People seem to “get” that the National Broadband Plan is a “call to action,” said FCC broadband plan Executive Director Blair Levin at a Brookings Institution event Wednesday. The team set out to write a document that was both “visionary and practical,” and “the kind of advice companies would get if they had millions of dollars on the line,” he said. Levin believes the FCC achieved that. Everyone who’s reacted to the plan likes “large pieces” of it, which is good because Levin hoped people would love 80 percent, be indifferent to 10 percent and hate 10 percent, he said. Relatively little has been said about the national purposes section of the report, he said, but Levin expects that part will have the most material impact 10 years from now. Quick action is most likely to occur on recommendations the team made to the FCC, said Levin. “On the key issues affecting the FCC -- USF and intercarrier [compensation] -- there was a fair amount of acceptance of the need to go forward and that there is a framework now to go forward.” And President Barack Obama has explicitly supported the FCC’s proposals on spectrum and public safety, he said. “Congressional action [is] always more difficult to predict,” but the team “designed the plan so that the core recommendations could be done without Congress for the most part,” Levin said. Broadband Plan General Manager Erik Garr hopes the level of discussion on facts and outcomes at the commission continues. He described the broadband plan proceeding as “the most open and transparent planning process we could physically do.” The team “wanted to walk the walk” and be an example of an effective open government, said Phoebe Yang, general counsel for the team. The team worked nonstop until the end, said Levin. “For the last 75 days, the four of us have pretty much worked every single day.”
Meeting Universal Service Fund payment obligations, adhering to the customer proprietary network information (CPNI) rules, and primary jurisdiction referrals are the most daunting enforcement issues for competitive local exchange carriers, lawyers said at a CompTel regulatory workshop. In the collection of USF contributions, the “USAC’s (Universal Service Administrative Company) tactics can be extremely heavy-handed and unfair to carriers,” said Jon Canis of Arent Fox. He called the company a “rogue agency” and said personnel “act in ways that they know to be illegal.” USAC concentrates on collecting as much USF as it can and it generates fines, he said. “Even if you can demonstrate you were acting in good faith, even though you can demonstrate that you did everything possible to comply and everything possible to remediate as soon as you could, it doesn’t matter.” Arent Fox lawyers advised that any CLEC set up a “detailed, documented and consistently applied method of computing USF payment obligations.” Canis also cautioned the telcos about CPNI reporting requirements. The way the FCC handles the requirements “is a regulatory game designed exclusively to extract revenues from victimized CLECs,” he said. In 2008, more than 600 carriers received notices of apparent liability for failing to send compliance letters by the deadline of March 1, Canis said. The action was meant to “demonstrate toughness of FCC enforcement and generate payment of fines,” he said. Some cases in which CLECs are seeking unpaid access charges have been held up awaiting referrals to the FCC, Arent Fox said. Several cases have been pending more than three years.
The FCC approved Tuesday by a unanimous vote a brief statement of principles on broadband. FCC Republicans Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker were sharply critical of some aspects of the plan itself, which was not put up for a vote before being submitted to Congress. Both found lots to like in the plan but said it must not be used as a lever for imposing more regulation. Agency officials said the FCC will offer a list in coming days of more than 40 rulemakings that will be begun as a follow-up to the plan.
Some members of Congress may be wary of spending additional money on broadband, said Republican aides at a Broadband Breakfast event Tuesday morning. The FCC’s National Broadband Plan asks Congress for $16 billion for a national public-safety network and $9 billion for a new Universal Service Fund emphasizing high-speed access. Aides from both parties called the plan a step toward broadband for all.
House Democrats endorsed the FCC’s National Broadband Plan a day before its official release. House Republicans gave conditional praise, saying they're watching closely. In an interview, Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., said he believes legislation will be required to satisfy the plan’s recommendations to revamp the Universal Service Fund, build a public safety wireless network, and identify lightly used spectrum.
Wireless carriers may get less in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan than meets the eye, commission officials indicated Monday. Although the plan recommends that 300 MHz of spectrum be made available for wireless broadband over the next five years and 500 MHz total over 10 years, FCC officials made clear Monday that not all will be dedicated to licensed use. The plan also provides substantial detail in its recommendations for the Universal Service Fund, including a phase-out of the high-cost fund. The plan will be presented to FCC commissioners Tuesday. They won’t vote on the plan, only on a mission statement setting out goals for U.S. broadband policy.
The proposed Universal Service Fund contribution increase to 15.3 percent for the 2010 second quarter is no surprise, but continues to show the need for reform, said Steve Berry, CEO of Rural Cellular Association. “We knew it was coming,” he said in an interview. “But the commission has to reform the current process and restructure USF.” Berry said wireless carriers, whose contributions are capped, are not to blame: “The issue is you have a wireline component that loses subscribers every year but their contributions increase every year.” There’s “an antiquated system that supports an antiquated technology and we haven’t figured out a way to reduce that support as people choose to go with different technologies."
Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., of the House Communications Subcommittee is “very close” to completing his Universal Service Fund bill and hopes to take it to markup sometime this month, he told reporters Wednesday. “We are spending many hours every day working to finalize it” and “get the consent of stakeholders,” he said after a House Commerce Committee markup. (See separate report in this issue.) He wouldn’t say whether he will introduce the bill before or after the FCC’s National Broadband Plan is released. Boucher and the FCC share a goal to switch the fund to supporting broadband, but “the methodology may prove to be somewhat different,” he said. “We will review that broadband plan when it comes forward very carefully, and then we'll be making well-informed decisions as we pursue these goals together.” Boucher said he’s also working hard on his privacy bill, but action on that likely will wait until after USF. “We are working simultaneously on both drafts.” Boucher plans to release a discussion draft in the “near term,” but he wouldn’t specify a date. He said he wants privacy legislation to preserve “all the legitimate advertising practices,” adding, “Our goal is not to interfere with legitimate targeted advertising [or] behavioral advertising practices. Our goal is to give Internet users a greater confidence that their experience on the Web is secure.” Boucher declined to give an example of a legitimate practice before he circulates a discussion draft.
The Wireless Bureau must play an equal role with the Wireline Bureau in FCC Universal Service Fund “reform” efforts, Rural Carrier Association CEO Steve Berry wrote Chairman Julius Genachowski. “The fact that the wireless industry is underrepresented on USAC’s Board of Directors and on the Universal Service Federal-State Joint Board further underscores the challenges that rural and regional wireless carriers face in having their concerns addressed,” RCA said. “While RCA applauds the FCC’s efforts to overhaul the USF, RCA is greatly concerned that the interests of rural and regional wireless carriers are not adequately represented in the Commission’s deliberative process,” Berry said.
The FCC will issue a white paper following release of the National Broadband Plan urging the expansion of broadband accessibility and adoption among disabled people, commission members said during a Silicon Flatirons event in Washington. A $10 million dollar Universal Service Fund allowance, changes to hearing aid compatibility rules and lowering the cost of assistive devices are some of the major recommendations, the commission said. “Few populations stand to benefit more from broadband than the millions of Americans with disabilities,” Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “Broadband allows people with disabilities to live independent lives in their communities of choice.”