T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure faced no outright opposition to the carriers' proposed combination during a Wednesday House Communications Subcommittee hearing. Many Democrats registered varying degrees of skepticism regarding the executives' claims. Questions tilted toward focus on antitrust aspects of T-Mobile/Sprint, as expected (see 1902120056). Some probed the carriers' claims about the transaction's benefits for deploying 5G. Legere and other executives from the two carriers met FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Friday, they said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-197.
NARUC's Telecom Committee unanimously cleared an amended Lifeline resolution urging the FCC and Universal Service Administrative Co. ensure the national verifier accesses state databases required to automatically check users are eligible. USAC is responding to concerns and committed to making the NV work, South Dakota Commissioner Chris Nelson told us after the vote.
Ditching the requirement to notify VoIP users it won't work without power and eliminating supposedly outdated reporting requirements were among suggestions by telecoms, the cable industry and others for the FCC's 2018 biennial review of telecom regulations. Comments in seven dockets, which had been due Jan. 17 (see 1812180002), were posted Monday due to an extension from the partial federal shutdown.
Universal Service Administrative Co. hasn't de-enrolled any Lifeline users who failed the national verifier's automatic reverification, and no decision has been made on when that will happen, USAC Vice President-Lifeline Michelle Garber told the Telecom Staff Subcommittee at NARUC Sunday. A state commissioner and subcommittee members grilled Garber on high rates of users failing the automated check due to the NV not accessing all databases relevant to determining eligibility, with USAC not even trying to access them in higher cost states.
AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan met FCC Chairman Ajit Pai about the company’s “ongoing 5G deployment and the importance of millimeter wave spectrum to 5G technologies,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 14-177. Donovan and other AT&T executives also discussed the national security NPRM (see 1812120043): "Any measures to address national security threats related to the communications supply chain should be proportionate to the risk and applied to all networks and providers, not to just entities that use Universal Service Support.” The Telecommunications Industry Association called for action on security rules in a meeting with Wireline Bureau staff. The record the FCC is building “provides details about specific concerns,” TIA said in docket 18-89, in a meeting handout. “Marketplace needs certainty as 5G is being rolled out in earnest.” The USF proceeding should target specific suppliers of concern, the group said.
New Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said the FCC must move quickly on complaints AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint are selling customers' real-time location data to bounty hunters (see 1901080046). The ex-Enforcement Bureau staffer, flanked by staff, met reporters Friday.
Comments are due March 8, replies April 8, on an FCC Further NPRM seeking to auction off subsidies in rural telco areas largely or completely served by unsubsidized competitors, said a proposed rule in Wednesday's Federal Register. Input is sought on how to structure the subsidy auction, address conversions to broadband-only lines and address legacy support in tribal areas. Commissioners approved the FNPRM Dec. 12 with an order offering rate-of-return telcos more USF support in exchange for more 25/3 Mbps broadband service (see 1812120039).
The FCC should move quickly to modernize the USF rural healthcare telecom program, and "meet the Chairman's goal to adopt rules in the first half of 2019," Alaska Communications said. "That schedule is very important to ensure" new rules can be cleared by the OMB "and take effect before the start of the competitive bidding season for Funding Year 2020," said a filing on a meeting CEO Anand Vadapalli had with Chairman Ajit Pai and others last week, posted Tuesday in docket 17-310.
Chairman Ajit Pai called the FCC's USF rate floor policy "crazy" philosophically, and cited plans for remedial actions. The idea that government forces rural telco phone rates up to reflect a national average, or lose high-cost USF support, doesn't make sense, he said in Q&A with NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield webcast from a rural telecom show in New Orleans. He hopes to "move with dispatch" to get fellow commissioners to agree with him on near-term relief and a longer-term solution. He recently criticized the rate floor and told lawmakers he planned to seek action in coming months (see 1901310036). Separately, Pai said he's seeking a "balance" on broadband performance testing that holds USF-backed providers accountable for their data-speed commitments while streamlining the process as much as possible to ease industry burdens. He said the FCC is focused on coordinating with the Agriculture and Commerce departments on broadband infrastructure efforts to ensure "we speak with one voice" so parties "aren't running over each other" and "we get the most bang for our buck." He said the commission wants to encourage more rural fiber deployment to feed nascent 5G wireless systems, which he believes have much potential in rural areas, though he recognized the business plan is difficult. It's important to create small geographic license sizes in spectrum auctions to "incentivize" bidding by small as well as big providers, he said: "Stay tuned." He spoke enthusiastically about the opportunities broadband can create in rural America through remote healthcare and other applications, noting when he was growing up in rural Kansas, his doctor father used to drive 45 miles to visit patients. His overall focus remains on ensuring every American is "empowered" in the digital age: "That requires broadband."
The FCC "can do better" on Lifeline USF, new Commissioner Geoffrey Starks tweeted Monday, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday "struck down @FCC rules that limited Tribal #Lifeline and threatened affordable phone and internet access on Tribal lands" (see 1902010051). "The Court said the @FCC failed to consider harms to people depending on the program and ignored relevant data," he added.