The FCC still plans to move forward on net neutrality rules, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday without specifying the timing or the legal basis. “We have terrific, smart lawyers trying to figure out the best way, the best basis on which we can rest rules, number one” he said at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. “That will happen. The other thing is, we've been doing a lot of work to make sure we get the rules right,” so they promote “innovation and investment throughout the ecosystem.”
ATLANTA -- The Rural Utilities Service will help the FCC carry out the National Broadband Plan, revamp the Universal Service Fund and accomplish other goals, Administrator Jonathan Adelstein said Tuesday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners conference.
ATLANTA -- The FCC is “moving forward strongly on implementation of the National Broadband Plan,” including fixing the spectrum, intercarrier compensation and Universal Service Fund systems, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, speaking at a NARUC annual meeting for the first time. Two areas in which innovation is essential are broadband and the smart grid, said Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. NTIA has identified government spectrum for commercial broadband, he said. (See separate story in this issue.)
ATLANTA -- The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners Telecommunications Committee approved a resolution urging Congress to ensure NTIA and RUS have adequate funds to continue oversight of the BTOP and BIP grant and loan awards. Also at the group’s annual meeting, it passed a resolution supporting expeditious FCC action on abusive so-called traffic pumping.
The FCC nomadic VoIP order doesn’t seek to include providers in the Texas USF program, but it would be appropriate to initiate a rulemaking to further explore the issue, Texas Public Utilities Commissioner Donna Nelson wrote in a memo. Such an inclusion would affect the total revenue generated by the assessment, she said. The FCC order will require nomadic VoIP providers to pay state USF (CD Nov 8 p3).
The FCC no longer appears likely to take on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation proposals at its Dec. 15 meeting, FCC officials said last week. With USF likely off the agenda until the new year, it’s unclear what will be on the agenda at the last open meeting of 2010.
The FCC’s order Friday that requires nomadic VoIP providers to pay into state Universal Service Funds and federal USF could lead to more regulatory activities in some states, officials said in interviews. The order (CD Nov 8 p2) had been expected since September, when Kansas and Nebraska amended their petition to the FCC by deleting language that would have allowed states to assess fees retroactively.
African-Americans and Hispanics are still less likely to use broadband Internet in their homes even when they attain the same education and income levels as whites, a government report said. Nearly 87 percent of urban and nearly 76 percent of rural, college-educated white families used broadband in their homes in 2009. But for black families with the same education, the percentages were about 77 percent in cities and 56 percent in the countryside; for college-educated Hispanics, the percentages were almost 78 percent in cities and about 69 percent in the country, the Commerce Department said in a report released Monday.
The FCC should help poor families enroll automatically in Lifeline and Link-Up, adopt minimum national standards for eligibility, seek comment on whether to set up a national database to check enrollment, publish rules on how Lifeline carriers reach out to the public and seek comment on whether families should be eligible for the programs when their income is 150 percent of the poverty level, instead of the current 135 percent, the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service recommended Friday. The joint board also recommended that the FCC use USF to support broadband access. The FCC had asked the board for its thoughts “on how to improve” the USF program “given changes that include increasing migration to wireless service and the increased importance of broadband.” Federal joint-board Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps agreed and concurred in part. Clyburn said she wants the commission to publish a comparative guide for Lifeline customers. She also said the FCC “should review whether the current state of competition for Lifeline products is insufficient to protect consumers.” Copps said he worried that the joint board’s review was too narrow. “I would simply note here that the need for universal service support for broadband is one of many reasons I continue to urge Title II reclassification and our decision today does nothing to temper my support for that course of action,” he wrote. Chairman Ray Baum of Oregon’s Public Utility Commission, a joint board member, concurred and dissented in part. He said the joint board didn’t focus enough on waste, fraud and abuse. “I am disappointed that we did not offer specific recommendations for tougher eligibility verification standards, to be implemented now, to stem the waste, fraud and abuse that appears to be occurring,” Baum wrote.
Nomadic VoIP providers will have to pay into state Universal Service funds as well as the federal USF, the FCC ruled Friday. In a 5-0 declaratory ruling published late Friday, the commission ruled in favor of a request by the Kansas and Nebraska utilities commissions. That would let states assess USF fees on nomadic VoIP.