A hybrid Universal Service Fund contribution mechanism using phone numbers and connections beats one using numbers and revenue, AT&T and Verizon said. The carriers, which would prefer a numbers-only mechanism, pitched an alternative hybrid method in a Monday FCC filing. That plan would levy a fixed $0.85 rate on assessable residential, wireless and business numbers, and establish a new “assessable connection” category, AT&T and Verizon said. Assessable connections up to 64 kbps would pay $5 per dedicated connection, with faster connections paying $35 per connection, the companies said. Adopting the alternate plan would cut consumer share of USF contributions to about 38 percent, they said. The business sector would pay about 62 percent of USF contributions. The portion of USF collected from special access and other dedicated connections would rise to 16 percent from today’s 8 percent, the telcos said. If the FCC exempts some from paying into USF by numbers, it shouldn’t do so in a way that would “require alternate calculation methodologies or that maintain [today’s] revenue methodology,” AT&T and Verizon said. Instead, the agency should adopt a reimbursement method “whereby the customer is billed and pays the full [charge] per number,” but then can ask the Universal Service Administrative Co. for a partial refund, they said.
Wireless carriers could see an immediate benefit of access charges remaining low if the FCC approves comprehensive changes to intercarrier compensation and the Universal Service Fund, a top AT&T regulatory official said Tuesday. In an interview, AT&T Senior Vice President Robert Quinn contested complaints by some wireless carriers that wireless has little to gain and much to lose if the FCC approves reforms proposed by Chairman Kevin Martin at the Nov. 4 meeting (CD Oct 21 p1). AT&T has not signed off on the intercarrier comp and USF proposals but is weighing them carefully, Quinn said.
Wireless carriers could see an immediate benefit of access charges remaining low if the FCC approves comprehensive changes to intercarrier compensation and the Universal Service Fund, a top AT&T regulatory official said Tuesday. In an interview, AT&T Senior Vice President Robert Quinn contested complaints by some wireless carriers that wireless has little to gain and much to lose if the FCC approves reforms proposed by Chairman Kevin Martin at the Nov. 4 meeting (CD Oct 21 p1). AT&T has not signed off on the intercarrier comp and USF proposals but is weighing them carefully, Quinn said.
A hybrid Universal Service Fund contribution mechanism using phone numbers and connections beats one using numbers and revenue, AT&T and Verizon said. The carriers, which would prefer a numbers-only mechanism, pitched an alternative hybrid method in a Monday FCC filing. That plan would levy a fixed $0.85 rate on assessable residential, wireless and business numbers, and establish a new “assessable connection” category, AT&T and Verizon said. Assessable connections up to 64 kbps would pay $5 per dedicated connection, with faster connections paying $35 per connection, the companies said. Adopting the alternate plan would cut consumer share of USF contributions to about 38 percent, they said. The business sector would pay about 62 percent of USF contributions. The portion of USF collected from special access and other dedicated connections would rise to 16 percent from today’s 8 percent, the telcos said. If the FCC exempts some from paying into USF by numbers, it shouldn’t do so in a way that would “require alternate calculation methodologies or that maintain [today’s] revenue methodology,” AT&T and Verizon said. Instead, the agency should adopt a reimbursement method “whereby the customer is billed and pays the full [charge] per number,” but then can ask the Universal Service Administrative Co. for a partial refund, they said.
As details emerge, wireless carriers generally see little to like in Universal Service Fund proposals circulated last week by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin for a vote at the Nov. 4 meeting, industry officials said. The proposal’s implementation would be hardest on small wireless carriers trying to qualify as eligible telecommunications carriers to receive USF monies, they said.
Wireline officials raised red flags about the FCC’s draft intercarrier-compensation overhaul the day after Chairman Kevin Martin unveiled it (CD Oct 16 p2). The plan isn’t publicly available, but industry officials in interviews said the package favors the largest carriers and hurts small and midsized companies. If the FCC adopts the plan as is, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association may challenge it in court, said Dan Mitchell, NTCA legal vice president, in an interview.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants to add broadband obligations to the Universal Service Fund, move to numbers- based USF contribution and apply reciprocal compensation rates to all traffic, he said Wednesday. At a news briefing, the chairman said implementing his plan would “modernize” USF and intercarrier compensation for a broadband, IP-based world. Martin late Tuesday circulated a draft version of the plan, including a report and order, order on remand and further notice of proposed rulemaking. Commissioners will vote at the agency’s Nov. 4 meeting. If the item is adopted, it would apply to 48 states, exempting Alaska and Hawaii, Martin said.
The FCC’s October meeting has been changed for at least a third time as Chairman Kevin Martin failed to get any other commissioner to support a DTV-related notice that drew internal controversy (CD Oct 8 p6). No items will be voted on Wednesday, at what was to have been a regular monthly meeting in Nashville, agency officials said. Instead, four FCC members will gather at Vanderbilt University’s medical center Wednesday morning for an en banc hearing on obesity, while Commissioner Michael Copps will participate by phone, agency officials said.
Odds are increasingly slim of comprehensive overhaul of FCC intercarrier compensation rules or the Universal Service Fund this year or before Kevin Martin’s chairmanship ends, officials said. Intercarrier compensation issues are teed up for the Nov. 4 meeting, but FCC officials said they have seen nothing from the chairman’s office or the Wireline Bureau about what the chairman may envision. And most commissioners will be on travel the week of Oct. 20, complicating any discussions leading up to the meeting. An FCC official didn’t comment.
ORLANDO -- Due to more pressing issues, neither presidential candidate will focus on telecom policy immediately after the election, surrogates for Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a CompTel debate Tuesday. However, candidates are interested in telecom issues, differing on broadband deployment and network management, among other issues, surrogates said. Larry Irving, Internet Innovation Alliance co-chairman, represented Obama. Lee Dunn, a legislative aide to the McCain presidential campaign, took the Republican side.