Regional wireless carriers and the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition urged the FCC to reconsider and clarify several conditions that the agency imposed on the Verizon Wireless-Alltel merger. The requests came in six reconsideration petitions last week. In a joint petition, MetroPCS and nTelos asked the FCC to extend the time that Verizon must honor Alltel’s roaming agreements to seven years from four to give carriers a chance to roll out Long Term Evolution wireless technology. LTE will allow CDMA carriers to roam on networks that aren’t compatible now, they said. The carriers also asked the FCC to require Verizon to provide automatic data roaming for seven years. In another joint petition, U.S. Cellular and three other wireless carriers asked the FCC to require Verizon to reduce its universal service support in equal amounts annually over five years, until it’s gone or the FCC defines a new USF mechanism. Separately, Leap Wireless asked the commission to clarify that roaming partners can choose to apply their existing roaming agreements with Alltel or Verizon in full, not just the rates. And the FCC should confirm that the roaming agreement chosen will apply to the future service areas and spectrum bands of each carrier, Leap said. Public Service Communications urged the commission to strengthen roaming conditions, temporarily ban handset exclusivity arrangements and require Verizon to sell additional Alltel cellular properties, “where overlapped by Verizon cellular operations and/or where the merger would result in an excessive concentration of spectrum.” The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition asked the FCC to reconsider including broadband radio service spectrum (BRS) in its spectrum screen and to impose a condition requiring an open network allowing customers to access legal content, attach devices and run applications of their choice. The coalition previously made its BRS argument in a reconsideration petition on the Sprint Nextel and Clearwire partnership (CD Dec 10 p8). A sixth petition, by the Rural Telecommunications Group, was filed earlier last week (CD Dec 11 p8).
The FCC posted on its Web site how much universal service high-cost fund support competitive eligible telecom carriers will get while the agency’s interim USF cap applies. The support amounts reflect USF money ETCs received in March. “Competitive ETCs should confirm their March 2008 high-cost support amount information with [the Universal Service Administrative Co.] and file any corrections” by Dec. 31, the FCC said. USAC won’t accept changes after that date, unless the CETC is granted a waiver by the FCC, the commission said.
Awkward timing could stop FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s free wireless broadband proposal from getting votes at the agency’s Dec. 18 public meeting, a commission official said Wednesday. Some commission officials believe it would be unwise to make AWS-3 auction rules this month, given the current economic crisis, a new FCC next year and a fast- approaching DTV transition, the official said. Concerns also exist regarding how effectively the free Internet plan can spur rural and low-income broadband deployment.
Special access rate reform will likely be “a first-year priority” for the next FCC, said telecom lawyer Andrew Lipman at a UBS media and telecom conference Monday. A recent GAO report said special access rates were “exploding,” and Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein “feel very strongly” about lowering rates, Lipman said. “This is a big issue not only for the Democrats but for the big business users and for the large competitors.” The Universal Service Fund and intercarrier competition will probably also get attention, but not until the second half of next year, Lipman said. The FCC “might take up a few bite-size issues like phantom traffic and traffic pumping,” he said. The FCC will look at tightening fiscal control over USF, and better targeting USF support to broadband and low-income urban areas, he said.
FCC officials voiced frustration over new delays in the commission’s overhauls of the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation. At PLI’s annual telecom conference Thursday, Wireline Bureau Chief Dana Shaffer, Commissioner Robert McDowell and Scott Deutchman, an aide to Commissioner Michael Copps, wouldn’t predict when the FCC would finally act. McDowell and Deutchman said they were disappointed no vote would happen at the Dec. 18 FCC meeting. Meanwhile, Hill officials said some in Congress are looking to move on a USF revamp, but the prospects are unclear.
The FCC will vote Dec. 18 on an order to establish a free wireless Internet service using AWS-3 spectrum, Chairman Kevin Martin said in a press briefing Wednesday. The plan’s technical specifics are similar to the plan the agency considered in May, but includes revisions desired by another commissioner, Martin said. Martin has gotten positive feedback from some commissioner offices and is “hopeful” he'll get three votes, he said.
The Arizona Corporation Commission wants more time to file reply comments on the FCC’s pending overhaul for the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation, the ACC said Monday. The Arizona commission backed a motion filed by the National Association of State Utility Advocates (CD Dec 1 p2), asking to extend the reply deadline three weeks to Christmas Eve. “The Arizona Commission is a relatively small agency and was unable to file initial comments because of the abbreviated comment cycle established by the FCC and the Thanksgiving holiday.” If the FCC thinks a three-week extension is too long, the agency should extend the deadline two weeks to Dec. 17, the state commission said. Replies are currently due Wednesday, an already problematically tight deadline because it’s less than three weeks before the FCC’s Dec. 18 meeting. A Dec. 17 or Dec. 24 reply deadline would effectively prevent the FCC from tackling USF or intercarrier compensation at its meeting.
Three automobile makers urged the FCC to reject a numbers-based system for Universal Service Fund contributions. In comments last week on three FCC proposals to revamp the fund (CD Dec 1 p2), Volvo, Toyota and General Motors subsidiary OnStar said separately that the FCC’s plan could hurt vehicle telematics companies and by extension public safety. Earlier last week, APCO and the National Emergency Number Association also warned the FCC about the issue (CD Nov 28 p1). The FCC proposals “ignore the special circumstances of telematics companies, assess contributions far greater than the telecommunications revenues associated with the service, and mistakenly treat telematics companies as telecommunications providers rather than end users,” OnStar said. Toyota agreed, “The drastic cost increases that would flow from the proposals … would threaten the very existence of life-saving telematics services.” OnStar suggested that the FCC instead “assess USF contributions on services that wireless carriers provide to telematics companies either on a per-minute of use basis, as the draft orders appropriately propose for prepaid wireless services, or based on a percentage of revenues.”
“Closer scrutiny” of the Universal Service Fund is needed, the FCC’s Office of Inspector General said in a report to Congress released Monday. An audit of the high- cost fund released last week concluded that the program is “at risk” because of an error rate of 23.3 percent in payments (CD Nov 28 p7), well above the 2.5 percent considered the most acceptable. The Inspector General’s Office said the commission’s Wireline Bureau needs to work more closely with the Universal Service Administrative Co., which oversees the funds, to reduce payment errors.
Universal Service Fund subsidies should be automatically available to rural carriers using satellite broadband, Hughes, Inmarsat and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative said. In comments on the FCC’s three plans to revamp USF (see separate report in this issue), the groups condemned a proposed rule that would require a commission waiver for USF recipients before they could use satellite broadband to fulfill new deployment requirements. “The economic challenges of deploying terrestrial-based communications infrastructure will mean that it could take many years for customers in hard-to-serve areas to have access to terrestrially provided broadband services, and in some cases terrestrially provided services will never be available,” Hughes and Inmarsat said in joint comments. “These customers deserve the option of being able to choose satellite-delivered broadband, even if it is available at slower speeds than the speeds that may be available using terrestrial-based services.” The satellite companies supported the FCC’s proposed USF contribution proposal, which would base payments to USF on the carrier’s quantity of residential phone numbers. However, the companies “are very concerned that the proposed contribution rate of $35 per assessable business connection over 64 kbps would have a punitive effect on satellite broadband providers who have lower user to connection ratios than terrestrial broadband providers,” they said.