Industry and think tank officials argued about U.S. broadband rankings at a Monday FCC en banc hearing in Pittsburgh. Debating how bad off the U.S. is shows “how behind we are,” said Commissioner Michael Copps. Meanwhile, AT&T and other panelists endorsed FCC action against network neutrality violators.
Audio-bridging providers have until Aug. 1 to begin filing FCC Form 499-Q to contribute to the Universal Service Fund, the FCC said last week in a public notice. The Universal Administrative Co. will collect contributions in October. The FCC last month ordered audio-bridging providers to contribute to the USF (CD July 1 p6).
A comprehensive intercarrier-compensation revamp might not be possible by Nov. 5, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said Wednesday at a Quebec, Canada, conference of the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. Chairman Kevin Martin has promised a complete overhaul by then (CD July 14 p2). “I'm not sure we're really going to,” Adelstein said, predicting that the work may be broken up. If it is, the FCC should tackle phantom traffic, a “growing problem,” right away, he said.
Technology matters should be more prominent in the presidential campaign, the Information Technology Association of America said at a conference Tuesday. “Technology is really not on the radar screen” of either major candidate, said ITAA President Phil Bond, who challenged Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R-Ariz., to go head-to-head in a debate on where they stand. The new president needs to set a pro-technology agenda, he said, but both candidates get an “incomplete” on offering a vision for technology’s role in the U.S. economy.
The FCC needs a long-term overhaul policy for the Universal Service Fund, FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate told an OPASTCO conference Monday in Quebec, Canada. It’s “critical” that a revamp “strikes a balance between the costs of advancing our national telecommunications infrastructure and the costs consumers are willing to bear,” she said. The current USF surcharge on interstate calls is 11.4 percent, she said.
The FCC should cap federal interstate access charges for rate-of-return carriers at today’s rates while considering Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation overhauls, said the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. The group was responding to a May 2 FCC request to refresh the record on USF and intercarrier compensation. Access costs unrecovered under the capped rates “should be recovered from interim USF funding as another component of Interstate Common Line Support,” NTCA said. The action likely won’t swell the fund because the FCC has capped USF support for competitive eligible telecommunications carriers and is looking to kill the identical support rule, which bases CETC subsidies on incumbent costs, NTCA said. “This decisive FCC action now will preserve and advance universal service in high-cost and rural areas, will provide a specific and predictable universal service mechanism and will provide a reasonable cost recovery mechanism for rate of return carriers for the foreseeable future,” the NTCA said. It also urged the FCC to create a timeline to shift the universal service system from Public Switched Telephone Network technology to IP broadband.
The Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance lauded GAO (CD July 11 p1) for condemning FCC management of the Universal Service Fund. “ITTA has long advocated that carriers serving rural and high-cost areas should receive universal service support regardless of the size of the carriers where USF is necessary to ensure the viability of the underlying telecommunications network and affordable consumer rates,” ITTA President Curt Stamp said. “We are encouraged that the GAO report recognizes this goal and are hopeful that Congress and the [FCC] will heed this message as we develop meaningful USF reform.”
The Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday approved a bill recommending $341 million for the FY 2009 FCC budget. It also admonished the agency for inadequate oversight of the universal program. The FCC needs to do a better job with the program, the committee said. Members also ordered the FCC to report on the feasibility of a broadcast “code of conduct” for foul language, sexual content and violence. They also sought a study of commercially supported broadcasting on public school buses.
NCTA said it generally supports a proposed universal service bill introduced by the ranking members of the House Commerce Committee and Telecom Subcommittee. “We believe it provides a solid foundation” on which to begin discussions, said NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow. The group supports an overall cap on the size of the fund, approves the bill’s proposal asking the FCC to consider alternatives to current rules on contributions, and prohibit assessments on broadband transmission or Internet access services. NCTA has “long supported basing provider contributions to the universal service fund on assignment of telephone numbers rather than the current revenue-based contribution method,” McSlarrow said. The reverse auction provision, however, includes “myriad significant details that would need to be resolved in order to ensure” the auctions promote broadband development in “truly” high-cost areas. “We believe that the focus of USF support should continue to be on the provision of voice services, with any additional supported services limited to schools, libraries and health care providers,” McSlarrow said. While government can play a role in helping to widen broadband deployment, those goals are best achieved with “tax credits or tax incentives to providers that build out in unserved areas, rather than by increasing the universal service burden on voice service providers… or by interfering with the market by providing subsidies in ‘unserved’ areas,” he said.
Carriers won’t need “dollar-for-dollar replacement of lost intercarrier revenues” after an FCC overhaul of intercarrier compensation or the Universal Service Fund, said the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. In comments to “refresh the record” on USF and intercarrier compensation proceedings at the FCC, the group asked the FCC to reject the premise that reducing intercarrier compensation revenue will increase USF demand. Technology and market changes help carriers “mitigate” reform’s impact, it said. For example, “carriers are now generating billions of dollars in [DSL] revenues that they did not generate five or ten years ago,” it said. The group urged the FCC to “reject resoundingly” proposals by Sprint Nextel and others to raise the subscriber line charge to offset revenue lost to reform. “Industry members may find it appealing to ‘pass the buck’ to consumers as a simple way to resolve thorny regulatory problems, but such a tactic would thwart the goal of universal service and unfairly burden consumers,” the group said.