Customer subsidies for universal access to telephone and broadband must provide results at a reasonable cost and more accountability for “the companies that stand to gain,” wrote Simon Ffitch, consumer advocate member of the Federal/State USF Joint Board, in a Seattle Times op-ed. The ABC Plan is contrary to a major goal of the Universal Service Fund revamp -- to ease the burden that customers pay to support the system, he said. The plan would eliminate the states’ authority over consumer protection and to act as watchdogs over the use of funds, he said. The FCC doesn’t have the resources to effectively take over these functions for all the states, he said. The ABC Plan also made no real commitment to make broadband available to unserved and underserved communities, he said.
Making wireless broadband “ubiquitous” in the U.S. will cost $7.8 billion to $21 billion “in initial investment alone,” underscoring the need for a “robust and ongoing” Mobility Fund as the FCC reforms the Universal Service Fund, CTIA said in a letter to the FCC. The report comes at a critical time, with the FCC expected to take up a USF revamp plan at its Oct. 27 meeting, though Chairman Julius Genachowski indicated Thursday that vote may not come off as expected. America’s Broadband Connectivity (ABC) plan, submitted by major carriers, would allocate only $300 million a year to the Mobility Fund for wireless build-out. CTIA is not expected to release a more detailed estimate of the optimum size of a Mobility Fund, an industry official said.
Cable advocates have taken their fight against the right-of-first-refusal provisions in America’s Broadband Connectivity plan to Capitol Hill, hoping to keep Congress from supporting the incumbent-backed plan, NCTA Executive Vice President James Assey told us Wednesday. President Michael Powell and Comcast/NBC Universal Washington President Kyle McSlarrow have been pressing their cases on the Hill. The goal is to keep legislators from signing incumbent-circulated letters to the FCC supporting the ABC plan, he said.
The FCC and small and mid-sized wireless carriers are headed to court in November in a case that examines whether the agency acted improperly in a December order that redirected high-cost Universal Service Fund money to a fund that will pay for broadband buildout (CD Jan 4 p2). The carriers challenging the order complain that while the reserved funds may ultimately be used for broadband, the commission does not place them under one of the four existing USF programs. Oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is scheduled for Nov. 15 in Rural Cellular Association v. FCC.
The FCC must ensure sufficient funding for broadband adoption programs as it revamps the Universal Service Fund, Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said in a letter circulating on Capitol Hill Tuesday. “A truly complete USF program would include adequate funding to bring critical programs, like broadband adoption initiatives modeled after the Lifeline and Link Up, into the broadband era,” Matsui said. Matsui plans to send the letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski as early as Friday, a Matsui spokeswoman said. “In today’s economy, the internet has become a necessity, not a luxury,” Matsui wrote. “We must do more to promote subscribership through adoption programs.” Many don’t subscribe because they lack the “necessary equipment, training or education opportunities to take advantage of the benefits of Internet use,” Matsui said. Others can’t afford “even basic broadband service,” she said.
America’s Broadband Connectivity plan and its rural complement are “a useful and constructive starting point for USF and ICC reform” but they don’t do enough to protect mid-sized telcos, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance said in an ex parte notice dated Tuesday. If the FCC adopts the so-called “triple zero” option for intercarrier compensation, “it should commit to conduct proceedings … at a reasonable point in each plan’s transition process to make an affirmative determination regarding whether the industry framework is working as contemplated,” ITTA said. The industry plans also don’t address “what would happen should a carrier that is operating under rate-of-return regulation wish to move to price cap” which “introduces some uncertainties” into the proposed reforms, ITTA said. The association reiterated its position that “carriers should be free to change their regulatory status. … Given the sweeping changes anticipated by the new rules, carriers should have the flexibility … to assess the impact of those changes on their businesses,” the association said. Finally, the association said it was concerned about having access to the ABC plan’s cost modeling. A spokeswoman for the six companies behind the ABC plan said that the companies share those concerns about access to modeling data and are working hard to fix it.
The adoption of the America’s Broadband Connectivity Plan (ABC Plan) for Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation revamp would drive small rural carriers out of business, several state commissioners said during a FCBA briefing Monday. Meanwhile, all three revamp proposals ignore the role of wireless, industry officials said.
The FCC should “maintain the key elements of the America’s Broadband Connectivity and Joint Rural Association proposals” to revamp the Universal Service Fund as the commission considers “other proposals to revise the plan,” Reps. Lee Terry, R-Neb., and Mike Ross, D-Ark., said in a letter circulating on Capitol Hill this week. The letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski hadn’t been sent and is dated Sept. 23. The FCC “must ask swiftly yet carefully to enact reforms that allow all Americans -- particularly those in hard-to-serve rural communities -- access to the burgeoning services and opportunities that are being created via innovations in broadband technology,” the lawmaker said. And the FCC “should pursue a USF reform framework that is fiscally responsible, enforceable, and sustainable, providing opportunities for a wide range of robust broadband technologies to compete.” The ABC and Joint Rural Association plans taken together “embody the core principles” of the National Broadband Plan, Terry and Ross said. “While many details remain to be fleshed out by the FCC, this framework clearly creates a path forward for comprehensive USF and intercarrier compensation reform.”
Two of the three judges who heard Vermont Public Service Board v. FCC cited the FCC’s plan to revamp the overall Universal Service Fund as they considered Vermont and Maine’s request to fix the FCC’s non-rural high-cost system. In a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit hearing, judges questioned the use of outdated data by the FCC and the states’ failure to seek a waiver to request supplemental high-cost support. The case stems from a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals remand in the so-called Qwest II case, in which the commission said rural and urban rates “are reasonably comparable.” State regulators have challenged, claiming the FCC “failed to compare rural rates in each state to a national average urban rate.”
A group of consumer advocates and public officials urged the FCC to reject the incumbent-backed America’s Broadband Connectivity plan and the rural “consensus framework” for universal service reform. In a joint letter posted as an ex parte notice to docket 10-90 and organized by the National Consumer Law Center and the Utility Reform Network, the advocates said industry’s reform proposals should be “flatly rejected” (http://xrl.us/bmdmo8).