Alaska’s revenue-based USF surcharge factor would drop 4.5 points to 14.5 percent under a proposal by Alaska Universal Service Administrative Co., the Regulatory Commission of Alaska said Tuesday. It would be effective Jan. 1, on intrastate telecom services, RCA said. “The surcharge is calculated to allow sufficient funding for the AUSF, including carrier of last resort support, carrier common line support, support for local exchange company switching equipment, state Lifeline support, public interest pay telephone support, and AUSAC’s 2019 operating budget.” The commission sought comment by Nov. 1.
Senate Indian Affairs Committee members focused on what they see as deficiencies in FCC practices for determining broadband coverage on tribal lands, during a Wednesday hearing. The hearing examined a September GAO report that said the FCC overstates broadband availability on tribal lands because it considers service available in a census block if a provider can serve at least one location (see 1809100041). A Thursday Senate Commerce Committee hearing on progress in rural broadband deployments is likely to also touch on tribal governments' concerns. But the panel will largely be an overview of the chamber's work in this Congress on encouraging broadband projects in rural areas and is likely to frame Senate Commerce's approach to that issue in 2019, lawmakers and lobbyists told us.
Rep. David Young, R-Iowa, and the three other members of the state's House delegation urged the FCC Monday to increase funding for the USF high-cost program amid concerns it remains “underfunded” in FY 2019. The FCC committed in March to a $540 million infusion to “help address the funding shortfall” in the program, but there remains a need to “set the budget to meet current demand levels and keep pace with inflation going forward” given the high-cost program's funding has remained level since 2011, the House members wrote Pai: “This lack of funding could lead to a shortfall of nearly $11 million” in Iowa, which “will require providers to postpone or cancel broadband investments, reduce the availability of rural broadband and threaten to increase consumer rates on rural areas.” Pai "received the letter and is reviewing it," an FCC spokesman said.
A 3.5 GHz draft spearheaded by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly would mandate the FCC auction priority access licenses (PALs) on a countywide rather than census-tract basis. The agency would increase license terms of the citizens broadband radio service PALs to 10 years with an expectation of renewal and take other steps designed to make an eventual PAL auction a success. The FCC Tuesday posted draft items for the Oct. 23 commissioners’ meeting (see 1810010027) to address two other wireless proceedings, revise rural telco and some price-cap business data service (BDS) regulation and "modernize" cable rate regulations and broadcast filing requirements.
Telco groups urged the FCC to approve their plan to raise the rural carrier USF budget to at least $2.4 billion for 2018, plus $200 million already committed to the current Alternative Connect America Model Program, said a letter Monday in docket 10-90 from ITTA, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA. "A portion of the budget should be provided to current A-CAM plan participants to enable them to receive support at the level initially offered to them in 2016 (i.e. $200/month per location)." They also proposed an "inflation factor," "baseline funding" that eliminates the need for a support "floor," and no new model-based offers until the existing mechanisms are "sufficiently funded." It's a "collaborative approach to building consensus around a set of shared proposals that, if adopted, will establish predictable USF funding," said Lynn Follansbee, USTelecom vice president-law and policy. "We hope the Commission moves quickly toward finalizing reforms.” Pai said Monday he plans a draft order on model-based RLEC business data services for the Oct. 23 commissioners' meeting (see 1810010027).
Chairman Ajit Pai said Monday the FCC will consider rules at the Oct. 23 commissioners' meeting allowing Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band and revising rules for the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band. Those were expected (see 1808310026). The FCC would post the draft items Tuesday, three weeks before the meeting. Also on tap is a draft order to update model-based support for rural telcos, media modernization on cable rate regulation and broadcast filing requirements and items on private land mobile radio (PLMR) services and enforcement.
“We cannot afford to fixate on infrastructure builds alone,” ex-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Wednesday in livestreamed remarks at the Great Lakes Connect event in Fairlawn, Ohio. USF should continue to support affordability through the Lifeline program in addition to infrastructure, “for ‘if you build it, they will come’ only happens when a person can afford the service,” she said. Connecting fiber alone won’t bridge the digital divide; adoption issues like affordability and relevance must also be addressed, Clyburn said. “But strangling the Lifeline program, the nation’s only means-tested universal service program that addresses the cost of voice and broadband service, and allowing only facilities-based providers to offer Lifeline service … will leave an estimated 70 percent of subscribers who cannot afford communications service today without a viable option tomorrow.” As Clyburn spoke, Lifeline advocates held a small rally outside FCC headquarters opposing the agency's proposal to ban resellers from the program (see 1809260029).
The FCC adopted 4-0 an NPRM that proposes to ensure direct-dial 911 calling from centralized phone systems in larger buildings and on campuses, and to ensure "dispatchable location" information is conveyed with emergency calls. At their monthly meeting Wednesday, commissioners also unanimously approved an order to begin auctioning off toll-free phone numbers.
Minnesota asked the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals to review a panel's 2-1 ruling affirming a district court decision that state regulation of interconnected VoIP was pre-empted as an information service, in Charter v. Nancy Lange, No. 17-2290 (see 1809070030). The majority ruling is "inconsistent" with the Telecom Act, and "in conflict" with prior 8th Circuit opinions on USF contributions and Vonage's VoIP service and the Supreme Court's cable modem Brand X ruling, petitioned (in Pacer) the Minnesota Office of Attorney General Friday, on behalf of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, seeking en banc or panel rehearing: "Consideration by the full Court is necessary to ensure uniformity of this Court's decisions." Charter Phone "is a fixed, interconnected VoIP service with the ability to determine whether calls are interstate or intrastate," Minnesota said. "Under the plain terms of this Court's Vonage III ruling and Paragraph 56 of the FCC's USF Order quoted therein, the MPUC has jurisdiction over Charter Phone." It also cited a 2017 8th Circuit ruling upholding a district court decision relying on that USF language as applied in Vonage III "observing that the FCC explicitly said that the Vonage preemption order does not apply to providers with the ability to track the jurisdiction of customer calls and such providers are subject to state regulation." Pillsbury Winthrop's Glenn Richards, representing the Voice on the Net Coalition, which backed Charter, emailed he's "disappointed, but not surprised" by the petition: "I don’t see any issues raised in the petition that are likely to result in a different decision by the full court.” Charter Communications didn't comment Monday.
Judges questioned a Sandwich Isles Communications attorney's assertions the FCC backed the carrier's Hawaiian Island undersea cable project before reducing its related access charge revenue. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also questioned FCC and AT&T attorneys extensively in oral argument Monday. SIC is challenging a 2016 FCC order that prospectively disallowed all but $1.9 million of its annual access collections from a National Exchange Carrier Association rural telco pooling mechanism (see 1612060032).