U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan urged the FCC to act quickly on the Connect USVI Fund, slated to make available $204 million for carriers in the hurricane-hit territory (see 1806120015). The fund would build on USF support to bring to the islands “the advanced networks that those living on the mainland take for granted,” the Democrat said in a June 12 letter posted Thursday in docket 18-143. Commit the full proposed amount for the full 10-year term, Bryan said: “In no event should the current level of support, over $16 million per year, be reduced or the Territory risks a substantial decline in its progress.” Funding should support minimum speeds of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload, which is the FCC standard, he said. Support an entity that can do that within two years, Bryan said: “The hardship USVI residents have endured in the eighteen months since the hurricanes struck must not be compounded by avoidable delays” in deployment.
A draft FCC order would reform the Rural Health Care USF program, posted in docket 17-310 and in Friday's Daily Digest. The agency said the RHC updates set for an Aug. 1 meeting vote would reform payment distribution, create a database of payment rates based on geography, direct payment to the areas with the most shortages of healthcare providers if demand exceeds a funding cap, and offer more transparency to applicants. The agency said its steps would "clarify the scope of similar services for rate determination, define the geographic contours of urban and comparable rural areas for rate determination, reassign to the administrator the task of determining urban and rural rates for similar services from health care and service providers, reform the determination of rates based on the median of all available rates for functionally similar services, direct the administrator to create a publicly available database for the posting of urban and rural rates, eliminate the limitation on support for satellite services, and eliminate distance-based support."
Democratic FCC members voiced frustration that discussions on USF contribution revisions haven't progressed more. State officials want to see work on this, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Wednesday after the FCC meeting. She encouraged states to comment to the FCC and not wait for a rulemaking. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, who recently joined a joint advisory board on contribution changes, said he has heard "a lot of strong voices at the state level" who are eager to see the issue vetted. Chairman Ajit Pai said, like Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, that he doesn't support including a fee on broadband access or usage in the USF contribution factor (see 1906250011). O'Rielly said there's no official timeline on a proceeding. He, like others, was answering our questions. Last month, the agency announced the USF contribution factor had grown to its highest ever (see 1906130014).
Broadband provider groups asked the FCC and Universal Services Administrative Co. how to determine when a home-based business is counted as a serviceable location under a USF program (see 1906210010). In comments posted Wednesday and Thursday to docket 10-90, NTCA, ITTA and Midwestern telecom alliances responded to a petition for clarification or declaratory ruling by Northeast Iowa Telephone and Western Iowa Telephone Association on the definition of locations included in the alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM) for residences that also are businesses. NTCA challenged a discrepancy between FCC rules and orders, plus industry practices and realities in rural America, and a USAC FAQ. The USAC document says for a carrier to count a business run out of a house, barn, shed or other structure on a property as a separate serviceable location, there must be a separate facility line or drop to the business apart from that serving the home. NTCA said the FAQ guidance "does not reflect the realities and challenge of deploying networks and delivering services in rural areas." ITTA wants the FCC to rule that home-based businesses registered with a state or other governmental entity and in eligible census blocks "are considered locations and do not require separate subscriptions to facilities to count as such." Such a separate subscription requirement "can be found nowhere in the Commission's rules and orders," said the Iowa Communications Alliance, Minnesota Telecom Alliance and Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association.
The FCC would use two reverse auctions to distribute $20.4 billion in funding over the next decade through a Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) that Chairman Ajit Pai announced at the White House in April (see 1904120008), per a draft NPRM released Thursday. The new USF program (in docket 19-126) would help deliver broadband service tiers of at least 25/3 Mbps to rural communities unserved and underserved. The draft circulated Wednesday; commissioners will vote on it at their Aug. 1 meeting (see 1907100072).
Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin led a letter with House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and 12 other House Democrats Tuesday to the FCC raising concerns with the NPRM to establish new budget caps on the USF (see 1905310069). The agency has extended the comment deadline to July 29, with replies to Aug. 26 (see 1907050023). Others signing on: Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, Cindy Axne of Iowa, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Cheri Bustos of Illinois, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, T.J. Cox of California, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Ro Khanna of California, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Peter Welch of Vermont. They urged Chairman Ajit Pai and the other commissioners “not to establish an overall [USF] cap … or combine the cap of any USF programs, consistent with” the House's voice vote last month to approve Pocan's amendment to the FY 2020 budget bill containing funding for the FCC and FTC (HR-3351) that would prohibit the FCC from instituting an overall USF budget cap (see 1906260081). “Imposing an overall cap on the USF would unnecessarily cut funding” to the programs, the lawmakers said. “As you acknowledge” in the NPRM “the programs currently operate with caps or targeted budgets.” The agency is reviewing the letter, a spokesperson said Wednesday.
A 4-1 NPRM would make permanent a five-year budget approach to funding internal connections (including Wi-Fi) for schools and libraries under the USF E-rate program, the FCC said on docket 13-184 Tuesday. It follows a five-year test period due to expire this year (see 1906190019) that replaced a previous approach granting funds to individual schools and libraries two out of five years. The FCC will consider whether to move to a school-districtwide budget application process and a similar library-systemwide one, and how to address logistical challenges if it does. The agency wants comment on whether it needs to find a new way to calculate funding for small, rural schools and libraries. In a statement of partial dissent, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he "cannot endorse maintaining elements that I have always considered problematic, including the flatly absurd idea" to allocate libraries' E-rate support on a per square foot basis. O'Rielly, partially dissenting, hopes "our next action with respect to E-Rate will be laser-focused on eradicating USF-funded overbuilding" that use Category 1 E-rate funds. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks issued statements endorsing the NPRM (see 1907080068). "In this rulemaking, the agency seeks to sustain and extend the impact of these Wi-Fi policies for future generations of students and library patrons," Rosenworcel said. Starks doesn't support reverting to the prior funding approach because "the lack of certainty of funding under the prior methodology discouraged schools and libraries from applying for funding for Wi-Fi networks." Comments are due 30 days after Federal Register publication, replies 15 days later. The NPRM was adopted June 28.
Requiring Lifeline providers to use a federal database to check if consumers are eligible for government-subsidized, carrier-provided phone and broadband services is causing more concerns from states, as they lose the ability to run their own checks. NARUC members will vote at their July 21- 24 meeting on asking the FCC to halt activation of the national verifier (NV) in any more states this year, and separately on recommending the agency not cap the overall USF. NV rollout prompted concerns subscribers are being dropped from carriers' customer rolls over difficultly verifying eligibility even though they may indeed be eligible (see 1907080009).
Missouri’s USF fund balance won't become negative until May 2043 if the Public Service Commission keeps the current assessment level of 0.001 percent of intrastate revenue, staff said Monday in case TO-2019-0346. Suspending assessment, as proposed by the commission (see 1906050035), would make the fund balance negative by March 2023, while a 0.0005 rate would do it by July 2025 and a 0.0075 rate would mean November 2028, staff said. All projections include staff's recommendation to increase the discount to $24 monthly for subscribers to the disabled program, from $15.75, and to $14.75 for Lifeline subscribers from $6.50.
Quintillion Subsea Operations asked the FCC to revise the competitive bidding process for its rural healthcare and E-rate programs to give competitive carriers more opportunity to receive funds to provide broadband to schools, libraries and hospitals in Alaska, it said in docket 17-310 posted Tuesday. Executives met last week with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, Wireline Deputy Bureau Chief Trent Harkrader and other Wireline officials to share analysis that showed a single carrier receives 75 percent of the funding in Alaska from the two USF programs. Quintillion proposes the FCC extend the review period of service providers from 28 to 90 days, or at least 60 days, to "allow all service providers appropriate time to evaluate and design cost-effective solutions to service requests."