Regulatory Commission of Alaska members broadly agree the body needs more time to consider the next step for Alaska USF and will look at proposals extending the planned June sunset of the AUSF at the group's Sept. 28 meeting, the RCA said on a videoconference Wednesday. The RCA’s authority over the telecom industry remains unclear after a 2019 deregulation law (see 2006100048) and the proposals received for the AUSF’s future in two rounds of comments have been light on evidence, said Commissioner Robert Pickett. The commission was also told a plan for the AUSF would need to be in the hands of the Alaska Department of Law by October for it to take effect before the sunset, Pickett said. “There has been a lot of support for continuing the program but not any kind of consensus on how it should be done,” said David Parrish, RCA common carrier specialist. “Allowing more time for some of these things to shake out is probably wise,” said Commissioner Robert Doyle. The RCA is waiting for clarity from the state's Department of Law on the bounds of its authority, and several commissioners questioned whether the language of the USF statute, which gives the body authority to oversee reasonable long-distance rates, could be stretched to include broadband or oversee a competitive telecommunications marketplace. Extending the USF “by a few years” could provide “space for industry to engage with the legislature” and time to clarify the RCA’s role, said Chairman Keith Kurber. Pickett indicated he prefers a short extension and said he didn’t want to leave it up to a future RCA. “We extend it three years and then some of us aren’t here anymore,” he said. Pickett said staff and commissioners, between now and the September meeting, would discuss and take a look at precise dates for the extension.
A draft order on regulatory fees circulated to FCC commissioners’ offices last week would create a 13% FY2022 regulatory fee increase for broadcasters and doesn’t include proposed shifts in the way full-time equivalents (FTEs) are allocated to bureaus, industry and FCC officials told us.
VoIP providers raised concerns about a possible California rulemaking to consider changes to licensing requirements and other obligations for internet-based voice. Consumer advocates applauded the California Public Utilities Commission for looking into an issue that affects USF support. Commissioners plan to consider the proposed order instituting rulemaking (OIR), plus items on state LifeLine and Starlink eligible telecom carrier status, at their Thursday meeting.
ASPEN, Colo. -- NTIA won't repeat the mistakes made in past federal efforts to narrow the digital divide, said Evan Feinman, director of its Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, Tuesday at Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum. This time, he said, "we are going to solve this problem" and avoid the top-down approaches that missed unserved or underserved locations and didn't use ideal technology. But critics see danger signs.
The FCC’s report to Congress on the future of the USF, released Monday (see 2208150048), contained more questions than answers, industry experts said Tuesday. The 65-page report has few broad conclusions on the future of USF, declining to adopt competition as a separate goal or to set a separate deployment goal targeting mobile broadband. It weighs against assessing a fee based on broadband internet access service (BIAS).
The FCC's report to Congress on the future of the Universal Service Fund and the record "throw cold water on the idea that the FCC should just start assessing broadband internet access service or BIAS," said Commissioner Brendan Carr in a statement Monday. Commissioners approved the report Friday. Expanding the contribution base to include BIAS "could increase consumers’ monthly broadband bills by as much as $17.96 a month," Carr said: "Put simply, the squeeze is not worth the juice when it comes to replacing the existing telecommunications assessment with one on broadband." Assessing edge providers would "drastically reduce costs for consumers," he said. The report concluded there's "significant ambiguity in the record regarding the scope of the commission’s existing authority to broaden the base of contributors" and recommended Congress give the FCC the "legislative tools needed to make changes to the contributions methodology and base." Carr said he's "very pleased" the report includes "broad-based support" to require that "large technology companies" contribute to USF. Carr initially raised the idea of requiring "big tech" to contribute (see 2105240037). Commissioner Nathan Simington backed Carr's "emphasis on relating funding for connectivity spending to the network effects enjoyed by companies that depend on universal connectivity," in a statement. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel didn't release statements.
The California Public Utilities Commission may extend until March 31 a statutory deadline for a proceeding to update state USF contribution (docket 21-03-002). Administrative Law Judge Hazyln Fortune is expected to issue a proposed decision in the proceeding soon, said a draft released Monday. Meanwhile, the CPUC and T-Mobile’s MetroPCS proposed a March 1 start date for bench trial in state USF litigation at U.S. District Court in San Francisco. MetroPCS sued the CPUC in 2017 to challenge California assessing USF payments for prepaid phone service. In a related investigation, the CPUC is seeking up to $230 million in fines against Metro for failing to remit the state USF payments (see 2204250049). MetroPCS thinks the trial could take three days, but the CPUC estimates four days, the parties told the court Friday.
Expect to see draft changes to Oklahoma's USF statute by Oct. 18, OUSF Administrator Mark Argenbright told stakeholders at a virtual meeting Monday. Parties should file proposed language by Sept. 20 with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission Public Utilities Division, he said. Argenbright said he expects to convene an Oct. 26 meeting to discuss changes, which he would then present to commissioners possibly on Nov. 3.
The FCC should reallocate full-time equivalents associated with the USF so broadcasters no longer fund them with their regulatory fees, said NAB in calls with the Office of Managing Director Friday and Monday, said an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 22-223. “Broadcasters should not be forced to pay more than $6.5 million in additional fees this year to pay for costs associated with the USF FTEs,” the filing said. If the FCC doesn’t reclassify the FTEs, it should reclassify the FTEs assigned to the Media Bureau that the agency has said are pursuing broadband policy, NAB said. “At a minimum, if 63% of Media Bureau FTEs are working on broadband issues, these FTEs cannot be working on issues pertaining to broadcasters and therefore broadcasters should be responsible for a much smaller portion of the Media Bureau’s overall fee allocation.”
A state court rejected a Texas Public Utility Commission appeal of a trial court’s temporary injunction against the PUC for not fully funding Texas USF (TUSF). The 3rd Texas District Court of Appeals in Austin ruled Wednesday in favor of appellee AMA TechTel, a CLEC, for similar reasons that the court gave in a June 30 decision supporting Texas Telephone Association (TTA) and other RLECs in a similar case (see 2207010045). Earlier in the AMA case, the state appeals court required the PUC to pay the CLEC the full amount of state USF support it was owed since Dec. 1. "While the present case appears before us in a different procedural posture from that in TTA, the application of legal principles to the pleaded and undisputed facts is substantively the same and our analysis and holdings are largely dictated by that opinion,” Justice Thomas Baker wrote Wednesday. As in the June 30 opinion, state law and PUC regulations preclude the state commission from underfunding TUSF, said Baker: The PUC must pay monthly support amounts. Like the RLEC group, AMA sufficiently pleaded a Texas Administrative Procedure Act claim, he said. The court overruled the PUC's contention that AMA failed to exhaust administrative remedies before bringing the APA challenge. AMA sufficiently pleaded a viable regulatory takings claim and the trial court didn't abuse its discretion when it granted temporary injunctive relief to AMA, he said. "It was the PUC Parties’ decision to amend the Solix contract and refuse to fund the TUSF that altered the parties’ relationship,” so “the status quo is the relationship of the parties prior to the PUC Parties’ challenged actions,” wrote Baker. “We reject the premise implicit in the PUC Parties’ contention that a party may act unlawfully and then claim that the impacts of that unlawful behavior cannot be remedied or mitigated pending a trial on the merits.” Justices Melissa Goodwin and Gisela Triana, the judge who wrote the TTA decision, joined Baker in Wednesday’s opinion. Following the earlier court actions, Texas commissioners Aug. 1 raised the revenue-based TUSF surcharge to 24% from 3.3% (see 2207140060). The Texas PUC and AMA didn’t comment.