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Requiring Voice over Internet providers to pay legacy access charges “would be a fundamental mistake,” the Voice on the Net Coalition said in comments on the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation rulemaking notice. “The commission is about to embark on real reform of the intercarrier compensation system precisely because the legacy system does not work with modern communications technologies,” VON Executive Director Glenn Richards said in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski posted to dockets 01-92, 07-135, 04-36 and 09-51. “Access charges are part of a regime that regulators designed 30 years ago before the advent of IP-based services.”
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski abandoned trying to use Title II authority in the net neutrality order, but his proposed overhaul of the Universal Service Fund may revive the reclassification debate, an industry official and a former Obama administration adviser each told us. Genachowski wants to refocus the fund to support high-speed broadband, and his staff has drafted a notice of proposed rulemaking that the commission is expected to vote on next week. Congress is poised to jump into the universal service deliberations (CD Jan 28 p4).
Satellite broadband should play a larger role in a revamped Universal Service Fund than AT&T Senior Vice President Bob Quinn suggested Thursday (CD Jan 28 p4), WildBlue replied. “We don’t understand the mindset that says satellite broadband is just ‘part of the mix,'” said WildBlue General Counsel Lisa Scalpone. “In reality, satellite broadband is the most important part of bringing the cost of the USF fund down -- and lowering the USF tax bill that has to be paid by the American taxpayers. If you can avoid $15 billion of taxes and still provide 10 Mbps service to every unserved household in America, why wouldn’t we do that? It seems wasteful to overfund broadband service through a higher tax rate on the American taxpayers without considering that satellite broadband will have 10 times its current capabilities by year’s end and can solve much of the problem in the most cost effective manner."
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The FCC will consider reverse auctions as part of its overhaul of the universal service fund, two commission officials confirmed. The FCC is already structuring a pilot program that would allow reverse auctions for the mobility fund, but Chairman Julius Genachowksi’s proposed rulemaking notice sets up a separate set of reverse auctions, the officials said.
FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker wants more attention given to satellite spectrum repurposing or incentive auctions, and less for now to broadcasters’ spectrum, she suggested in a recorded interview that was to have aired over the weekend and run again Monday. Speaking on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, she renewed her call for a comprehensive approach to spectrum policy. It must go beyond the recent conversations about redeploying TV stations’ airwaves for wireless broadband and focus on satellite and other areas, she said last week.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is taking an aerial view of revamping universal service and intercarrier compensation in a new rulemaking notice. It takes up in general the necessity of subsidizing and deploying high-speed broadband but leaves contentious questions like the contribution factor for another day, commission and industry officials said. As expected, the FCC circulated a rulemaking notice late Tuesday for the commission meeting Feb. 8. The commission wants to use “market-driven, incentive based policies and increased accountability” to shift universal service money to “near term support for broadband deployment in unserved areas,” the agency said in a news release. It seeks to adopt measures to address intercarrier compensation (ICC) “arbitrage, as well as a long-term transition from current high-cost support and ICC mechanism to a single, fiscally responsible Connect America Fund,” the FCC said.
A mobility fund offering only the $100 million to $300 million proposed by the FCC won’t be enough to meet the many needs for mobile deployment, said CTIA and many of the wireless carriers it represents, in reply comments to the commission. Commenters also said there’s widespread concern about a proposal to use reverse auctions to determine which carriers get funding. The comments arrived at the FCC as it announced that a rulemaking to overhaul the Universal Service Fund is scheduled for a vote at the Feb. 8 commission meeting. (See the related report in this issue.)
Nullification of FCC net neutrality rules through the Congressional Review Act topped a list of communications and technology priorities for Republicans on the House Commerce Committee. Also listed in a staff memo Tuesday as “key issues” this year: Spectrum auction legislation, revamping the commission’s processes, broadband stimulus oversight and a Universal Service Fund overhaul. Colin Crowell, former aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, said on a panel Wednesday at the State of the Net Conference he doubts that the GOP’s planned resolution of disapproval concerning net neutrality will succeed.