A Blanca Telephone order and subsequent collection efforts seeking $6.7 million (see 2001270032) to repay high-cost USF support to which the ILEC wasn't entitled remain in effect, said an FCC second order on reconsideration in Friday's Daily Digest. Commissioners approved unanimously. The docket is 96-45. The telco didn't comment Friday.
The FCC Wireline Bureau, Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force and Office of Economics and Analytics are ready to authorize 10-year USF broadband deployment support for 150 additional winning bids in the Connect America Fund Phase II auction, said a public notice Thursday. Authorization requires long-form applicants submit letters of credit and bankruptcy code opinion letters from their legal counsel by March 19 for each state where they have winning bids awaiting authorization. This round of CAF-II subsidies includes awards in Colorado, Illinois, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
The record shows new supply chain rules designed to protect U.S. networks are both “legally unsound and factually unjustified,” Huawei replied to the FCC. Commissioners approved rules 5-0 in November barring equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in networks funded by the USF, and sought comment on whether to expand the prohibition (see 1911220033). In initial comments last month, industry groups raised concerns (see 2002040047), and replies appeared in docket 18-89 through Wednesday. Last week, the Senate passed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998).
Q2 USF revenue is projected at about $265 million less than the previous quarter and the lowest in its history, analyst Billy Jack Gregg emailed stakeholders Monday evening. "The decline in second quarter 2020 USF revenue continues the downward trend in the USF contribution base, which places upward pressure on the USF assessment factor, meaning it will be higher than it otherwise would be. USF revenue for the four quarters ending the second quarter of 2020 is $5.4 billion lower than USF revenue for the four quarters ending the second quarter 2019, a 10.9% decline."
There's a need for a new federal broadband plan, with different metrics and tasked outside the FCC, panelists said Tuesday during the Incompas Policy Summit. They commented on the 10-year-old FCC National Broadband Plan.
The South Carolina Public Service Commission should do nothing in response to a Jan. 30 staff audit, Frontier Communications said Monday in docket 2019-352-C. Office of Regulatory Staff says the company needs to improve reporting and restoration of service outages, and accounting practices for USF spending (see 2002200022). If the commission wants to act, it should collect comments from all providers and apply policies market-wide, the carrier said. “An arbitrary determination that all aging equipment should be replaced is not appropriate or fiscally responsible,” and staff haven't shown a recurring problem justifying regular reports to the commission on status of telecom equipment, said Frontier. The carrier disagreed it should have to specifically state USF spending: ORS hasn’t shown it would help the telco provide affordable service, the provider said.
An Oregon bill to expand state USF to broadband and extend fees to VoIP and cellphones cleared the Joint Committee on Ways and Means at a webcast Friday meeting. HB-4079 reduces the fee to 6% from 8.5% and would take effect Jan. 1. Oregon had missed out on millions of dollars in broadband support because the state couldn’t put up matching funds, said sponsor Sen. Arnie Roblan (D). Cellphone bills could increase 40 to 60 cents, noted Sen. Lee Beyer (D). Sen. Rob Wagner (D) said he was opposed last year but would vote yes despite lingering “heartburn.” Wagner, whose district includes part of Portland, thinks it’s “a little bit problematic and maybe even perverse that we're talking about an urban-rural divide in this state when the folks that are utilizing cellphones in my Senate district are not people who would be benefiting from this last mile or rural broadband expansion.” No Republicans attended the meeting due to their walkout over a climate-change bill.
Senate passage of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998) got more praise Thursday and Friday (see 2002270070), including from the bill’s original co-sponsors and FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. The bill would allocate at least $1 billion to help U.S. communications providers remove from their networks Chinese equipment deemed to threaten national security. The House passed the measure in December (see 1912160052), meaning it now moves on to President Donald Trump. “The existence of Huawei’s technology in our networks represents an immense threat to America’s national and economic security,” said original bill sponsors House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. "This bipartisan bill will help communities across the country by bolstering efforts to keep our communications supply chain safe from foreign adversaries and other dangerous actors, while helping small and rural providers remove and replace suspect network equipment.” Starks tweeted he’s “very glad to see bipartisan agreement around helping small carriers get untrustworthy equipment out of their networks.” The FCC “needs to work quickly to get these funds to providers,” he said, replying to our tweet reporting the development. “We’ll all be more secure when the replacement is done.” FCC national security supply chain rules barring equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE from networks funded by the USF took effect in January (see 2001020027).
The FCC voted to propose an Oct. 22 auction date for the first phase of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and to release a public notice for docket 20-34 on procedures for its auction 904. That was despite pushback from Democratic Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks, as was expected (see 2002270004). They partly dissented. The PN would seek comment on proposals such as how large the eligible bidding areas should be and how much information should be collected in short-form applications.
At least the three FCC GOP members will approve a public notice on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund procedures at Friday's meeting that would authorize an Oct. 22 auction date for the first phase of the USF program, industry and agency officials said in interviews this week. It's less clear how much pushback it will get from Democratic commissioners. At last month's meeting, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel called the fast pace of the RDOF rulemaking, before the FCC had a chance to correct widely disputed broadband mapping data, "an election year bonanza" (see 2001300001).