Instead, the Order permits only the FCC to designate a new category of the federal Lifeline carriers -- Lifeline broadband internet access service providers," a process that also "undermines State universal service programs, service quality to the end-user, and increases the chances for ETC fraud and abuse," NARUC said. It asked the court to vacate the designation process and other aspects of the order, including FCC decisions giving federal ETCs the initial say over low-income consumer access to state Lifeline subsidies and using forbearance authority to eliminate state service mandates. Twelve states led by Wisconsin's attorney general filed another brief (in Pacer) saying the order "attempted to amend federal law by regulatory fiat to increase its own authority, while taking away the States' statutory rights." Joining were officials from Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah and Vermont. An intervenor brief from the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates is due Monday. The FCC brief is due March 16.
Universal Service Administrative Co. issued a revised National Verifier Plan for the FCC Lifeline low-income broadband/telecom subsidy program. The plan, posted Monday in docket 11-42, updated a draft plan to shift administrative oversight away from Lifeline providers and to a national verifier (see 1612010043). The plan incorporated tweaks addressing comments (see 1612270027 and 1701030035), along with a new section summarizing USAC responses to queries, many of them technical. TracFone filed comments last week saying the draft plan largely met FCC objectives but it asked USAC to make further modifications to facilitate customer enrollments, provide timely responses to application denials and "manage the National Verifier in an efficient and non-discriminatory manner." USAC plans to update the plan further every six months. There were also several filings Monday and last week on the FCC's expansion of Lifeline coverage to broadband service. Sprint made a filing asking the FCC to clarify two aspects of its mobile broadband minimum service requirements: "whether W-Fi can be used to meet the minimum data allotment requirement; and whether the 3G technology standard is met if a Lifeline ETC [eligible telecom carrier] provides the subscriber who is classified as a broadband customer with a feature phone that cannot accommodate such technology." Another TracFone filing asked commission staff to look into a practice involving "abuse by certain Lifeline providers of the 'port freeze' rule in order to 'lock up' for 12 months those Lifeline customers who were enrolled in voice-only Lifeline services and who were provided with standard cellular telephones suitable for voice and text message, but which are unsuitable for use with Broadband Internet Access Service." It said the practice would undermine the FCC's broadband move unless addressed. Assist Wireless, Boomerang Wireless, Free Mobile, Easy Wireless, i-Wireless, Karma Mobility, Red Pocket and Telrite made filings in docket 09-197 contesting Wireline Bureau decisions to remove their Lifeline Broadband Provider (LBP) designation petitions from streamlined processing. They said the LBP process "was in danger of becoming a replica of the dysfunctional federal ETC designation and Lifeline-only compliance processes." The bureau issued an order Wednesday conditionally designating Applied Research Designs, Kajeet, Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, Northland Cable Television and Wabash Independent Networks as LBP providers.
Matching updated federal Lifeline rules may not be best for state consumers, some cautioned this week in two state proceedings to harmonize state and federal low-income rules. In New Mexico, state commission staff said waiving state eligibility rules may be the simplest way forward, but a tribal-owned provider said one-third of its Lifeline customers may no longer qualify for support if the state conforms fully to the federal eligibility rules. In California, which got an FCC waiver, consumer groups sparred with providers over how closely the state LifeLine program should adhere to the federal program’s portability freeze rules. Several states are now working to harmonize state and federal Lifeline rules after the FCC's December waiver decision (see 1612070043).
Rural wireless carrier Smith Bagley raised concerns about a draft National Verifier Plan for the FCC Lifeline low-income telecom subsidy program released in early December (see 1612010043), said a filing Tuesday. The draft plan, by the Universal Service Administrative Co., “appears to require the applicant to interface directly with the National Verifier and the Lifeline Eligibility Database (LED) and then present the service provider with the unique application number assigned by the LED,” Smith Bagley told the FCC. That could be an issue in very remote areas, such as the Navajo Nation, Smith Bagley said. “Due to the lack of broadband access at those events [where the carrier seeks clients], sales agents relay the applicant’s information via telephone to employees who are able to perform the ... verification functions to enable the application process to proceed,” the carrier said. The carrier, doing business as Cellular One of North East Arizona, provides mobile communication services to customers in Northern Arizona and New Mexico. Smith Bagley reported on the meeting with the Wireline Bureau in docket 11-42.
Full Service Network filed for forbearance from the FCC Lifeline broadband internet access service requirements throughout its eligible telecom service areas. “FSN was designated as an ETC for purposes of Lifeline-Only support in portions of Pennsylvania,” the ISP said in a filing in docket 11-42. “FSN is therefore eligible for the forbearance granted by the FCC throughout its ETC service areas.”