The FCC’s proposed mobility fund is too small to help build out 3G broadband for the nation’s under-served areas, T-Mobile, the Rural Telecommunications Group and South Dakota-based Flow Mobile said in comments filed in docket 10-208 and released Friday. Verizon and Windstream disagreed, saying the fund was appropriate. Verizon, in fact, went further and said that not only is the $100-$300 million proposed mobility fund adequate, but the FCC should phase out other support for competitive eligible telecommunications providers.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s plans to add net neutrality rules under the agency’s existing Title I authority comes as a relief to satellite broadband companies, said an industry executive. Under the Title I approach, satellite broadband would not be subject to Universal Service Fund contributions, as could have been the case had the agency gone forward with Title II reclassification, said Steven Doiron, director of regulatory affairs at Hughes Network Systems. Although the details of Genachowski’s plan haven’t been released, the FCC’s efforts aren’t expected to have major impact on satellite broadband providers’ businesses otherwise, said executives.
House Commerce Committee Democrats probably won’t decide right away whom to vote for to lead Democrats on the Communications Subcommittee, a race that’s being closely watched by the telecom industry, lobbyists from both parties said. They said that those U.S. representatives who are named to the full committee, which will have fewer Democrats come January because Republicans will have a larger proportion of members of the body, likely will meet in January to make their decisions. It’s unclear exactly when the vote will occur because some details of the committee makeup depend on decisions made by the GOP. That party will pick a chairman of the Communications Subcommittee as soon as this week.
The FCC would get its full request of $355.5 million for FY 2011 if Congress approves the latest version of its omnibus spending bill, which was released Tuesday. The bill appropriates $41.5 million for the NTIA, including money for oversight of broadband stimulus grants. The bill also includes an Anti-Deficiency Act exemption of interest to the telecom industry. The Universal Service Fund program needs an annual exemption from ADA, which sets accounting rules for federal programs. Due to USF’s unique accounting methodology, the program would technically violate the Act without the exemption, which must be obtained in every budget cycle. Also of interest, the bill prohibits the FCC from adopting a restriction limiting USF funding to primary lines. Senate Democrats hope to move the 1,900-page bill to the floor within the next week.
Monday’s announcement that the Universal Service Fund contribution factor will hit 15.5 percent in Q1 shows that wireless carriers aren’t responsible for driving up the size of the fund, Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry said Tuesday. “In August 2008, the FCC ordered an ‘interim’ cap on the total support that” competitive eligible telecommunications carriers “can receive based on the notion that wireless carriers were solely responsible for the growth in USF,” Berry said. “Clearly, wireless is not the problem; despite the cap on wireless support, the contribution factor has not only increased, but it is at its highest” level ever. The announcement “further demonstrates the need for forward looking USF reform that funds the choices of consumers,” he said.
The House Commerce Committee took its first steps at naming GOP members beyond the chairman. The office of incoming Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., released a list Friday of 13 others from his party who will be new members of the full committee. Many are new faces to telecom, industry officials and lobbyists said. They said that poses challenges to the communications and high-tech industries, which will have to quickly get members up to speed, and also an opportunity to lobby them.
The dispute involving Comcast, Level 3 and Netflix heralds Internet “management crises” that may not be resolved until Congress enacts permanent net neutrality rules, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast said Friday. There’s a divide over whether it’s a peering dispute -- the position of Comcast and allies -- or a content-discrimination dispute, as Level 3, Netflix and allies say, she told a Practising Law Institute event. “The fact is, it’s both.” Another panelist, from Google, worried about lawsuits over however the FCC proceeds on net neutrality rules. Commissioner Robert McDowell said later that he shares those worries.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to be using Qwest-CenturyLink merger conditions as a “trick shot” way of regulating broadband without reclassifying the service, Cardozo Law Professor Susan Crawford, a former Obama administration telecom adviser, said Thursday. “He’s going to try to get through merger conditions what another regulator would try to get through regulatory authority,” she said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on AirVoice Wireless’ request for forbearance from the requirement that eligible telecommunications carriers provide service over their own facilities. AirVoice’s petition is an effort to obtain universal service support. Wednesday’s public notice comes two days after pay phone companies asked the commission for emergency USF funds, claiming that support for wireless companies is driving them out of business (CD Dec 6 p6). Comments on AirVoice’s petition are due Jan. 7, replies Jan. 24.
Washington’s Metro, the nation’s second largest rail system, is thinking about chucking its pay phones, transit agency’s spokeswoman Angela Gates told us Tuesday. The subway system’s 10-year contract with Verizon will expire next March and no company has responded to solicitations to bid on the contract, Gates said. “All options are open,” Gates said. The potential phase-out was first reported by The Washington Examiner. Like most big telcos, Verizon has stepped back from pay phones. On Monday, independent pay phone operators filed a petition for rulemaking asking the FCC to make an emergency infusion of universal service fund cash to help rescue pay phones from collapse and to consider whether USF should be used to keep some pay phones around (CD Dec 6 p6).