FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed rules providing a new framework for “the vast majority” of pole attachments under federal jurisdiction by imposing a one-touch, make-ready” (OTMR) regime. An accompanying declaratory ruling attacks local or state moratoriums on new wireless and wireline facilities. The order and declaratory ruling are set for a vote at commissioners’ Aug. 2 meeting (see 1807110053) along with items on broadcast incubators, repacking reimbursement, a telehealth item and a spectrum/5G auction-related action.
An FCC school and library USF draft order would address a school district request to waive a deadline for appealing Universal Service Administrative Co. denial of its E-rate application, a commission spokesman told us Tuesday. The draft circulated June 29, according to an agency list.
The FCC will auction off three more high-frequency bands in the second half of 2019, Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday as he unveiled the items for an Aug. 2 commissioners’ meeting. Pai said the meeting will focus on 5G, with draft rules for the first high-band spectrum auctions targeted for a vote. Pai also tentatively plans votes on a draft order to adopt "one-touch, make-ready" pole attachments and bar state and locality moratoriums on network buildouts, a draft order on broadcast ownership diversification through incubators and a draft notice of inquiry on creating a $100 million telehealth pilot program.
The FCC should try harder to thaw the separations freeze, two state members of the Joint Board on Separations and the state chair of the Joint Board on Universal Service said in interviews ahead of NARUC's summer meeting. They complained that the federal side of the Joint Board isn’t engaging to update separations factors set more than 30 years ago and first temporarily frozen in 2001. NARUC members plan to vote next week in Scottsdale, Arizona, on asking the FCC to extend the freeze’s 2018 expiration by two years, and other draft resolutions related to the Lifeline national verifier, IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) and a precision agriculture bill pending in Congress (see 1807030052).
Q Link Wireless asked the FCC to ensure application programming interfaces (APIs) are implemented by the Universal Service Administrative Co. in a USF Lifeline national verifier, to permit eligible telecom carriers (ETCs) "to exchange information with USAC, including information necessary to establish eligibility, on a machine-to-machine basis when consumers seek to enroll" in the low-income program. USAC’s current implementation "will be unnecessarily difficult and confusing for consumers, especially rural Americans; will expose consumers to phishing fraud by unscrupulous individuals; and will increase the National Verifier’s annual operating costs by tens of millions of dollars," said Q Link's emergency petition in docket 17-287 Thursday. "There are right ways and wrong ways to do things, and USAC’s current path is the wrong way."
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., urged the FCC Thursday to view the University of Mississippi Medical Center's Center for Telehealth and its partnership with C Spire as national models “for telehealth expansion across” the U.S. as the agency examines ways to provide rural telehealth access beyond the confines of the USF Rural Health Care Program. The FCC issued an order last month raising the RHCP cap to $571 million to account for 20 years of inflation and address a funding shortfall and rising demand. The Pai-proposed order got unanimous support from the commissioners (see 1806060057, 1806140017, 1806190063 and 1806250042). The UMMC-C Spire partnership “allows rural patients to take preventative steps and avoid hospital stays, reducing costs and greatly improving patient outcomes,” Wicker said in a letter to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. “Supporting this type of partnership will open access to critical telehealth services for the estimated 23.4 million rural Americans who lack broadband today.”
CTIA said the FCC is in no position to determine if any telecom companies are a threat to U.S. security, and it should work with the Department of Homeland Security, which has more expertise in the area. Other commenters also urged caution. The Rural Wireless Association said the FCC has already chilled investment in rural networks. Reply comments were posted this week in docket 18-89 on the NPRM approved 5-0 by commissioners in April (see 1804170038).
U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City dismissed CTIA’s lawsuit against the Public Service Commission related to connections-based USF contribution policy. The court Tuesday granted a joint motion (in Pacer) by CTIA and the PSC after the parties told the court in May that they were trying to resolve their dispute (see 1805080019). “CTIA is pleased that the Commission’s rulemaking process reached a successful conclusion," a spokesperson emailed. A PSC spokesperson declined to comment. The wireless association earlier sued the Nebraska PSC in Nebraska Court of Appeals for agreeing to move to a connections method at an unspecified date (see 1804120046).
“It would be statutorily permissible” for the Missouri USF to support broadband-only services, even though state laws are “unclear,” Public Service Commission staff commented Monday in docket TX-2018-0120. AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink and the Missouri Cable Telecommunications Association said the PSC lacks this authority. Expanding state Lifeline to support broadband and creating a new high-cost program within Missouri USF "exceeds the Commission’s authority under current law and raises significant policy matters,” said AT&T. USF support is limited to local voice services; adding broadband support would create a “mismatch” between contributing and supported services because “assessments fall solely on the state’s diminishing customer base of wireline voice services,” said the state’s biggest ILEC. The FCC bars states from requiring fixed and mobile broadband internet access services (BIAS) to contribute to USF, it said. CenturyLink said there are many statutory constraints to PSC authority over broadband, showing “the need for a legislative mandate that establishes both clear broadband policy priorities and a clear demarcation between detailed legislative prescriptions and matters delegated to the Commission.” Supporting broadband may not be necessary with the federal Connect America Fund, it said. “With an active multi-year effort underway by the FCC and broadband providers to implement the CAF programs, Missouri needs to be extremely careful in developing a State-sanctioned program for increasing broadband availability.” Twenty-five small phone companies supported expanding state USF to include BIAS. “This would be consistent with" FCC action "expanding the federal Lifeline program and recognize that essential telecommunications services no longer are limited to voice service but should also include access to Broadband services,” the small carriers commented.
Smith Bagley Inc. asked the FCC to extend a July 1 Lifeline deadline by one month for implementing standard form requirements in the USF low-income program. The Lifeline-backed wireless provider has been working on incorporating Universal Service Administrative Co. language into its forms and process flows, but USAC May 30 provided guidance that amounted to "new" substantive requirements, said its petition for a limited waiver posted Monday in docket 11-42. It said USAC instructed providers not to "re-format, re-order, condense, or change the layout in any way" and to ensure online form sections are in the same order as paper forms. "SBI was required to revisit" the forms it was developing and "redesign the process flow within its billing system," it said, noting it would be only partially compliant on July 1. "These changes must then be submitted to SBI’s billing vendor, who then must build the changes into the billing system architecture."