FCC members agreed 5-0 to seek comment on revised internet-based telecom relay service rules, expanding the TRS fund contribution base for internet-based TRS of video relay service and IP relay service. Only Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly had statements on the NPRM, which they didn’t read at Wednesday's meeting. O’Rielly said the agency doesn’t go far enough. The NPRM hasn’t been controversial, with no filings since it circulated three weeks ago. Democrats, who will control the agenda next year, had no statements.
Senate Commerce Committee GOP leaders are eyeing a vote to advance FCC nominee Nathan Simington to the full chamber amid likely uniform Democratic opposition and lingering uncertainties about whether there’s unanimous GOP support. FCC Republicans, meanwhile, sidestepped questions about whether they will cooperate with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition, given objections from President Donald Trump. Chairman Ajit Pai announced a national-security-heavy agenda Wednesday for commissioners' Dec. 10 meeting but avoided saying he’s acquiescing to Democrats’ calls for him to stop work on major items (see 2011180065).
The Nebraska Public Service Commission will mull changing state USF contribution in a Jan. 6 hearing at 10 a.m., members decided 4-0 Tuesday. One member was excused. The state commission is weighing a proposal in docket NUSF-119 to extend its connections-based mechanism to business and government services. Big carriers oppose that change (see 2009020032). The Oklahoma Corporation Commission could vote next week on changing state USF contribution from a revenue-based method to a connections-based mechanism with a 91 cents per line monthly surcharge (see 2008110047). An administrative law judge last month recommended changing to connections. Commissioners, scheduled to hold a hearing on exceptions to the ALJ recommendation next Tuesday, “might vote at the end of the hearing, or take the matter under advisement,” an OCC spokesperson emailed Monday. CTIA complained Oct. 30 that the ALJ barely discussed its views, including that the connections method may violate state or federal law and hurt poor or unemployed people (see 2008170054). AT&T, CTIA and the Oklahoma AG “place an outsized emphasis on potential changes to amounts contributed by customer classes and completely ignore the record concerning growing inequities under the current revenue-based methodology,” the OUSF administrator responded, posted Nov. 10. Meanwhile, in Texas last week, the Public Utility Commission again urged the legislature to deal with state USF, despite concerns by state lawmakers, small telcos and others that the fund may become insolvent without PUC action before the legislature meets in 2021 (see 2010160052). Texans paid more than $2.7 billion into TUSF over the past 10 years, so the commission “was reluctant, in the midst of a pandemic and economic downturn, to further burden the Texans who pay into the fund,” Executive Director John Paul Urban responded to four Texas House members who raised concerns. The PUC didn’t consider increasing the surcharge until funds nearly ran out because telecom companies who pay into TUSF didn’t “provide any insight into the drastic declines in reviews that abruptly occurred,” Urban said. “When Commission staff estimated the fee needed to support all the requested TUSF subsidies, they had to account for the downward trends in revenue and a depleting fund balance. These trends continue to worsen and the fund balance continues to deplete.”
Citing the need to extend online connectivity in Montana's Blackfeet Reservation, the FCC Wireline Bureau signed off on a 3 Rivers Telephone Cooperative/Siyeh Communications petition for a waiver of FCC rules to apportion 3 Rivers' current Connect America Fund intercarrier compensation base period revenue between 3 Rivers and SiyCom. The order in Tuesday's Daily Digest also initialized SiyCom’s tariffed rates at 3 Rivers’ current rates and let SiyCom immediately join the National Exchange Carrier Association and NECA’s traffic-sensitive tariff. The waivers will let SlyCom go through with its 3 Rivers purchase without putting more burdens on the USF or raising rates, it said.
All eligible price cap carriers currently getting Connect America Fund Phase II support based on the Connect America cost model have opted for an additional seventh year of such support, as was allowed in February's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund order (see 2002070031), the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Monday. It said the Universal Service Administrative Co. now must disburse USF amounts to carriers starting in January.
One significant deficiency found in the FCC's FY 2019 auditor's report on USF budgetary accounting has been corrected, but the other, on information technology controls at the FCC and Universal Service Administrative Co., will take more time to fix, the agency said in its FY 2020 financial report Monday. It said it "worked diligently in FY 2020" on corrective action plans for the IT controls, "but more remains to correct this issue." It said it "will make every effort in FY 2021 to implement corrective action plans." The report includes an audit of agency financial statements by Kearney & Co., hired by the FCC Office of Inspector General (OIG). The report said that aside from the FY '19 deficiencies, there were "no reportable instances of noncompliance with laws, regulations and contracts applicable to FCC." The OIG made a series of recommendations, including USF contributions reform, adequate E-rate program controls and supporting rural hospital and healthcare providers during the pandemic "without creating gaps in controls that increase the risks for conflicts of interests, fraud and abuse."
State and local governments want to reset relationships with the FCC under President-elect Joe Biden in 2021, said officials from NARUC, NATOA and the National Association of State Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) in interviews this week. A new FCC means “new beginnings” and a chance to build bridges, said NARUC President Paul Kjellander, elected association head Tuesday (see 2011100060).
The Senate Appropriations Committee proposed increases in the FY 2021 budgets for the FCC, NTIA, Patent and Trademark Office and National Institute of Standards and Technology but would leave funding for the FTC and CPB level with FY 2020. The committee’s proposed funding for the FCC to implement the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act, a broadband mapping law (S-1822), fell short of what the commission and others sought. Senate Appropriations released draft versions of its 12 appropriations bills Tuesday, before conference negotiations with House leaders on compromise FY 21 funding measures. Congress must either pass appropriations measures or another continuing resolution to extend government funding before the existing CR expires Dec. 11 (see 2010010041).
USF contribution reform could still be a long way off, said FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and former Chair Mignon Clyburn at NARUC’s virtual annual conference Tuesday. O’Rielly, co-chair of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, slammed that body as dysfunctional. Earlier in the day, state officials cited the COVID-19 pandemic as they urged national broadband action.
Both political parties increasingly see more broadband as critical as the presidency changes hands, said panelists at the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) conference Monday. Although President Donald Trump hasn't conceded, officials highlighted some ways Democratic President-elect Joe Biden could take advantage of political consensus to push the issue forward.