Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., is eyeing opportunities for finding “some funding for infrastructure” that would include broadband, she said Thursday during a Senate Broadband Caucus event. She said she wants to advance a tax overhaul package next year in that vein. “I’m really excited for the election to be over, so we can work on this,” said Klobuchar, a co-chairwoman of the caucus. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and other caucus co-chairs Angus King, I-Maine, and John Boozman, R-Ark., also spoke at the event. NTIA Associate Administrator Doug Kinkoph said the broadband stimulus grants of the Obama administration are “nearing the end” of their lifetime. Grant recipients were “very successful,” he said, also citing the importance of the open access requirements: “Our job’s not done.” He said the administration’s Broadband Opportunity Council is helpful in “breaking down” silos among federal agencies and said some agencies are “restricted by current authorizing language,” perhaps needing changes. “There’s considerable legwork that needs to be done,” Kinkoph said of the value of partnerships in addressing broadband through such stimulus projects. “You need a champion in the community.” FCC Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey noted the agency’s “really good relationship” with the Rural Utilities Service, located physically close to commission headquarters. She said she briefed RUS staffers after major relevant FCC actions, such as this year’s rate of return overhaul: “We do a lot of coordination.” There’s a memorandum of understanding with RUS “that allows us to share proprietary information,” which the FCC and RUS does, Mattey said. Cooperative Finance Corp. Senior Vice President Robin Reed lauded broadband as “great at retaining population” for rural communities, especially younger residents. She cited a shift in telecom spending in recent years and said the FCC 2011 USF order “caused companies to defer investment in infrastructure," which she hopes will change soon. CEO Shirley Bloomfield noted NTCA’s attention to gigabit speeds and Google Fiber: “Who knew that a rural telecom company can be cool and sexy? But they can be.”
Parties continued to offer a jumble of views on the FCC inquiry into whether advanced telecom capability (ATC) is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely way, as reply comments were posted Wednesday and Thursday in docket 16-245. CTIA said U.S. mobile broadband deployment was "the envy of the world, and by any reasonable metric" must be found to satisfy the mandate in Section 706 of the Telecom Act. The Wireless Infrastructure Association agreed, saying new mobile benchmarks aren't needed and the FCC should decline to require that both fixed and mobile service be available to reach a positive determination. But U.S. Cellular cited evidence in the record for a negative mobile broadband finding and requiring both mobile and fixed broadband availability in assessing ATC deployment. It also said "faulty data is compromising" FCC ability to make accurate mobile broadband evaluations, particularly in rural areas, and backed a new proceeding to fix the problem. T-Mobile said "constraints on critical input resources" continued to impede broadband availability, particularly spectrum for mobile broadband. The Wireless ISP Association said there is strong support for the FCC's proposal to keep its 25/3 Mbps fixed ATC standard. WISPA opposed a fiber group's proposal to use deployment of all-fiber networks, instead of data speed, as the standard, as well as Netflix's "self-serving proposal to introduce regulation of data caps and other usage-based pricing plans." Adtran voiced similar concerns about those proposals and a Deere proposal targeting broadband in agricultural areas. NTCA also backed the 25/3 Mbps fixed (and satellite broadband) standard, but is concerned about the "lingering inconsistency" with lower speed requirements for rural USF support. But the Utilities Technology Council said the fixed standard should be raised to at least 50/20 Mbps and take into account factors such as latency and jitter. The Power & Contractors Association also suggested the fixed standard be raised. ViaSat said the FCC should fully consider satellite broadband in making its ATC determination and opposed consideration of jitter. The Free State Foundation said any fair assessment of the facts would find broadband is being reasonably deployed to all Americans. Will Rinehart, technology director at the American Action Forum, said the FCC should focus on removing investment barriers and lower the speed threshold to an "economically supported competitive level of broadband service."
The FCC denied three waiver requests by telcos on new rate-of-return USF rules for support carriers can receive based on an Alternative Connect America Fund broadband cost model (A-CAM). A Wireline Bureau order Wednesday in docket 10-90 denied a petition from Shawnee Telephone and Moultrie Independent Telephone to waive commission decisions "to exclude census blocks served by fiber to the premises (FTTP) from the support calculations; and (2) not to make an offer of model-based support to any rate-of-return carrier that has deployed 10/1 Mbps broadband to 90 percent or more of its eligible locations in the relevant state." The bureau also denied a Baraga Telephone request to waive a March 30, 2016, deadline for submitting Form 477 data used to determine a rural carrier’s percentage of broadband deployment for purposes of making an A-CAM support offer, and it denied a Clarity Telecom request to waive a deadline for submitting Form 477 data used to identify census blocks served by FTTP or cable technologies.
Change is coming to Washington, D.C., and to the regulatory landscape after the November auction, said Steve Berry, Competitive Carriers Association president, in a speech Wednesday live-streamed from CCA’s annual meeting in Seattle. Competitive carriers need to be prepared because "lots of changes" are coming, Berry said. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told CCA in a Tuesday keynote he would press for a new mobility fund to pay for wireless buildout in rural areas and for changes to data roaming rules (see 1609200058).
Drafting FCC orders for business data services (BDS) and broadband privacy is a top priority for the Wireline Bureau, said bureau Chief Matt DelNero at an FCBA event Wednesday. DelNero said Chairman Tom Wheeler continues to urge industry rivals to achieve as much agreement as possible on the regulatory treatment of a BDS market generating at least $45 billion in annual revenue. The bureau is also busy carrying out past commission decisions, particularly regarding overhauls of various USF mechanisms, he said.
Chairman Tom Wheeler promised the FCC will take up an order addressing a second phase of its mobility fund by the end of the year. It will also soon release Form 477 data that shows a mobility fund is necessary and too many locations remain unserved, Wheeler said at the Competitive Carriers Association annual meeting, in remarks streamed from Seattle.
The National Tribal Telecommunications Association gave the FCC more details on two proposals to promote tribal broadband deployment. NTTA has asked the FCC to waive or modify an operations-expense limitation for rural carriers that predominantly serve tribal locations, and adopt a tribal broadband factor that provides more USF support to carriers serving tribal lands. Fourteen carriers would qualify for the opex relief if a predominantly tribal carrier is defined as having more than 75 percent of its served locations on tribal lands, and 19 carriers would be eligible if the FCC required only a majority of locations to be on tribal lands, said an NTTA filing Friday in docket 10-90 that cited analysis Alexicon did for the group. It said the impact on the overall distribution of high-cost rate-of-return USF support would be "negligible," though the impact on the affected carriers would be "significant," allowing them to deploy and maintain their broadband infrastructure. NTTA said 112 carriers would be eligible for a tribal broadband factor (TBF), but it expected the number that would elect to receive the extra support would be lower, given the "very small number" of tribal locations that many serve along with proposed buildout duties and reporting requirements. The filing offered further details on NTTA's proposals, including to cap the tribal broadband factor at $25 million annually, and establish a buildout schedule that would require deployment to at least 50 percent of TBF-targeted locations within five years, increasing by 10 percentage points a year until achieving 100 percent deployment in year 10. Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC would deal with tribal broadband issues "by the end of football season" (see 1609150058).
FCC staff set a pleading cycle on requests for off-campus E-rate USF support to help students get internet access at home without creating cost-allocation complications for schools. Initial comments are due Nov. 3, replies Dec. 5, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Monday in docket 13-184. One petition filed June 7 by Microsoft, Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. and others seeks to use TV white space technology in Charlotte and Halifax counties, Virginia. The other petition filed May 16 by the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic on behalf of the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado seeks to allow nearby housing authorities to connect to the school system's self-provisioned fiber network. "The petitions request that the Commission allow E-rate subsidized broadband networks to be accessed by students at home for educational purposes, without an obligation on the E-rate applicant to cost allocate the portion of the traffic attributable to off-campus use;" said the PN. Separately, Funds for Learning met with bureau staffers to discuss analysis of funding year 2016 E-rate funding data and responses to a nationwide survey of E-rate applicants. More than 118,000 school and library sites benefited from the E-rate program affecting over 50 million K-12 students and millions of library patrons, said a filing. It said the number of gigabit or faster connections more than doubled in the past year; half of applicants who considered a self-provisioned network believe it lowered their per-megabit pricing; 22 percent expect their broadband internet connection speeds to at least double in the next three years, while just 10 percent expect their speeds to be unchanged; there's broad support for restoring E-rate discounts for phone service; and the vast majority found Universal Service Administrative Co.'s new online E-rate portal "made the application process significantly more difficult and time-consuming."
The California Public Utilities Commission agreed to reduce the phone bill surcharge rate for the state low-income fund to 4.75 percent from 5.5 percent, effective Nov. 1. At a meeting Thursday, commissioner unanimously approved that and several other telecom items on its consent agenda. The new rate for California LifeLine “strikes a good balance between sufficient revenues to meet anticipated growth in participation and maintain a positive program fund balance,” CPUC said in a draft of the order. The surcharge applies to all telecom carriers and interconnected VoIP providers. As of June 30, more than 2.1 million customers were enrolled in LifeLine, the CPUC said. The previous surcharge was in effect since Oct. 1, and was meant “to increase program fund reserves and meet increased program growth from wireless customers,” it said. Communications Division (CD) "analysis shows that current CA LifeLine surcharge may be reduced to 4.75% due to adequate fund reserves, even though CD expects an increase in program participation during the second half of FY 2016-17.” The CPUC noted a declining billing base for the fund, a trend seen in other state USF funds (see 1607010010), due to fewer landlines, dropping prices and an increasing number of wireless carriers reporting intrastate revenue using the FCC safe harbor formula. Also at the meeting, CPUC agreed to an AT&T Mobility motion to dismiss a complaint against the telco by O1 Communications. O1 sought an order prohibiting AT&T from disconnecting direct connections between their networks. But the commission found the complaint procedurally defective because it failed to state a cause of action for which relief could be granted. “Nothing in California or federal law or Commission orders requires AT&T Mobility Wireless to directly interconnect with O1 Communications network,” CPUC said in the proposed decision. Also, the commission granted a certificate allowing eNetworks to provide full facilities-based and resold competitive local exchange service throughout territories of AT&T, Frontier Communications, Consolidated Communications and Citizens Telecommunications, and full facilities-based and resold interchange services statewide. And it granted a certificate to Mobilitie Management to provide resold and limited facilities-based competitive local exchange telecom services.
The FCC proposed a Q4 USF contribution factor of 17.4 percent of carrier interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, said the Office of Managing Director in a public notice Monday in docket 96-45. It will be deemed approved if the agency doesn't act on it within 14 days, the PN said. Industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg had predicted the Q4 factor would fall to 17.4 percent from Q3's 17.9 percent (see 1609010062).