The FCC should adopt rules for the coming 700 MHz auction that offer licenses in small geographic areas to accommodate bids by small carriers, said rural wireless groups. The FCC is considered likeliest to offer some spectrum in cellular market area (CMA) chunks - the smallest geographic licenses sold in the recently concluded AWS auction.
The S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff asked the PSC to let it keep running the state universal service fund. The staff agency -- part of the PSC until made autonomous by a 2004 S.C. law - during the summer solicited bids from outside vendors to run the fund and audit telcos’ compliance with the program, in the belief that 3rd parties could save the state money. But bids were far higher than expected. The agency told the PSC its people can manage the fund and audit telco compliance for less than any outside vendor. If the PSC agrees, the only USF aspect involving outside vendors would be audits of the staff’s fund administration.
E-rate and disability constituencies are solid in support of HR-5252, representatives of teachers, librarians and special needs consumers said Fri. on an Alliance for Public Technology (APT) panel. Speakers held out little hope the bill will pass before a lame duck session, but declared it would improve on current policy.
Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) swore he won’t section off the video franchising portion of his bill to ease its passage -- perhaps as an amendment to another bill. “We're going to deal with our bill as it is. We've got to get it to conference,” Stevens told media after a Progress & Freedom Foundation lunch. “Absolutely not,” Stevens said firmly, when a reporter asked if he'd consider attaching his bill to an appropriations bill: “This bill is going to be considered on its own merits.”
Communications Services Integrated (CSI) agreed to pay $250,000 to the U.S. Treasury to settle an FCC enforcement proceeding against the company for failing to make contributions to the Universal Service Fund. The payment is less than the $462,638 that the FCC originally planned to fine the telecom provider. The FCC said CSI justified a request for a “downward adjustment.” In addition, the company has submitted all “worksheets” required of USF contributors and has paid past due debts, the FCC said.
The FCC is working with OMB on a written interpretation of rules that would exempt the Universal Service Fund (USF) from Anti-Deficiency Act accounting rules, Senate sources said. ADA rules require funding to be in place before expenditures are made, which is difficult in a program like USF. Sen. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) asked FCC Chmn. Martin about the status of negotiations with OMB at Martin’s renomination hearing last week. Martin told Rockefeller that he could provide details on the talks “soon.” Sources said the FCC had OMB’s oral assurance it would exempt USF from the accounting rules when the nomination of FCC Comr. McDowell up for Senate consideration. That was to be followed up with a written agreement later, making unnecessary legislation backed by Rockefeller and other senators to make the exemption permanent, Senate sources said.
The FCC levied a $237,992 fine against Telecom Management Inc. (TMI) for not contributing to the Universal Service Fund or paying regulatory fees. The Me.-based company offers long distance plans, toll-free numbers and phone cards by reselling Global Crossing services. The FCC said TMI didn’t contribute to the USF “despite having collected several hundred thousand dollars in USF fees from its customers.”
The FCC fined OCMC Inc. $1.13 million for not paying into the Universal Service Fund (USF). Seeking a reduced penalty, the operator services provider and telecom reseller called the sanction “inequitable” given its financial straits. The FCC rejected that claim, saying USF worksheets from OCMC show “its gross revenues are in the tens of millions of dollars and have been for several years.” OCMC “willfully and repeatedly violated our rules,” the FCC said. Last year, when issued a notice of apparent liability (NAL), the company owed more than $2 million to USF, the FCC said. OCMC made no USF payments in 2 of the 12 months since the NAL and only partial payments in 7 of those 12 months, the FCC said.
Cal. consumers would be the biggest losers if the FCC shifts to a numbers- or connections-based USF contribution, the Keep USF Fair Coalition said Wed. The higher the fee, the bigger the hit, the coalition said. Consumers in other large states, including Tex., Mass., N.Y. and Ill., would be hurt by the change in funding methodology, it said: “Californians currently pay $613.11 million in USF taxes and get back only $575.75 million in USF expenditures. Under the $1.50 per-connection tax switch for USF the California ‘deficit’ would soar from the current $37.35 million to $582.43 million.”
The Computer & Communications Industry Assn. asked the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., to reverse and remand the FCC’s June 21 order imposing Universal Service fees on VoIP services. The group is challenging the agency’s legal authority in the matter. “The FCC’s decision to impose USF payment obligations on VoIP providers is an ill-advised step toward regulating the Internet,” said Ed Black, CCIA pres. “This order imposes the burden of supporting an outdated Universal Service program that subsidizes 19th Century technology on an innovative new technology still in its infancy. Common sense and sound public policy tells us that this logic is backwards.”