Telco groups pressed the FCC to shore up funding for high-cost USF support. NTCA highlighted the need to "remedy shortfalls" in support it sees as "undermining the effectiveness" of the program. The FCC should "pursue readily available paths toward helping to mitigate the insufficiency of USF support," including "the immediate use of existing program reserves" pending a further review and long-term measures, said an NTCA filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90 on a meeting with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. The group said its May 2016 petition for reconsideration provided a vehicle for near-term relief. USTelecom backed "both long-term and short-term solutions" to ensure support is adequate. Insufficient funding affected "broadband providers' ability to build out fiber to rural areas," said its filing on a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Seven Tennessee rural telcos receiving USF support through an Alternative Connect America Model urged the FCC to act by year-end to "authorize additional A-CAM funding up to $200/month per eligible customer location to enable more rural consumers in Tennessee to have the broadband connectivity necessary for jobs, education, healthcare, and economic development," said a filing. Some parties lobbied on the planned Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction of support for fixed services, including a rural coalition of electric cooperatives, NTCA, the Utilities Technology Council and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. They urged the FCC to reject advocacy that "would reduce accountability and potentially undermine an efficient and fair auction process by delaying (or preventing entirely) the Commission’s review of information essential to confirming the technical and financial qualifications" of bidders. They disputed opposition to the coalition's proposal that wireless parties be required to provide spectrum propagation maps of their planned coverage areas in short-form applications. The American Cable Association urged the FCC to use census blocks, not census block groups as proposed, as the minimum geographic bidding unit. "[A]lthough many census blocks may be economically viable, the census block groups -- in which these blocks are found -- often are not," said an ACA filing on a meeting with agency auctions task force staff. "This is because these groups include extremely high-cost census blocks, whose reserve price is capped at an amount often far below what a bidder would need to meet its deployment obligations."
An FCC draft ruling and orders would undo 2015 net neutrality regulation and Title II broadband classification under the Communications Act, as Chairman Ajit Pai and staffers outlined Tuesday (see 1711210020). The 210-page draft declaratory ruling, report and order, and order released Wednesday would "reverse heavy-handed utility-style" broadband regulation "and return to the light-touch framework" that promoted a "free and open internet" before Title II classification, it said.
Four items approved at Thursday's FCC meeting were released by Monday afternoon -- orders on ATSC 3.0, media ownership, robocalling and wireless infrastructure. The agency released items on ATSC 3.0 and media ownership Monday. The ATSC 3.0 item authorizes a new broadcast standard and requires broadcasters to simulcast in the current standard during the transition process. The reconsideration order on media ownership gets rid of rules that barred broadcasters from owning duopolies in certain markets or from owning both a TV station and a newspaper in the same market. The recon order also eliminates a rule making TV joint sales agreements attributable for calculating broadcast ownership, and establishes an incubator program to encourage new industry entrants. Comments are due Jan. 23, with replies Feb. 22 on possible ways to ensure calls erroneously blocked as illegal robocalls can be unblocked and on ways of measuring the FCC's effectiveness in its robocalling efforts, said the robocall order and Further NPRM in Monday's Daily Digest. The commissioners 5-0 approved rules spelling out how voice service providers can block calls likely to be illegitimate due the lack of any legal reason to spoof certain kinds of numbers (see 1711160054). In the order, the agency also directs its Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to prepare, along with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, a report on robocalling, including on the progress being made in combating illegal robocalls and the hurdles that remain. The FCC Friday released an order in docket 17-79 aimed at promoting 5G and other wireless infrastructure deployment by making it easier to replace utility poles under the National Historic Preservation Act (see 1711160032). The order eliminates a historic preservation review requirement "when utility poles are replaced with substantially identical poles that can support antennas or other wireless communications equipment," it said. The order excludes "from historic preservation review only those replacement poles that are situated no more than ten feet away from the original hole; are no more than 10 percent or five feet taller than the original pole, whichever is greater; and are consistent with the quality and appearance of the original pole." The FCC as of Monday afternoon hadn't issued texts of meeting items on wireline infrastructure deployment, Lifeline USF low-income subsidies (see 1711160021), its most recent spectrum frontiers order, which opened up additional high-band spectrum for mobile use (see 1711160026), or its NPRM on eliminating cable Form 325 reporting requirements.
Ed Markey, Mass., and 10 other Senate Democrats jointly urged FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Friday to delay evaluating the sufficiency of the E-rate USF subsidy program's Category Two services, which provide schools and libraries support for Wi-Fi and internal connections. A Wireline Bureau September public notice seeks input (see 1709250022). The FCC’s 2014 E-rate modernization order required the bureau to compile a report on the adequacy of Category Two services by the start of the 2019 program year (see 1412110049). The FCC should “not prematurely make modifications to this important source of funding, which helps ensure all Americans -- whether urban or rural, rich or poor -- remain connected,” said the letter. “It is premature to evaluate the adequacy of the modernization, given its recent implementation and utilization.” The funding for Category Two services “has only been available to schools and libraries for three filing periods,” and given applicants can file for funding “anytime in the five-year period” it’s “impossible to fully evaluate the program’s effectiveness at this time,” the senators said. The agency didn’t comment.
The FCC had 90 outstanding audit recommendations Sept. 30 at the end of FY 2017, it said Wednesday in its annual financial report. They included 58 from the Office of Inspector General and 32 from GAO. In FY 2017, the FCC closed 58 audit recommendations and received 48 new ones, it said. An independent auditor said the FCC financial statements "were fairly presented in all material respects, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles," said an attached Nov. 15 letter by OIG. But the auditor noted two "significant deficiencies," also reported in prior years, on USF budgetary accounting and IT controls at the FCC and Universal Service Administrative Co. "Inaccurate invoicing deadlines increase the risk of premature deobligations," the auditor said of the FCC's USF budgetary accounting. "Because invoicing deadlines for seven of our samples were January 2018 instead of January 2019, USAC was at risk of improperly de-obligating $29M in FY 2018." On the agency's IT controls, the auditor "found that FCC had not implemented effective policies, procedures and processes over its general support system, FCCNet, and its financial management system, Genesis." The FCC concurred with the auditor's recommendations and said it's acting to address the deficiencies. The FCC had $20.8 billion in total assets in FY 2017, down 4 percent from FY 2016, and $11.6 billion in total liabilities, down 12 percent from the previous fiscal year, the agency said. That left the commission at a total net position of $9.2 billion for FY 2017, up 8 percent from the previous fiscal year, it said. The agency's net cost of operations was $10.2 billion, up 3 percent from FY 2016, and its total budgetary resources were $10.9 billion, up 45 percent from the year before, it said.
CTIA asked the Utah Public Service Commission to reverse its decision to adopt a connections-based contribution system for state USF. CTIA filed an application Monday for hearing and request for stay in docket 17-R360-01 that would hold back the new method and return the state to a revenue-based mechanism. The effective rule isn’t competitively neutral and non-discriminatory between prepaid and postpaid providers, doesn’t comply with Utah law and would burden the federal USF, CTIA said. CTIA on Monday also asked the Nebraska PSC to reconsider its decision to adopt a connections-based contribution method, but the filing isn’t yet online, a PSC spokesman said Wednesday. The state chair of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service said this week that state members agreed to a recommendation on revamping USF contribution systems but are waiting for federal members (see 1711130035).
BALTIMORE -- State members of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service are ready to recommend how to revamp USF contribution, said State Chair Chris Nelson at a NARUC meeting. State members met unofficially Sunday without their FCC counterparts, Nelson told us. Monday, the NARUC Telecom Committee delayed voting on two competing Lifeline resolutions, but voted for a draft resolution to support requiring direct dialing of 911 in hotels and other enterprises.
The FCC set 2018 rural benchmark rates for ILEC fixed voice and broadband services supported by high-cost USF subsidies, based on an urban rate survey. The new monthly average urban voice service rate (rate floor) is $25.50 and the statutorily mandated "reasonable comparable" rural benchmark rate will be $45.38, requiring USF-backed ILECs to certify their basic residential rates don't exceed that level, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 10-90 in Thursday's Daily Digest. Noting a May USF rate freeze (see 1705180061), the PN said the carriers won't be subject to any support reductions for any rate of at least $18 but must still report in Form 481 filings their rates if they're below the $25.50 floor. Most rural broadband benchmark rates were set between $85.54 and $94.36, depending on data speeds and capacity allowances; for Alaska Plan carriers, the benchmarks range from $109.89 to $115.66. The bureau raised the 160 GB minimum monthly usage allowance to 170 GBs for price-cap and rate-of-return carriers.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission must do all it can to close the rural broadband gap, a member said Thursday at a livestreamed information meeting on the state’s USF high-cost support mechanism. State broadband officials said limited funding makes it tough to spread broadband. Supporting municipal broadband efforts and phasing out high-cost support for traditional phone service could be ways forward, consumer advocates said. PUC staff pointed to continued decline in USF contributions due to changing technology.
FCC actions to spur broadband infrastructure deployment and close the digital divide will remain at the top of Chairman Ajit Pai's agenda, said aide Jay Schwarz at a Thursday FCBA panel of all five commissioner wireline advisers. Other aides cited USF budgetary concerns -- including for rural healthcare (RHC) support -- jurisdictional separations, phone numbering and spectrum issues as priorities. Agency process reform was another focus, with the two Democratic aides joining the three Republicans in speaking positively about FCC release of draft items for meetings, an issue detailed in our Special Report (see 1711060006).