The FCC won’t have an order ready on reverse auctions for the proposed mobility fund until mid-February at the earliest, Chief Margaret Wiener of the Wireless Bureau’s Auctions & Spectrum Access Division said Monday at a Federal Communications Bar Association lunch. In October, the commission opened a rulemaking on whether it should use between $100 million and $300 million left over in the high-cost Universal Service Fund to create a reverse auction in which wireless companies in underserved areas have a chance to win subsidies to build out 3G networks. The comment period for the current rulemaking closes Dec. 16, and replies are due Jan. 17, Wiener said, making it unlikely that an order will be ready to go out before mid-February.
The American Public Communications Council will ask the FCC for an emergency subsidy from Universal Service Fund cash to help keep its pay phone company members from collapsing, the group told us. The emergency petition will be accompanied by a petition for rulemaking asking the commission to consider using its Lifeline program to subsidize pay phones. The petitions could come as early as Monday afternoon, APCC President Willard Nichols said.
Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., hopes to bring certainty to industry next year on long-brewing telecom issues like net neutrality and Universal Service Fund reform, the House Communications Subcommittee member said in an interview last week. Providing subsidies to make broadband more affordable for low-income Americans and addressing fears about lack of privacy online are two important ways to motivate more people to embrace fast Internet service, she said.
Carriers shouldn’t get reimbursed by the Universal Service Fund Link-Up fund for activation charges that the carrier waives or reduces when customers buy extra airtime, said TracFone Wireless in a Dec. 1 petition for declaratory ruling. At least one eligible telecommunications carrier, ReachOut Wireless, is doing that, TracFone said. Also in the petition, TracFone asked the FCC to declare that a carrier receiving Link-Up money for wireline services may not use the money for wireless unless it first gets FCC approval. And TracFone wants the FCC to declare that a carrier must use “some of its own facilities” to be designated as an ETC in a particular state. The FCC should clarify that a carrier can’t cite wireline facilities to meet that requirement if it’s providing wireless services, “unless those wireline facilities are being used to transmit or route the wireless services that are designated for support.” TracFone’s proposed rules “are necessary to ensure that disbursements from the federal USF are only received by properly-designated ETCs and are only used to support services as allowed by the Commission’s rules,” TracFone said.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski formally announced Wednesday that he'll bring a net neutrality order to a vote at the Dec. 21 meeting. The draft had been expected for several days. Genachowski and his staff said they have broad support from industry, public interest and other stakeholders. Senior officials said privately that they had secured no commitments not to challenge the proposed rules in court. Nonetheless, the chances of being sued by a major ISP are much lower if the commission doesn’t reclassify broadband and instead proceeds with net neutrality sticking with its Title 1 authority, industry executives and lawyers said.
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., plans “no changes” to his bill to revamp the Universal Service Fund, he said in an interview last week. He hopes the bill, six years in the making, can be reintroduced early next session, he said. After the election defeat of Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., Terry is looking for a new Democratic co-sponsor.
Problems with the universal service fund and intercarrier compensation are “inextricably related,” so the FCC ought to focus on simultaneous reforms on the two matters, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association urged in recent meetings, according to an ex parte filing published late Thursday. The commission should use broadband data to “inform” its USF disbursements, “immediately adopt” proposals from the National Broadband Plan that would cap USF, eliminate high-cost support for competitive eligible telecommunications carriers, set “a low, uniform terminating rate for all traffic” and be careful to limit access replacement in high-cost support “to areas where it is actually necessary,” the association said in its ex parte. “Any new rules” for intercarrier compensation “should account for the transition to an all-IP world,” NCTA added in its filing.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is trying to push back the Dec. 15 meeting to the 21st or 22nd, agency officials said Friday. That gives him an extra week to decide whether to schedule a vote on net neutrality rules, likely including provisions in legislation introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., plus wireless. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans took off their gloves and signaled they're ready for a fight should Genachowski push forward with net neutrality rules.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., “will remain active” after he departs the Congress at the end of the year, he said in an interview last week. “I'm 64 but I feel pretty young … and I think I'm good for another 20 years doing something.” The outgoing House Communications Subcommittee chairman hopes Congress next year will finish bipartisan work he started on privacy, incentive auctions and a revamped Universal Service Fund.
Another 500 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband won’t meet exploding demand without changes in how carriers use spectrum, former FCC Office of Engineering Technology Chief Dale Hatfield warned. In a speech at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event late Tuesday on the future of digital communications, he also said the commission needs to put more focus on how wireline and wireless solutions can work together to solve the spectrum crisis. “It’s not going to be enough,” Hatfield said. “If the government finds 500 MHz, we're going to chew that bandwidth up really, really, really fast. That’s sort of the challenge, if you will.”