The VON Coalition tried to hold off an impending order giving states the right to assess Universal Service Fund levies on nomadic VoIP providers, said an ex parte notice filed by the group late Tuesday. Executive Director Glenn Richards said he met with Commissioner Meredith Baker’s new wireline adviser, Brad Gillen, and Chairman Julius Genachowski’s wireline adviser Zac Katz and argued that the FCC’s 2004 Vonage preemption order ought to keep states from levying their own USF fees on nomadic carriers. Last month, at eighth-floor urging, Kansas and Nebraska amended their request for a declaratory ruling on nomadic VoIP by deleting requests to make any USF assessments retroactive. This clears the way for a declaratory order, which FCC and industry officials had expected to already have been issued. State officials indicated they may still seek retroactive payments (CD Sept 21 p6). This has the VON Coalition worried. “The commission must make clear that it is changing (and not simply clarifying) the law, or there … may be unnecessary litigation,” Richards said.
The FCC gave interested parties until Thursday to comment on two separate appeals, each of which challenge the commission’s decision in the Corr Wireless Order (CD Sept 7 p1). Both SouthernLINC and Allied Wireless Communications asked the commission to review the Corr decision. Oppositions to SouthernLINC’s petition were due Tuesday but oppositions on Allied’s petition aren’t due until Friday. The commission changed the comment deadline for both petitions to Thursday.
Capitol Hill aides urged patience from those seeking a Telecom Act revamp by Congress. A rewrite will happen, but Congress doesn’t want to rush it, said Danny Sepulveda, senior adviser to Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. Other priorities next year include wireless spectrum and oversight of the broadband stimulus program, aides told a panel discussion Tuesday by the Free State Foundation.
The FCC has made “a lot of progress” but still has “a lot of work to do” implementing the National Broadband Plan, Chairman Julius Genachowski told One Economy’s 10th anniversary gala Thursday night. One Economy gave Genachowski its Metcalfe Digital Opportunity Award, but Genachowski invited the commission’s broadband team up to the stage to accept the honor. FCC priorities include revamping the Universal Service Fund, setting up incentive auctions and recovering underused spectrum, “empowering” broadband consumers and promoting competition, and increasing broadband adoption, Genachowski said. “Broadband benefits our society more every day, while the cost of digital exclusion for those left behind skyrocket.” Government should focus on modernizing USF to support broadband, One Economy Chairman Rey Ramsey told reporters. “That money is going to help more than replace what NTIA” had been providing under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he said. It’s “doubtful” the next Congress will fund another broadband grant program, he said. Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen told the event the cable company plans to add 50 Digital Connector sites by year-end. The program, created with One Economy, teaches digital literacy to teens and young adults. Comcast expects the new sites to impart Internet skills to 1,500 young adults by December 2011, Cohen said.
The Rural Cellular Association accused Verizon Wireless of attempting to “leverage mobility funding” despite the carrier’s commitment to give up Universal Service Fund support following its purchase of Alltel. RCA made the charge after Verizon Wireless, in an FCC filing, urged mobility fund support for rural carriers that enter into Verizon’s LTE licensing program. “Increasing the level of support used to expand Verizon’s reach, whether directly or through affiliate programs, is the opposite of their commitment,” said RCA President Steve Berry. “If Verizon is serious about expanding mobile broadband in rural areas, they should live up to the spirit of the open access provisions of the C block and focus on devices compatible with all 700 MHz spectrum.” “RCA is wrong to suggest that Verizon Wireless is not honoring its merger commitment,” said Tamara Preiss, vice president of federal regulation at Verizon Wireless. “Verizon Wireless’s voluntary commitment is limited to phasing out high-cost support from legacy USF mechanisms. That condition is expressly superseded if and when the FCC adopts new mechanisms.” Preiss said Verizon was one of several carriers represented at a recent meeting at the FCC on the mobility fund. The FCC is slated to vote on a notice of proposed rulemaking on the fund at its meeting Thursday.
Free Press is “blindly asserting” that “most” consumers aren’t getting the type of Internet service envisioned by Congress, Verizon said in reply comments on the FCC’s study of broadband deployment. On Free Press’s arguments that broadband services ought to have symmetrical upstream and downstream speeds, “Free Press stretches words of the statute past the breaking point,” Verizon said. Free Press, however, said the “slowed” deployment of Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s U-Verse “directly contradicts the supposed extensive deployments or robust connections touted by operators in this proceeding.” The 22 members of the Blooston Rural Carriers said Verizon “fails to explain” how its proposal for a capped, incentive-based high-cost support system would work when others have failed. The “more reasonable and effective approach” is to beef up the current program, Blooston says. But Verizon said the Blooston “arguments are largely a rehash” and that USF support for broadband has to rest on what customers are paying today, “not a massive new and open-ended carrier entitlement."
The Universal Service Fund should be used to subsidize broadband but the fund shouldn’t be expanded, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators said Wednesday. The caucus also urged the FCC and other regulatory agencies to move quickly on smart grid technology. The caucus’s legislators spoke at a Wednesday briefing at the National Press Club, saying the fund should be “restructured” so it can pay for broadband deployment. The lawmakers demurred when asked what programs in USF should be cut.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Wednesday he will seek the chairmanship of the House Commerce Committee if Republicans retake the House in the November elections. Barton’s top priority: stopping the FCC from reclassifying broadband and regulating the Internet, he said.
The FCC should “peel away” some of the least contentious problems in a Universal Service Fund overhaul “instead of trying to boil the ocean,” Frontier Chairman Maggie Wilderotter told us Monday. Wilderotter was in town for an unrelated conference but met Monday morning with Chairman Julius Genachowski’s chief of staff, Eddie Lazarus. She said the commission could more easily tackle problems like phantom traffic. “That’s a big area they could clear up,” she said. “They have the authority to do that tomorrow” by subjecting all calls, even Internet voice, to USF charges and by changing the formula so it reflects the actual costs of service.
Free Press didn’t support the House net neutrality proposal that Republicans scuttled Wednesday (CD Sept 30 p1), President Josh Silver said in an interview. The public interest group believed that “introduction risked relieving the FCC chairman” of his duty to reclassify broadband transport under Title II of the Communications Act, and to make net neutrality rules, Silver said. Free Press is “relieved” that House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., now is urging the FCC to act, he said. If FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski doesn’t fulfill Waxman’s request, “he will face an avalanche of public pressure.” In an e-mail to the Open Internet Coalition (OIC) before Wednesday’s announcement that no bill would be introduced, Silver threatened to pull out of the coalition if it issued a news release supporting the Waxman bill. “Free Press cannot afford to be misconstrued as supporting a bill that strips FCC rulemaking authority, fails to sufficiently protect wireless, and forecloses the agency’s ability to enact key goals” of the National Broadband Plan, “such as USF and low-income broadband deployment,” Silver wrote. “While we have deep respect for all of those from our community who worked tirelessly over the past few weeks on this effort, we have a strong disagreement with the assessment of this legislation as a positive, both on the merits and on the strategy. I don’t think the benefits of an OIC” news conference “in support of a doomed bill is worth the cost, but that’s not my call.” In a statement Wednesday, Waxman thanked the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Consumers Union, Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy & Technology, as well as AT&T, Verizon and NCTA, but not Free Press. The CFA praised the Waxman proposal. “Mr. Waxman’s bill would have created an important safety net to prevent the broadband Internet access landscape from being Balkanized by anti competitive pay walls and discriminatory technology barriers that block or degrade communications,” said Mark Cooper, the group’s research director.