The CostQuest Associates broadband analysis tool, proposed as a method of modeling Phase II FCC USF Connect America Fund support for price cap carriers, doesn’t adequately capture Alaska costs, Alaska Communications Systems Group told the Wireline Bureau in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm7y9m). ACS expressed concern with the model’s omission of undersea cable costs of transporting broadband traffic from Alaska to the nearest Internet access point; the non-fiber transmission cost of transporting voice and data traffic between the serving wire center and other aggregation points in the network; and the fuel, labor and transportation costs of operating and maintaining remote serving wire centers and microwave facilities. ACS also questioned whether the information provided thus far, and access to the model’s mechanisms, are sufficient for third-party analysis.
Some companies with the largest dependence on the USF are likely to see revenue decline as a result of the FCC’s USF Order, said a Standard & Poor’s report released Thursday. However, the order might not have an immediate impact on the credit profile of any of the rated companies, it said. In the long run, smaller companies might not be able to make the financial commitment to expand broadband, it said. As a result, some state regulatory commissions might opt to expand their state USF programs and/or reallocate existing funds to help smaller, capital-constrained companies, it said. The FCC’s order may also prompt the adoption of state USFs where none currently exists, it said. The adoption of the cost model needed for the development of long-term broadband support is likely to be delayed, it said. It noted the FCC acknowledged that the process of implementing the model could take a year or more. The agency said the model is expected to be adopted by the end of the year.
Several educators asked the FCC to refrain from using the E-rate program to fund its proposed Digital Literacy Pilot, in letters posted Thursday in WC docket 11-42. “I am concerned that operating the pilot through E-Rate will undermine the important and ongoing work of E-Rate, causing delays in the program’s application and appeal processes, creating auditing problems” and resulting in “problematic precedents for E-Rate’s eligible services,” three of the letters said. The letters, sent by representatives of school districts in Alaska, Ohio, Maryland and Indiana, expressed concern that funding digital literacy training would require reallocating support from basic telecom services, further straining a program that is already “over subscribed and under funded.” Representatives from the Education and Libraries Networks Coalition met with Wireline Bureau officials Thursday to encourage the commission to make digital literacy a priority, but to fund the pilot through other parts of the USF (http://xrl.us/bm6zz2). “The vastly oversubscribed E-Rate program could not afford to fund any other services no matter how meritorious,” its ex parte filing said, arguing the addition would set bad precedent of using E-rate dollars for services “not directly focused on the delivery to schools and libraries of basic conduit access to the Internet."
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was prodded by Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., about the agency’s role on protecting consumer privacy, at a budget hearing Wednesday. Genachowski said the FTC has the “lead” on privacy issues and held his cards close on the FCC’s position on News Corp. allegations of journalists hacking U.K. cellphones.
Having five FCC members for the first time in about a year automatically gives the agency more legitimacy, and the new additions may push the commission to act on some long-pending issues, industry officials and the most recent member to step down predicted. USF contribution is an issue that will see commission action soon anyway, and adding Ajit Pai as the new Republican member and Jessica Rosenworcel as the new Democratic commissioner brings differing views that could be helpful (CD May 8 p1). Meredith Baker left the FCC late last spring, and Pai fills her term through 2016.
NEW ORLEANS -- FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell Tuesday said the government must do what it can to get a better estimate of the actual cost of moving federal users off the 1755-1850 MHz band. NTIA Deputy Administrator Anna Gomez conceded over the weekend that NTIA’s report on the band merely repeated numbers submitted by federal agencies like the Department of Defense on their internal estimates of how much it would cost them to move operations out of the much-coveted band (CD May 8 p3). McDowell spoke on a panel at the CTIA annual meeting.
The Senate approved the nominations of Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel by unanimous consent Monday to become FCC commissioners. Pai, a Republican from Kansas, was an aide to former Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has worked as a lawyer at the FCC and replaces former commissioner Meredith Baker, for a term ending July 1, 2016. Rosenworcel, a Democrat from Connecticut, was an aide to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and replaces former commissioner Michael Copps, in a term that ends July 1, 2015.
CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- The FCC “transformed” the USF in a series of recent orders rather than just reforming it, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told the FCBA’s annual retreat on Saturday. “It’s a perpetual transformation of a regime we all knew needed to be modernized,” she said. “I think we all knew it was going to be difficult and will continue to be difficult. … It’s a balancing act, but it’s one worth embarking on."
CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick and Chief of Staff Zac Katz denied that uncertainty created by the Comcast v. FCC decision, and pending appellate reviews of the FCC’s net neutrality and data roaming orders, have slowed agency work in other areas. Their comments came, during a discussion at the FCBA annual meeting late Friday. Schlick noted pointedly that one company, Verizon, could remove future uncertainty since it is a lead appellant challenging both orders.
The broadband adoption gap between blacks and whites is narrowing, the National Urban League’s Policy Institute said in a report released Wednesday. In 2010, the gap fell to 11 percentage points -- 56 percent for African Americans versus 67 percent for whites, according to the report. That gap is down from 19 percent the previous year, the report said. The league released the report at the NCTA, at an event attended by all three FCC commissioners.