FCC information collection adopted in a 2016 rural telco USF overhaul order was cleared by the Office of Management and Budget for three years effective immediately, said Monday's Federal Register. "The reforms adopted in this Order require rate-of-return LECs to make tariff filings with the necessary tariff materials outside of the normal tariff filing period."
Rural telcos from seven more states urged the FCC by year-end to approve increased USF Alternative Connect America Model (A-CAM) funding up to $200 per month per eligible customer location for broadband deployment. "We are ready, willing and able to meet" additional broadband deployment duties, said a letter posted Monday from six Alabama RLEC recipients of A-CAM support. They said the increased funding would allow them to guarantee 25/3 Mbps data speed to almost 6 percent more rural customers and 10/1 Mbps service to more than another 6 percent. Similar letters were posted in docket 10-90 in recent days from carriers in Arizona, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington state and Wisconsin. Previously, RLECs from Georgia, Minnesota and Tennessee filed such letters (see 1711290027 and 1711240018).
The USF contribution rate is expected to rise in Q1 from 18.8 percent to 19.5 percent of carriers' U.S. interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, said industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg in a Friday email. The Universal Service Administrative Co. projected USF-applicable telecom revenue for Q1 to be $12.87 billion, a quarterly drop of about $154 million that continues the downward trend in the contribution base, he said. That, combined with USAC's previously projected Q1 USF demand of $2.08 billion, produced the expected increase in the contribution factor, he said. Amy Bender, aide to FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, chairman of three federal-state joint boards, on Nov. 9 said her boss had discussions with state colleagues about USF contribution issues but was more focused on making recommendations by the end of March on possible jurisdictional separations changes (see 1711090043). The separations issues remain "where our focus is right now," an O'Rielly spokeswoman told us Monday. State joint board members are ready to recommend changes to the USF contribution mechanism, said State Chair Chris Nelson at a NARUC meeting in November (see 1711130035).
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., asked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to detail agency steps to recover $89.5 million in fines it proposed about four years ago against Lifeline USF providers "that profited from violating" rules for the low-income subsidy program. "It's critical that the FCC Enforcement Bureau acts swiftly and aggressively to hold companies accountable for violating Lifeline program rules and to protect taxpayers and low-income Americans who rely on Lifeline," the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee ranking member wrote Friday in a letter an aide sent us Monday. McCaskill said the FCC September 2013-February 2014 issued notices of apparent liability to 12 Lifeline providers proposing more than $94 million in fines for enrolling ineligible consumers, but only one led to a public fine, after it was referred to DOJ for criminal prosecution. Ten of the providers continued to receive Lifeline support, totaling more than $2.4 billion in 2014-16, "just over 50% of all Lifeline funds disbursed" then, she wrote, noting that includes $1.36 billion to TracFone. McCaskill asked Pai to respond by Dec. 22. The FCC is reviewing the letter, said a spokesman.
The Utah Public Service Commission said it won’t reconsider moving to a connections-based contribution mechanism for state USF on Jan. 1. In a Thursday notice in docket 17-R360-01, the PSC said it will deny CTIA’s application for rehearing. CTIA is weighing next steps in Utah, a spokeswoman said. CTIA also had asked the Nebraska PSC to reconsider its separate decision to adopt a connections-based contribution method (see 1711150049). The wireless association filed a motion for appeal Thursday that replaces the earlier motion for reconsideration, a Nebraska PSC spokesman said. The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission also is mulling a USF contribution revamp, in case 17-00202-UT (see 1711020044). New Mexico commissioners last week voted 3-1, with one member excused, to increase its revenue-based state USF surcharge to 6.06 percent for 2018, up from 5.03 percent in 2017.
The FCC pushed back the launch of a Lifeline national verifier of consumer eligibility for the low-income USF support program, citing the need to address security issues. The initial implementation of the national verifier, scheduled this month in six states, is being postponed until "early 2018," said a Wireline Bureau public notice Friday in docket 11-42.
Minnesota and Georgia rural telcos urged the FCC to approve by year-end additional USF Alternative Connect America Model (A-CAM) funding up to $200 per month per eligible customer location for broadband deployment. "The time to act is now. ... The additional funding will be targeted to high-cost census blocks not served by unsubsidized competitors where, absent support, it is not economically feasible to extend broadband service," said 28 Minnesota and seven Georgia RLECs receiving A-CAM support, in separate letters (here, here) posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 10-90. Seven Tennessee RLECs made the request last week (see 1711240018). ITTA President Genny Morelli told us she expects additional letters from A-CAM participants in other states in the coming days, given "strong and widespread" carrier interest in near-term additional funding.
An FCC draft item circulated on Blanca Telephone's request for relief from a 2016 Office of Managing Director letter demanding repayment of a USF debt under the Debt Collection Improvement Act, said the agency's circulation list updated Friday. The draft addresses Blanca's petition for reconsideration in docket 96-45, said a commission spokesman Monday. The petition said the FCC in 2008 began auditing Blanca's USF receipts being used in part to support a mobile cellular system in Colorado, but it wasn't until June 2, 2016, that the managing director told the company, "without citing specific rules," that it had violated several "rule parts." The managing director "is not authorized to issue USF rule violation findings," it said. "The Commission is not authorized to issue rule violation findings where it had knowledge of facts for years, but did nothing more than query Blanca relentlessly about its USF accounting practices. The FCC eventually referred the USF accounting questions to the Department of Justice despite the fact that the FCC had not entered any rule violation findings against Blanca at that time. Blanca was not informed of the timing of that referral. In essence, the FCC referred nothing to the DoJ and the June 2, 2016 action is nothing more than a fig leaf to try to correct the deficient referral to try to improve the DoJ’s litigating position."
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.