Expanding Lifeline and Link-Up programs to spur broadband adoption by those who can’t afford it should be part of comprehensive Universal Service Fund revamp legislation, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va. At a hearing on the FCC’s adoption recommendations made in the National Broadband Plan, Boucher said he wants to work with Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., to integrate her adoption-focused USF bill with his own comprehensive USF bill. Boucher urged the FCC to accelerate its process to finalize details on an intended pilot program, saying the time frame for introducing his bill with Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., is “fairly near term.”
The FCC should revamp the way the Universal Service Fund contributions are figured and “broaden the base of contributors to include all broadband Internet access providers,” the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies said in an ex parte filing. The current system “is in serious jeopardy of becoming unsustainable very soon.” The commission should quickly “strengthen call signaling rules to mitigate phantom traffic” and confirm that VoIP traffic terminated on the public switched telephone network is subject to the appropriate intercarrier compensation, the association said. The organization also warned that keeping USF at its current cap won’t allow consumers in rural incumbent local exchanges’ service areas “access to broadband services that are reasonably comparable to those offered in urban areas."
A weakness in FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed approach to broadband reclassification is that the commission would regulate only broadband transport in the last mile, leaving out other layers of the Internet, critics said this week. The FCC wouldn’t assert control over ISPs and or over actions at the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) level, where Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent took place, they said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on a petition filed by MeetingOne regarding contributions to the Universal Service Fund. The company requested a review of a Universal Service Administrative Co. decision that subjects MeetingOne to contribution obligations for past and future revenue, the bureau said in a public notice. MeetingOne provides IP audio conferencing services to its customers through the use of IP data packets. MeetingOne does not rely on time division multiplexing (TDM) and its conference bridge “does not directly touch the public switched telephone network (PSTN)” the company said in its petition. “MeetingOne concluded that its service is materially different” and is likely not subject to USF contributions, it said. In March, USAC rejected this argument. Comments are due June 7, replies June 22.
The departing head of FCC’s broadband work crew said the agency doesn’t need a permanent czar to ensure that the commission stays focused on high-speed Internet service even after execution of the National Broadband Plan wraps up. Blair Levin sees changes to the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation as linked and thinks they need to be done together, he said in an exit interview Friday. He remains confused why broadcasters are publicly resisting the plan’s recommendation to create a market for other uses of TV spectrum and said that, despite much speculation about what he'll do next, he himself doesn’t know.
The Title II sections of the Communications Act the FCC would apply to broadband under Chairman Julius Genachowski’s reclassification plan could still burden operators with cumbersome rules and expose them to costly legal challenges, communications attorneys said Friday. Statements from Genachowski and FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick Thursday indicated Sections 201, 202, 208, 222, 254 and 255 would remain in place after a substantial forbearance from other Title II elements (CD May 7 p1). Sections 201 and 202 “are the key provisions of the Communications Act that have sort of kept behavior in check for almost 80 years,” said telecom lawyer Glenn Richards of Pillsbury Winthrop. “Anything that folks do, they're always thinking about it in terms of ‘Will it cause a 201 or 202 issue?'"
The time has come for the FCC to formally seek comment on whether it should “reclassify” broadband as a Title II service, subject to common carrier regulation, Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld said Tuesday in a debate sponsored by the New America Foundation. Hank Hultquist, vice president of federal regulatory affairs at AT&T, countered that the FCC has plenty of authority regardless of the recent Comcast decision, and reclassification would be a mistake.
A Universal Service Fund revamp and additional public funding are needed to bring broadband to small businesses and encourage adoption, top government and broadband industry officials said Tuesday. At a hearing of the Senate Small Business Committee, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said high prices, sparse availability and low digital literacy are the largest barriers keeping broadband from small businesses. And NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling called continued funding in fiscal 2011 critical to ensuring a successful broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., is “making progress” on introducing his universal service fund bill and marking it up in the subcommittee, he said. The bill still has “a ways to go,” the House Communications Subcommittee chairman told us Monday. “We're looking for ways to control” the cost and size of the USF, while maintaining sufficient funding for rural carriers that depend on fund payments, he said. The bill is to be co-sponsored by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.
A recent lobbying push by free conference call providers is set on getting “the truth out” to Washington policymakers about how consumers benefit from a business practice that long-distance carriers decry as “traffic pumping,” Free Conferencing Corp. CEO Dave Erickson said in an interview. But House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., who’s working on a bill banning such arrangements, told us his views have changed “not at all.” Congress and the FCC are both mulling curbs on the practice, which involves revenue-sharing agreements under which rural local exchange carriers pay conferencing companies to send traffic to their exchanges.