FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is circulating plans for some $300 million of telehealth spending. One plan is for $200 million and would support healthcare providers' telehealth services to fight the coronavirus, under the Cares Act. The rest of the money is for the agency's connected care pilot. It would use USF money over three years.
State commissioners should keep watch on telecom to protect consumers during the COVID-19 outbreak, said NARUC President Brandon Presley in a Thursday interview. “Once this crisis is behind us, we’ve got to view broadband service as a national security issue, in the sense of economic security,” he said. “I won’t have much toleration for anybody that comes to tell me that internet is a luxury.”
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Wednesday she and other congressional Democrats plan to push for the next bill addressing COVID-19 to include broadband capacity and distance learning provisions. A compromise of a third stimulus bill unveiled that day failed to include those priorities. Capitol Hill leaders and President Donald Trump’s administration reached a deal early Wednesday. A cloture vote on the COVID-19 legislative vehicle (HR-748) was expected to have happened Wednesday night. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and three other Republicans made that outcome more uncertain when they objected to the bill's proposed amount of unemployment insurance.
The COVID-19 pandemic comes as Ajit Pai enters what is likely to be the homestretch of his time as FCC chairman. Pai has sketched out an ambitious agenda for the rest of 2020, but no one knows how long the pandemic will last. Industry officials agree it will likely slow work on at least some items due to refocusing on coronavirus-related orders. The crisis offers Pai a chance to write a new legacy, they said.
The lowest scored bid in an FCC 270-point system based on cost per location, network performance, resilience and redundancy will win telecom subsidies through USF Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund and USVI Fund programs, say stage 2 competitive bidding procedures in Friday's Federal Register on docket 18-143. Commissioners voted in September (see 1909260032).
The FCC denied GCI Communication's application for review (see 2001220024) and upheld last March's waiver denial regarding broadband mapping requirements in the USF Alaska plan, in an order for docket 16-271 in Thursday's Daily Digest. The Alaska Telecom Association requested the initial waiver, which the FCC deemed overly broad (see 1903040026).
The FCC Wireline Bureau waived gift rules through Sept. 30 for the E-rate and Rural Health Care programs to help schools, libraries and healthcare providers better respond to COVID-19 outbreaks, in an order Wednesday on docket 02-60 (see 2003180048). Waivers in the healthcare program are limited to providers involved in screening and treatment of COVID-19 or mitigating its spread, the order said. The E-rate waiver is limited to eligible entities adjusting to school or library closures due to COVID-19, regardless of the USF program's funding year. The FCC will monitor whether extensions are needed. “By waiving certain FCC rules today, we are giving service providers the chance to step up and give health care providers more tools to fight the ongoing pandemic and serve patients more effectively," Chairman Ajit Pai said. He encouraged "service providers and equipment makers to partner with schools and libraries to provide mobile hotspots and other broadband-enabled devices to students to help bridge the digital divide during the coronavirus pandemic." Such efforts could complement the agency's work with Congress to appropriate funds for a remote learning initiative and a COVID connected care pilot, Pai said, adding such programs would allow the agency to use federal funds to support in-home equipment for patients and students affected by the pandemic. The agency's Connected Care pilot remains in the rulemaking stage, and it sought comment on whether the program should subsidize patient monitoring equipment and broadband to the home (see 1906190013). Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel called the gift waivers a smart step. "But let’s not confuse generosity for justice," she said. "We need a national plan to ensure that everyone is connected during these unprecedented days." She wants the FCC to use its "universal service powers" to provide hotspot loans to students caught in the homework gap, and connectivity for telehealth services to support treating coronavirus patients and those quarantined. Stakeholders for USF programs supporting anchor institutions expect a spike in telehealth (see 2003060036) and online learning (see 2003170014) this year. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition asked the FCC to waive the gift rules, in a letter Tuesday (see 2003170014). The gift ban was in place to prevent undue influence in the competitive bidding process, SHLB Executive Director John Windhausen told us. SHLB views this as "a timely step,” he emailed Wednesday. “The coronavirus is putting online learning and telemedicine in high demand ... We hope the FCC will continue to be proactive.”
The FCC Wireline Bureau is taking challenges through April 10 on its preliminary list of census blocks eligible for its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction 904 proposed to launch in October, said a public notice Tuesday in docket 19-126. It released a map of areas initially deemed eligible for RDOF phase I participation. Stakeholders can challenge the list if any areas are served by voice and 25/3 Mbps, or if parties got government broadband subsidies to serve areas deemed eligible. Rate-of-return carriers that don't expect to satisfy their USF broadband obligations can alert the FCC to move census blocks from ineligible to potentially eligible.
FCC staff waived some USF healthcare and E-rate gift rules amid COVID-19. Some stakeholders had sought these and other actions.
Consumers shouldn't be misled on their telephone bills "into believing that a USF surcharge is the equivalent of a sales tax and as such an unavoidable cost of service," since it's a "carrier's choice to pass through a charge to customers that it might otherwise have absorbed as part of its business," said the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, in truth-in-billing reply comments posted through Monday in FCC Wireline Bureau docket 98-170. CTIA said the FCC "should refrain from compelling voice providers into one-size-fits-all requirements of how they present government-mandated charges on consumer bills." The National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors wants itemization of government-related costs to be transparent "so that consumers can readily distinguish portions of their payments that a government entity requires the provider to collect from customers" rather than ones providers opt to collect as an itemized charge.