The dispute involving Comcast, Level 3 and Netflix heralds Internet “management crises” that may not be resolved until Congress enacts permanent net neutrality rules, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast said Friday. There’s a divide over whether it’s a peering dispute -- the position of Comcast and allies -- or a content-discrimination dispute, as Level 3, Netflix and allies say, she told a Practising Law Institute event. “The fact is, it’s both.” Another panelist, from Google, worried about lawsuits over however the FCC proceeds on net neutrality rules. Commissioner Robert McDowell said later that he shares those worries.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to be using Qwest-CenturyLink merger conditions as a “trick shot” way of regulating broadband without reclassifying the service, Cardozo Law Professor Susan Crawford, a former Obama administration telecom adviser, said Thursday. “He’s going to try to get through merger conditions what another regulator would try to get through regulatory authority,” she said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on AirVoice Wireless’ request for forbearance from the requirement that eligible telecommunications carriers provide service over their own facilities. AirVoice’s petition is an effort to obtain universal service support. Wednesday’s public notice comes two days after pay phone companies asked the commission for emergency USF funds, claiming that support for wireless companies is driving them out of business (CD Dec 6 p6). Comments on AirVoice’s petition are due Jan. 7, replies Jan. 24.
Washington’s Metro, the nation’s second largest rail system, is thinking about chucking its pay phones, transit agency’s spokeswoman Angela Gates told us Tuesday. The subway system’s 10-year contract with Verizon will expire next March and no company has responded to solicitations to bid on the contract, Gates said. “All options are open,” Gates said. The potential phase-out was first reported by The Washington Examiner. Like most big telcos, Verizon has stepped back from pay phones. On Monday, independent pay phone operators filed a petition for rulemaking asking the FCC to make an emergency infusion of universal service fund cash to help rescue pay phones from collapse and to consider whether USF should be used to keep some pay phones around (CD Dec 6 p6).
The FCC won’t have an order ready on reverse auctions for the proposed mobility fund until mid-February at the earliest, Chief Margaret Wiener of the Wireless Bureau’s Auctions & Spectrum Access Division said Monday at a Federal Communications Bar Association lunch. In October, the commission opened a rulemaking on whether it should use between $100 million and $300 million left over in the high-cost Universal Service Fund to create a reverse auction in which wireless companies in underserved areas have a chance to win subsidies to build out 3G networks. The comment period for the current rulemaking closes Dec. 16, and replies are due Jan. 17, Wiener said, making it unlikely that an order will be ready to go out before mid-February.
The American Public Communications Council will ask the FCC for an emergency subsidy from Universal Service Fund cash to help keep its pay phone company members from collapsing, the group told us. The emergency petition will be accompanied by a petition for rulemaking asking the commission to consider using its Lifeline program to subsidize pay phones. The petitions could come as early as Monday afternoon, APCC President Willard Nichols said.
Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., hopes to bring certainty to industry next year on long-brewing telecom issues like net neutrality and Universal Service Fund reform, the House Communications Subcommittee member said in an interview last week. Providing subsidies to make broadband more affordable for low-income Americans and addressing fears about lack of privacy online are two important ways to motivate more people to embrace fast Internet service, she said.
Carriers shouldn’t get reimbursed by the Universal Service Fund Link-Up fund for activation charges that the carrier waives or reduces when customers buy extra airtime, said TracFone Wireless in a Dec. 1 petition for declaratory ruling. At least one eligible telecommunications carrier, ReachOut Wireless, is doing that, TracFone said. Also in the petition, TracFone asked the FCC to declare that a carrier receiving Link-Up money for wireline services may not use the money for wireless unless it first gets FCC approval. And TracFone wants the FCC to declare that a carrier must use “some of its own facilities” to be designated as an ETC in a particular state. The FCC should clarify that a carrier can’t cite wireline facilities to meet that requirement if it’s providing wireless services, “unless those wireline facilities are being used to transmit or route the wireless services that are designated for support.” TracFone’s proposed rules “are necessary to ensure that disbursements from the federal USF are only received by properly-designated ETCs and are only used to support services as allowed by the Commission’s rules,” TracFone said.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski formally announced Wednesday that he'll bring a net neutrality order to a vote at the Dec. 21 meeting. The draft had been expected for several days. Genachowski and his staff said they have broad support from industry, public interest and other stakeholders. Senior officials said privately that they had secured no commitments not to challenge the proposed rules in court. Nonetheless, the chances of being sued by a major ISP are much lower if the commission doesn’t reclassify broadband and instead proceeds with net neutrality sticking with its Title 1 authority, industry executives and lawyers said.
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., plans “no changes” to his bill to revamp the Universal Service Fund, he said in an interview last week. He hopes the bill, six years in the making, can be reintroduced early next session, he said. After the election defeat of Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., Terry is looking for a new Democratic co-sponsor.