Wireless carriers may get less in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan than meets the eye, commission officials indicated Monday. Although the plan recommends that 300 MHz of spectrum be made available for wireless broadband over the next five years and 500 MHz total over 10 years, FCC officials made clear Monday that not all will be dedicated to licensed use. The plan also provides substantial detail in its recommendations for the Universal Service Fund, including a phase-out of the high-cost fund. The plan will be presented to FCC commissioners Tuesday. They won’t vote on the plan, only on a mission statement setting out goals for U.S. broadband policy.
The proposed Universal Service Fund contribution increase to 15.3 percent for the 2010 second quarter is no surprise, but continues to show the need for reform, said Steve Berry, CEO of Rural Cellular Association. “We knew it was coming,” he said in an interview. “But the commission has to reform the current process and restructure USF.” Berry said wireless carriers, whose contributions are capped, are not to blame: “The issue is you have a wireline component that loses subscribers every year but their contributions increase every year.” There’s “an antiquated system that supports an antiquated technology and we haven’t figured out a way to reduce that support as people choose to go with different technologies."
Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., of the House Communications Subcommittee is “very close” to completing his Universal Service Fund bill and hopes to take it to markup sometime this month, he told reporters Wednesday. “We are spending many hours every day working to finalize it” and “get the consent of stakeholders,” he said after a House Commerce Committee markup. (See separate report in this issue.) He wouldn’t say whether he will introduce the bill before or after the FCC’s National Broadband Plan is released. Boucher and the FCC share a goal to switch the fund to supporting broadband, but “the methodology may prove to be somewhat different,” he said. “We will review that broadband plan when it comes forward very carefully, and then we'll be making well-informed decisions as we pursue these goals together.” Boucher said he’s also working hard on his privacy bill, but action on that likely will wait until after USF. “We are working simultaneously on both drafts.” Boucher plans to release a discussion draft in the “near term,” but he wouldn’t specify a date. He said he wants privacy legislation to preserve “all the legitimate advertising practices,” adding, “Our goal is not to interfere with legitimate targeted advertising [or] behavioral advertising practices. Our goal is to give Internet users a greater confidence that their experience on the Web is secure.” Boucher declined to give an example of a legitimate practice before he circulates a discussion draft.
The Wireless Bureau must play an equal role with the Wireline Bureau in FCC Universal Service Fund “reform” efforts, Rural Carrier Association CEO Steve Berry wrote Chairman Julius Genachowski. “The fact that the wireless industry is underrepresented on USAC’s Board of Directors and on the Universal Service Federal-State Joint Board further underscores the challenges that rural and regional wireless carriers face in having their concerns addressed,” RCA said. “While RCA applauds the FCC’s efforts to overhaul the USF, RCA is greatly concerned that the interests of rural and regional wireless carriers are not adequately represented in the Commission’s deliberative process,” Berry said.
The FCC will issue a white paper following release of the National Broadband Plan urging the expansion of broadband accessibility and adoption among disabled people, commission members said during a Silicon Flatirons event in Washington. A $10 million dollar Universal Service Fund allowance, changes to hearing aid compatibility rules and lowering the cost of assistive devices are some of the major recommendations, the commission said. “Few populations stand to benefit more from broadband than the millions of Americans with disabilities,” Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “Broadband allows people with disabilities to live independent lives in their communities of choice.”
A “fundamental” recommendation of the National Broadband Plan will be creation of “partnerships” between the government and the private and nonprofit sectors to bring down the cost of computers and monthly broadband service for the poor and to provide free training and applications to help people access education and employment information online, said Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan Tuesday at the Digital Inclusion Summit, co-hosted by the FCC. “The government can’t do it alone,” Donovan said. Tuesday’s summit included four of the five FCC commissioners and members of Congress. It came a week before formal unveiling of the National Broadband Plan by the FCC. The Tuesday meeting was also hosted by the Knight Foundation.
Claims that free conference calling services benefit incumbent local exchange carriers are misleading, said AT&T and Qwest executives, reacting to a recent report by Information Age Economics (CD March 4 p12). “The report makes a claim that free conference calling is good because it stimulates business,” said Hank Hultquist, an AT&T vice president. “If we really thought that were the case, it’s something we would have done on our own.”
Proposals to overhaul the Universal Service Fund mechanism including eliminating funding for voice-only networks will involve 10 years of transforming the high-cost fund into the Connect America Fund, the FCC said Friday. That’s intended to extend broadband service and provide ongoing support in certain areas without increasing the overall USF $8 billion cap, the agency officials told reporters. The proposed change is an attempt to transition from supporting voice telephone services to using funds to deliver broadband networks, said Omnibus Broadband Initiative Executive Director Blair Levin.
The Alliance of Rural CMRS Carriers asked the FCC to impose an interim cap on per-line universal support for all incumbent local exchange carriers, freezing payouts at March 2008 or March 2010 levels. The filing came almost two years after the FCC imposed a cap on universal service payments to competitive eligible telecommunications carriers (CETCs) in May 2008. Rural carriers lost a challenge to that order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The FCC shouldn’t rush to reclassify broadband as a Title II service, even if as expected the agency loses in the Comcast case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, said Helgi Walker, the attorney who argued the case for Comcast. She spoke during a discussion Wednesday hosted by the Federalist Society. The court’s decision is likely to be narrow enough that it won’t seriously undermine FCC authority in other areas, she said.