The FCC agreed to put off imposing rules that would subject local wireless-wireline exchanges to bill-and-keep rates, the commission said in a reconsideration order issued Friday. The commission had been expected to issue a reconsideration notice sua sponte, on its own (CD Dec 23 p3). Under the reconsideration, local wireless-to-wireline exchanges won’t be subject to bill-and-keep until July 1. Bill-and-keep would have taken effect Thursday under the original order (CD Oct 28 p1).
The FCC should adopt “a strict ‘one-per-household’ limit” to help curb waste and fraud in the Lifeline program, NTCA told the FCC staff in a meeting earlier this week, according to an ex parte notice released Thursday. Some commenters have suggested the FCC create a “one-per-eligible-adult” rule. “But there is no reason to base a rule of general applicability on unique circumstances that may be faced in specific serving areas,” NTCA officials told Wireline Bureau staffer Garnet Hanly in a their meeting, according to Thursday’s notice (http://xrl.us/bmmoj8). “Rather, much like its waiver-based approach to many questions in the context of recent reforms of high-cost USF support, the … Commission … could always allow providers who believe they serve areas of such special interest to request a waiver of the ‘one-per-household’ limit,” NTCA said. The group also backed “a robust national database” to head off fraud, waste and abuse, its ex parte notice said. But NTCA is worried about “subsidizing non-facilities-based providers through the Lifeline program,” the group said. “Although competition may be a desirable policy outcome, Lifeline’s fundamental purpose and funding resources should be aimed at ensuring that low-income consumers can obtain essential telecommunications services at affordable rates.” Windstream had a meeting of its own with Wireline Bureau staff, the company said in a separate ex parte notice. Windstream, which has 106,000 Lifeline customers across 19 states, urged the FCC to tailor “non-usage” rules so that they “minimize reimbursement for customers who have abandoned their service” (http://xrl.us/bmmokc). The commission can also help things out by requiring a minimum charge for Lifeline service, Windstream said. “By paying for service at least in part, Lifeline customers will demonstrate that they find meaningful value in the service, sufficient to warrant supplemental expenditure of federal support,” Windstream said. While Windstream supports rules that would end “Link Up support for unjustified service activation fees,” the FCC “should continue the Link Up program” for what Windstream called “full” eligible telecommunications carriers “that customarily charge activation fees,” the company said. Turning to the question of whether ETCs should be required to offer Lifeline through their designated service areas, Windstream said that if the FCC does adopt such requirements it should “be consistent” and “adopt measures to ensure that these services are ‘affordable’ … and in particular, should maintain Link Up for customary service initiation charges imposed by full ETCs.”
The FCC can expect to be flooded with petitions to reconsider its Universal Service Fund reforms (CD Oct 28 p1), telecom officials said and the public record showed. Petitions were expected from nearly every sector of the telecom industry, from state regulators to rate-of-return carriers, several telecom officials said. The commission is drafting a sua sponte -- of its own accord -- reconsideration in an effort to head off one of the thorniest issues in the docket -- whether local rates on local traffic exchanged between wireless and wireline companies should be subject to bill-and-keep immediately, FCC and telecom officials told us.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear challenges to the FCC’s Universal Service Fund order, it was announced late Wednesday. At least 13 challenges have been filed in various circuits; the 10th in Denver was picked in the judicial lottery to take the case. But even as the case was winding its way through the system, FCC officials on Thursday warned lawyers and lobbyists for wireless companies that the commission was hoping to launch a further rulemaking on reverse auctions as early as next month, with a goal of having the first auctions by the end of Q3 2012.
The House dropped a referendum on the FCC net neutrality order from its fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill. In a new appropriations omnibus bill introduced late Wednesday, the House also increased its proposal for funding the FCC to nearly $340 million. The package was apparently the result of negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. The House hopes to vote on the package Friday, an Appropriations Committee spokeswoman said. To prevent a government shutdown, Congress must pass an appropriations bill or continuing resolution (CR) by Friday when the current CR expires.
MeetingOne.com asked for review of an FCC decision that the company must contribute to the Universal Service Fund, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice released late Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bmkzyh). The bureau found that MeetingOne’s IP audio bridging services should have to pay into the USF and also follow USF reporting requirements. Comments on MeetingOne’s application for review are due by Jan. 12, replies Jan. 27.
Executive from price cap carriers Frontier, Windstream and CenturyLink sought clarity on the new Universal Service Fund rules (CD Oct 28 p1) with FCC staff last week, according to an ex parte notice we obtained Tuesday. “Specifically, we sought to understand the (1) calculation of and eligible uses for Phase I [Connect America Fund] incremental support … (2) calculation … and application of the adjustment in frozen Phase I CAF support where end-user rates are below a benchmark in price-cap study areas … (3) extent to which the new Eligible Telecommunications Carrier service obligations are linked to the receipt of explicit” USF support, “(4) application of the new default reciprocal compensation rules for traffic exchanged with Commercial Mobile Radio Service providers … and (5) relationship of collected access revenue to the calculation of eligible recovery through the new Access Recovery Charge and Intercarrier Compensation Charge,” the executive said, according to the ex parte notice. Most of the new rules take effect Dec. 29, and it’s doubtful the price cap companies will challenge the order, one telecom official told us Tuesday.
The FCC changed a rule in its UnivUSF order and the change’s impact is being felt in the ongoing efforts to reform the Lifeline program. Under the USF order adopted in October (CD Oct 28 p1), an eligible telecom carrier will not meet facilities-based requirements if it uses its facilities only for directory or operator assistance.
District of Columbia residents and businesses would be expected to pay for the projected access service revenue reductions that Verizon would incur in other states as a result of the FCC’s USF/ICC order, said Betty Anne Kane, head of the D.C. Public Service Commission in an ex parte filing. She claimed one result of the FCC’s decision to mandate a “bill and keep” ICC arrangement for both interstate and intrastate access is to allow Verizon to recover revenue reductions from intrastate access services provided in other states from D.C. residents and businesses. It’s unfair because Verizon would have had no reduced intrastate access revenue in D.C., she said. Additionally, the USF order would allow price cap ILECs to transfer the unrecovered revenue requirement for that state through access recovery charge increases to its other operating companies’ residential and business customers in other states, she said. It’s “unfair, unprecedented” and “legally unjustified” for the FCC to authorize Verizon and other multi-state price cap ILECs to re-apportion intrastate revenue requirements from one state to another, she said. She urged the FCC to amend the order’s directive that the Eligible Recovery calculation for access recovery charge be performed at the holding company level, and instead direct that the calculation be performed at the operating company’s study area level. Verizon hasn’t made a decision on whether it will take advantage of the changes, a spokesman said. The USF order is a “balancing act” and a “broad framework” that needs to be looked at as a whole, he said.
The FCC can’t properly regulate next generation 911 without tackling problems with IP interconnection, CompTel said in comments filed on docket 11-153 and circulated by email on Monday. “Each and every advancement contemplated by the Commission in the deployment of NG911 is built upon the premise of using Internet Protocol (IP) as the foundation for all communications. COMPTEL fully supports this presumption,” CompTel lawyer Mary Albert said in her 19-page submission. “It also submits that the Commission’s premise represents yet another example of the need for the Commission to confirm without further delay that carriers are entitled to direct IP-to-IP interconnection pursuant to Sections 251 and 252 of the Act so that they may offer their customers access to managed, advanced NG911 services.” CLECs, in particular, have been angry that the FCC punted on IP interconnections in its USF reform order and merely order telcos to negotiate in “good faith” while the commission goes through another round of rulemaking (CD Oct 28 p1). CompTel has been aggressively pushing an IP interconnection mandate on the USF docket and now on the next generation 911 docket.