Virgin Islands Telephone recommendations for network resiliency and redundancy via USF funding include weighting "core network miles more heavily than individual end-user connections" and dealing with such connections based on locations served, not aggregate miles. "Core network miles affect potentially thousands of customers; stormhardening them is more valuable than hardening individual customer lines/connections," said the telco, doing business as Viya, on how to vet participants in a proposed Connect USVI Fund auction. A filing posted Thursday in docket 18-143 reported on meetings with an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and with Wireline Bureau staff. Commissioners are tentatively scheduled to vote Sept. 26 on rules to allocate $950 million for the Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund and the Connect USVI Fund to help rebuild networks in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after 2017 hurricanes (see 1909040028).
The FCC authorized $112 million over a decade for broadband expansion to nearly 48,000 unserved rural homes and businesses in California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin, the fifth wave of support from last year's USF Connect America Fund Phase II auction, said a public notice Thursday in docket 17-182. CAF II allocates nearly $1.5 billion over 10 years for broadband to 700,000-plus unserved rural homes and businesses (see 1807240062).
House Commerce Committee leaders and staff are working on legislation to help secure telecom networks using "suspect communications components,” as expected (see 1907220053), a committee spokesperson said. House Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., has been pursuing draft legislation to encourage rural carriers to remove equipment from Chinese equipment makers Huawei and ZTE. The bill would “fund the replacement of suspect equipment and further prohibit the use of federal funds to purchase suspect network equipment going forward,” the committee spokesperson emailed Wednesday. The proposal could be used to codify the FCC's proposal to bar use of USF money to purchase from companies posing “a national security threat” (see 1812210032).
The FCC proposes eliminating access arbitrage in a 43-page draft order for docket 18-155 updating the intercarrier compensation regime. Commissioners are scheduled to consider that and four other proposals at the Sept. 26 commissioners' meeting. They are USF funding for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; auction procedures for the 3.5 MHz band; public notice simplifications for broadcast filings; and direct broadcast satellite licensing rules (see 1909040073).
Leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates' proposals for major broadband funding likely signal a definitive end to hopes for enacting a long-sought infrastructure package before the next election, communications sector officials and lobbyists told us. But focus on the issue is a net positive for the ongoing policy debate, they said. Experts question, though, whether attention to broadband as part of rural-focused campaign platforms will translate into a shift in support among those voters who moved away from Democrats in the 2016 election.
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly walked back accusations that the U.S. Virgin Islands diverted 911 fees in 2017, in a letter to U.S. Virgin Islands legislator Donna Frett-Gregory Wednesday. O’Rielly said in a July letter (see 1907180030) to the governor that because over $1.2 million in 911 fees were diverted in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017 he wouldn’t back additional USF funds for USVI without changes to how 911 fees were handled there. “[T]aking all the facts into consideration, it does not appear that 9-1-1 fees collected by the USVI were diverted for calendar year 2017,” O’Rielly conceded, praising Frett-Gregory’s willingness to consider legislative changes to 911 fee collection. He said additional staff review showed the Virgin Islands’ 2018 filings didn’t provide a complete picture of how the fees were collected and allocated. “I appreciate the opportunity to clear-up this situation,” O’Rielly said. “I expect that the USVI will remain in compliance with the non-diversionary provisions contained in U.S. federal law,” he said.
Groups representing schools and libraries want the FCC to future-proof E-rate funding that supports indoor connections for schools and libraries, they said in comments posted to docket 13-184 through Wednesday on the program's category 2 modernization and eligible services list. Per-pupil funding for E-rate category 2 should be increased from $125 to $250 or more, the Education and Libraries Networks Coalition said: "As schools, school districts and libraries integrate more digital resources, it will only continue to drive increased demand for bandwidth and internal connections." It wants the USF program to establish a fixed five-year budget cycle for category 2 spending to replace the current rolling budget focused on individual applicants. It supports a transition to school-district-wide and library-system-wide budgets but said private and independent schools should be able to apply on their own. Funds for Learning said schools and libraries should be able to self-determine what data infrastructure components they need, and none should be determined ineligible. It also said in separate comments it wants to eliminate E-rate category 2 subcategories, which can be confusing to program participants. The American Library Association said it supports making funding eligible for content filtering and more robust network security.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai circulated a draft order on the eighth floor Wednesday to direct $950 million in a second round of USF funding to strengthen broadband networks in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, after Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017 (see 1805290028). The commissioners will vote on the draft order at the agency's Sept. 26 public meeting, the FCC said Wednesday (see 1909040073). The agency has collected public input for over a year on the Uniendo a Puerto Rico and Connect USVI funds in docket 18-143 (see 1805180075).
The FCC will start the long-awaited 3.5 GHz auction June 25, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday in a blog on the agenda for the Sept. 25 commissioners’ meeting. The FCC will also take up USF funding for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (see 1909040028), a proposal to update intercarrier compensation rules and a media modernization Further NPRM, among other items.
The USF contribution factor for Q4 will rise from 24.4 percent to 25.1 percent, the highest in the history of the USF, consultant Billy Jack Gregg emailed Friday. He said the Universal Service Administration Co. projected revenue of $11 billion for the quarter, about $466 million lower than the previous quarter, and the lowest quarterly revenue ever. Quarterly demand was projected at $2 billion. The FCC announced the last quarterly contribution factor in mid-June in docket 96-45 (see 1906130014).