AT&T's and T-Mobile’s lobbying punch rose in Q4 compared with the same period last year. T-Mobile, which transitioned from the fourth-largest carrier to the third, spent $1.97 million in 2015’s Q4, well up from the $1.3 million it spent in Q4 a year earlier. AT&T, the largest carrier and now owner of DirecTV, continued its heavyweight spending at $3.49 million, up from the $3.06 million in the same quarter last year. Sprint and Verizon, meanwhile, spent less on lobbying. Sprint dropped to $635,313 this year from $772,658 in that quarter a year earlier, and Verizon spending was $2.52 million, down from $2.97 million a year ago.
Two wireless companies asked the FCC to delay use of an Oklahoma map that will reduce the scope of areas in the state eligible for enhanced tribal Lifeline USF support. Assist Wireless and Easy Wireless backed a request by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (see 1511190020) for an extension of the Feb. 9 FCC deadline for applying the Oklahoma Historical Map to tribal Lifeline support, which offers a $34.25 monthly subsidy for low-income subscriber service instead of the general $9.25/month subsidy. But instead of the OCC's proposed 90-day extension, the FCC should provide a 180-day extension, Assist and Easy said in a filing posted Monday in docket 11-42. "The new map contains poorly-defined borders that have made it impossible to implement," the wireless companies said. "The Commission’s post-hoc consultation with Tribal Nations also has made it futile to even attempt to transition to the new map because the Commission has yet to announce publicly whether that consultation will result in modifications to the boundaries (poorly) depicted in the new map." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently denied Assist's request to stay implementation of the deadline pending further judicial review (Assist Wireless v. FCC, No. 15-1324). In an order, the court also set a schedule for briefs, with petitioners' brief due Feb. 9.
The Alaska Telephone Association called on the FCC to adopt the group's proposals to encourage broadband deployment in the state (the "Alaska Plan"). The commission should approve the Alaska Plan when it overhauls USF support mechanisms for rural rate-of-return carriers, the ATA said in a filing posted Monday in docket 10-90. "In adopting the Plan, the Commission should freeze support at 2011 levels adjusted to account for corporate operations expense limits and the $250 cap per line per month, and include both the incumbent LEC and CETC [competitive eligible telecom carrier] components," said the group, which called the proposals a "carefully coordinated and unified approach" to reforming support for both wireline ILECs and mobile CETCs. General Communications backed the Alaska Plan, the company said in a filing posted Friday on a meeting with agency officials.
Lifeline USF rules in a June FCC order will become effective as early as Feb. 4, said a Wireline Bureau public notice posted Friday in docket 11-42. The rules strengthen document retention requirements, ensure only Eligible Telecom Carriers directly serving low-income customers receive Lifeline reimbursement, and require ETCs to use a uniform snapshot date to request reimbursement, the PN said. Related FCC information collection requirements were modified and approved by the Office of Management and Budget Jan. 5 after a Paperwork Reduction Act review, the PN said, noting parties should expect 10 listed rules “to become effective on or after" Feb. 4. Rural telco groups recently urged the FCC to reconsider the snapshot rule that requires ETCs to report their Lifeline subscriber numbers as of the first of each month. The requirement will at times prevent rural ETCs from being reimbursed for providing Lifeline benefits, said John Staurulakis Inc., NTCA and WTA in a filing posted Wednesday. “To eliminate the need for costly billing system changes or the use of burdensome manual processes ... the Commission should allow RLEC ETCs to take a ‘snapshot’ of their number of subscribers as of their carrier-specific billing dates,” they said. Addressing the FCC’s current rulemaking to modernize Lifeline, the rural groups voiced concerns about proposed use of a third party to verify consumer low-income eligibility. Saying rural consumers were accustomed to ETCs taking care of such administrative details, they asked the commission to allow them to collect and forward eligibility documents to any third-party verifier. In a filing posted Friday, Public Knowledge repeated support for expanding Lifeline to broadband coverage and further explained why it believed the FCC has legal authority to allow service to be provided by non-ETCs. FCC officials have said they could act soon on the rulemaking. “We’re hopeful for February, and if not February, then we’re very hopeful for March,” Phillip Berenbroick, PK counsel-government affairs, told us.
The National Exchange Carrier Association backed a FairPoint Communications request for an FCC declaratory ruling on cost recovery the telco said it's due under Connect America Fund (CAF) and intercarrier compensation (ICC) transition rules. "NECA agrees the specific CAF-ICC rules governing such calculations are unclear, and supports issuance of a ruling by the Commission clarifying application of the rules in the particular circumstances faced by FairPoint," said a filing posted Friday in docket 10-90 from the group, which administers certain telco cost-recovery pooling mechanisms. "NECA stands ready to revise and refile with the Commission FairPoint’s [eligible recovery] amounts for the periods beginning January 1, 2015 and forward as directed by the Commission, should the Commission agree with FairPoint." FairPoint, which receives USF support as a price-cap telco but is regulated as a rate-of-return carrier under the ICC transition, said rules to prevent double recovery are unjustly preventing it from collecting $4.2 million in annual revenue it formerly received from local switching support (LSS) (see 1512110070). If the FCC disagrees with FairPoint's interpretation, NECA asked it to clarify that FairPoint isn't entitled to recover LSS-related revenue requirements through NECA pools. The FCC invited comments by Tuesday (see 1512180033).
The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB) got support from the American Hospital Association on its December petition seeking fundamental changes to the FCC’s rural healthcare (RHC) USF program. USTelecom said the FCC should reject the petition out of hand, a position supported by other groups representing wireline companies. Comments were filed in docket 02-60.
Public Knowledge wants to build on victories for net neutrality and against cable concentration, officials said at a Thursday news-media briefing on the group's 2016 agenda. The biggest threat to the open Internet “is the persistent cable broadband stranglehold over how citizens, consumers get access to video streaming, apps, devices, traditional TV content they want,” said President Gene Kimmelman. “So, this is going to be a year that we go all-out to break that stranglehold. It ranges from the set-top box to programming contracts to the actual transmission itself.” Net neutrality was just one battle in a broader fight that continues “against cable dominance,” he said.
AT&T compared FCC partial relief for telcos to a kid shoveling only half a sidewalk after a snowstorm. In a blog post Wednesday, Vice President-Federal Regulatory Hank Hultquist noted the FCC in December partially denied a USTelecom petition that the agency forbear from applying various regulations, including a request that price-cap ILECs be relieved of universal service obligations where they no longer receive USF support (see 1512170052). “In explaining this denial, the FCC sounds an awful lot like a kid explaining why he shoveled only part of the sidewalk,” he said. “Of course, the FCC knows that it has not provided sufficient universal service support for these high-cost and extremely high-cost areas. But it hopes to escape its responsibility by invoking the farcical claim that price cap ILECs continue to be 'eligible' for other universal service support (e.g., Lifeline) in these areas.” Hultquist termed “ridiculous” FCC arguments that USTelecom didn't make the case for USF relief and that AT&T data was lacking because the agency didn’t adopt a related cost model. "If the FCC doesn’t want to fund universal service obligations in these areas, it should just get rid of them, as USTelecom asked it to do,” he said. “Unfortunately, the FCC appears determined to try to maintain the obligations without taking responsibility for them. I think it’s time for someone -- like an appellate court or Congress -- to tell them to pick up the shovel and do the job right.” AT&T has challenged the order and a related previous order in court (see 1601110036). The FCC had no comment Wednesday. Chairman Tom Wheeler had proposed some extra USF voice support for carriers, but Commissioner Ajit Pai said it was inadequate and an agency majority didn't vote for it.
NTCA said many rural carriers can't estimate their company-specific impact of the FCC’s “potential bifurcated approach” to updating rate-of-return USF mechanisms for broadband coverage. Reform details remain unsettled, the RLEC group said, and “average schedule” carriers have access only to “industrywide aggregate ‘price-outs’ that” are unlikely to reflect their particular results, and to their own spreadsheets consisting of “hundreds, if not thousands, of inputs,” which also remain works in progress. “We encouraged the Commission to remain open to simpler, more straightforward ways of achieving the same goals of reform via 'modules' (e.g., new limits or policy changes) that could be applied to any distributional mechanism rather than creating substantial new complexity by remaking the underlying distribution calculations,” NTCA said in a filing on an FCC meeting it had that was posted Monday in docket 10-90. It backed “sensible transitions” to how the costs of prior investments would be treated -- such as operating expense limits -- under an overhaul, including the proposed bifurcated approach, which would generally treat old investments under old rules and new investments under new rules. It's unclear how new limits or caps on prior investments, most of all sunk costs, would be consistent with the bifurcated approach, the group said, but if they're instituted, carriers would need time to adjust.
Tracfone drew a line in the sand with AT&T and the FCC on Lifeline USF, as the agency considers expanding the low-income support program to broadband and overhauling its administration. Much of AT&T’s view is built on the belief that Lifeline is not a “service” but a “benefit” to be provided to consumers, such as provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps), Tracfone said in a filing posted Monday in docket 11-42, responding to a recent AT&T letter (see 1512220050). But “Lifeline is not a benefit; it is a service provided by eligible telecommunications carriers to qualified low-income households,” the wireless reseller said. It said the service designation was expressly spelled out in sections 54.401(a) and 54.401(c) of the FCC’s rules and Section 254(b)(3) of the Communications Act. "The Lifeline program was conceived by the Commission as a service program; it was codified as such; and any conversion of the program from a service program to what AT&T calls a ‘benefit’ a la SNAP, would require enabling legislation,” Tracfone said. “Nothing in the Communications Act ... provides any authority for the Commission to re-invent Lifeline as a direct government to consumer benefit.” Tracfone also disputed AT&T arguments that switching carriers under Lifeline is complicated. It said AT&T’s “real reason” for proposing to convert Lifeline to a SNAP-type benefits program is stated in its letter: "The information and processes required to achieve this discounting is unique to Lifeline consumers and has no other business purpose. As a result, much is performed through manual methods." AT&T added a footnote saying it was "uneconomic" to automate related systems, said the reseller. "AT&T is candidly stating that investment of the systems needed to provide Lifeline service to consumers is more trouble to it than it is worth," Tracfone said.