Commissioners voiced support Tuesday for two telehealth items Chairman Ajit Pai announced Monday (see 2003300048). Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said he voted yes before Tuesday's meeting. Brendan Carr had previously said similar. To be approved, FCC actions need three votes. When a chairman circulates an item, it usually signals the chair has voted yes.
FCC commissioners OK'd rules for a $200 million COVID-19 telehealth program late Tuesday, after remaining members voted, agency officials told us. It directs the funds appropriated in the Cares Act. Also OK'd, but without unanimous support, was a three-year, $100 Connected Care pilot funded by USF, agency officials said.
Huawei questioned the legality of rules barring U.S. providers from using its and ZTE's equipment in networks funded by the USF, in comments on implementation of the Secure Networks Act (see 2003120061). Filings were posted in dockets 19-351 and 19-352 Monday. “Since June 2018, Huawei has repeatedly highlighted the constitutional, statutory and procedural flaws in the Commission’s approach to addressing national security risks to the communications supply chain,” the Chinese vendor said. The Networks Act “requires the Commission to rely on specific national security determinations made by other agencies (or Congress) and does not allow the Commission (or the Bureau) to make such judgments itself,” Huawei said. ZTE cited differences between November's order (see 1911220033) and the act and said decisions about covered companies must be made by “an executive branch interagency body” not the commission acting alone. The agency should first focus on reimbursements for companies that need to replace equipment from the Chinese vendors, the Rural Wireless Association said. RWA said COVID-19 raises new concerns: “Given the unprecedented events of the last few weeks, the fact that the Secure Networks Act does not require final designation until 2021, and the ultimate desire by all parties operating covered company equipment to replace those elements as soon as practicable, the Commission should abstain from issuing any final designation public notice before March 2021.” WTA asked the FCC to reconsider its rules. “A plain reading of the Act requires the Commission to replace its current designation process with an equipment-centric approach instead of the company-centric approach it adopted,” WTA said. USTelecom said the FCC must rely on language in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2019 in crafting rules. The act “compels the Commission to confirm its designation of Huawei and ZTE as entities that produce covered equipment,” the group said: The earlier supply chain order "presented significant evidence describing why both Huawei and ZTE warrant designations as ‘companies that pose a threat to national security.’”
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai circulated telehealth items Monday. One would allocate the $200 million in emergency COVID-19 funding Congress appropriated in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (see 2003270058). Another would direct $100 million in USF spending for a three-year Connected Care pilot (see 1906190013).
The FCC is taking comments through April 10, replies April 17, on a request from Securus seeking waiver of USF contribution obligations for inmate calling service providers, said a public notice on docket 19-232.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is circulating plans for some $300 million of telehealth spending. One plan is for $200 million and would support healthcare providers' telehealth services to fight the coronavirus, under the Cares Act. The rest of the money is for the agency's connected care pilot. It would use USF money over three years.
State commissioners should keep watch on telecom to protect consumers during the COVID-19 outbreak, said NARUC President Brandon Presley in a Thursday interview. “Once this crisis is behind us, we’ve got to view broadband service as a national security issue, in the sense of economic security,” he said. “I won’t have much toleration for anybody that comes to tell me that internet is a luxury.”
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Wednesday she and other congressional Democrats plan to push for the next bill addressing COVID-19 to include broadband capacity and distance learning provisions. A compromise of a third stimulus bill unveiled that day failed to include those priorities. Capitol Hill leaders and President Donald Trump’s administration reached a deal early Wednesday. A cloture vote on the COVID-19 legislative vehicle (HR-748) was expected to have happened Wednesday night. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and three other Republicans made that outcome more uncertain when they objected to the bill's proposed amount of unemployment insurance.
The COVID-19 pandemic comes as Ajit Pai enters what is likely to be the homestretch of his time as FCC chairman. Pai has sketched out an ambitious agenda for the rest of 2020, but no one knows how long the pandemic will last. Industry officials agree it will likely slow work on at least some items due to refocusing on coronavirus-related orders. The crisis offers Pai a chance to write a new legacy, they said.
The lowest scored bid in an FCC 270-point system based on cost per location, network performance, resilience and redundancy will win telecom subsidies through USF Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund and USVI Fund programs, say stage 2 competitive bidding procedures in Friday's Federal Register on docket 18-143. Commissioners voted in September (see 1909260032).