With a lobbying ban looming, telecom interests are making feverish last-minute pitches to sway commissioners on possible overhauls for the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation. Unless the FCC says otherwise, lobbying on the issue ends sometime Tuesday, with release of the commission’s sunshine notice for the Nov. 4 meeting. Verizon recently joined AT&T and Qwest in endorsing comprehensive reform.
CompTel condemned a proposal by AT&T and Verizon to implement a hybrid universal service contribution mechanism based on phone numbers and dedicated connections (CD Oct 22 p5). “The AT&T/Verizon plan will have a grossly disproportionate impact on small business customers and should be rejected out of hand,” CompTel said. For example, a customer now paying $17.67 in USF per month for a DS1 would pay $35 under the Bells’ plan, it said. “The last thing the Commission should be doing in this poor economic climate is adopting measures that will put additional financial strain on the small businesses that employ 50.6 percent of the country’s private sector workforce.”
Commissioner Deborah Tate praised the FCC for drafting a revamp for the universal service fund and intercarrier compensation. But speaking Friday at a Free State Foundation forum, the commissioner mostly kept mum on her opinions of the proposed order circulating on the eighth floor. Tate said she’s “inclined to support” a pilot USF Lifeline/LinkUp program proposed by Chairman Kevin Martin to get broadband to low-income households. She didn’t say anything about the draft’s other points except that she hopes for consensus.
The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, a mid-sized carriers trade group, is “encouraged” that NARUC wants public comment on intercarrier compensation and Universal Service Fund proposals at the FCC, it said. “NARUC clearly recognizes the weight and potential unintended consequences of the FCC rushing to adopt such a large and complicated order in such a relatively short time frame,” said ITTA President Curt Stamp. “We are hopeful that the FCC will heed the advice of their state colleagues and give this Order time for meaningful review and consideration in a comment period.” Stamp said the changes proposed for intercarrier comp and USF could have a “devastating” effect on midsized carriers: “The stakes are too high for the FCC to rush to judgment on this issue.”
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.