Allband Communications Cooperative asked the FCC to almost double its USF support from its current $250 per line, citing a "dire need" for "prompt action." Allband requires a "minimum of $457 per line in order to continue its services and operations" as an incumbent telco "and to meet its expense obligations, including payments on its current federal loan" issued by the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), said a petition for a waiver Thursday of a Part 54.302 rule in docket 10-90. The ILEC noted a previous emergency petition for increasing its USF support to $375 per line "necessary to cover Allband's fixed costs, which costs exist irrespective of the employee time or affiliate cost allocations assigned" for Universal Service Administrative Co. review by a July 20, 2016, FCC order. "Aside from the temporary six-month partial deferral of the RUS loan payment obligation approved by RUS in March 2017, this RUS loan payment obligation equals $54,147.17 per month, or $334 per-line. ... The $250 per-line support caps imposed by the [2016 order] falls considerably short of even covering [Allband's] monthly payments on its RUS loan," it said.
CenturyLink won Washington state approval to acquire Level 3 for $34 billion, the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission said in Thursday news release. Commissioners unanimously signed off on an all-party settlement including conditions on network maintenance, outages, USF, interconnection agreements and next-generation 911 (see 1705010039). With the conditions, the deal is “net-positive” for the state and will make CenturyLink more competitive and able to serve more people, the UTC said. “A handful of states still need to approve or clear the merger and some states require only pre-closing or post-closing notice," a CenturyLink spokeswoman emailed. "We are working diligently to finalize the remaining state, federal and international approvals in order to complete the merger by September 30.”
Senate Democrats' search for a candidate to succeed FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn if she decides to exit remains wide open, though lawmakers have candidate qualities in mind, lobbyists and former officials told us. Clyburn hasn't announced any plans, and her current term ended June 30. Clyburn can stay likely until the end of this Congress unless succeeded by another Democratic commissioner.
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska opened a rulemaking to conform state Lifeline eligibility criteria with the federal low-income program. At a Wednesday meeting, commissioners voted unanimously to open the rulemaking and seek comment on whether to expand its scope. The agency separately is mulling broader state USF overhaul (see 1706300049). Also, commissioners agreed to open a staff investigation to inform a report due Dec. 1 to the Legislature about broadband coverage, planned expansions and gaps in broadband infrastructure and financing.
NTCA said the FCC record backs eliminating a USF rate floor that requires rate-of-return telcos to charge customers a certain monthly amount for basic voice service to receive subsidy support (see 1707110055). "Nearly every party commenting on [an] NPRM agrees that the provision should be eliminated," the rural telco group said in a reply posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. Rural customers are penalized with annual rate increases that burden both state commissions, which must review them, and small carriers, which must make filings and notify customers, the group said. "The latter process also strains the relationship between [rural telcos] and their customers." It said support of cable's NCTA for keeping the rate floor in some form "inexplicably misses what the NPRM and all other parties do not; High Cost Loop Support funding reductions flowing from non-compliance with the rate floor do not accrue back to ratepayers. Such support is redistributed to other carriers by operation of the Commission’s rules."
The FCC rural healthcare USF annual budget should be increased to $600 million, from its current $400 million, "merely to account for the past two decades of inflation," Alaska Communications told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and aides. To account for changes in the rural healthcare environment and scope of the program, an increase to $800 million is justified, said the telco's filing posted Tuesday in docket 02-60. The pool of eligible applicants is expanding to include skilled nursing facilities, rural healthcare demand is growing, and provider costs are rising to address privacy, security, bandwidth and other needs, said company, which called the USF support "essential" for serving remote rural areas in Alaska. It urged more program transparency on Universal Service Administrative Co. review of funding requests, and it cited its concerns about, and proposed conditions for, Liberty Interactive's planned buy of General Communication (see 1706200044).
Business data service rules "impose lopsided and burdensome costs" on many rural telcos, said ITTA and USTelecom, defending their petition for an FCC rulemaking to consider allowing rate-of-return RLECs receiving model-based USF support to opt into price-cap BDS relief. "The inflexibility of the regulations preclude such carriers from offering beneficial rates, terms, and conditions to their BDS customers, including institutional customers like schools, universities, and hospitals," said the two ILEC trade groups' reply comments Friday in docket 17-144. The current rules "deter rate-of-return carriers from making the investment necessary to meet the modern communications needs of American businesses and other enterprises," they said. "The toxic mix of burdensome and unnecessary costs, inflexible rules straightjacketing BDS terms of service, and disincentives to broadband investment, often make the costs of traditional rate-of-return regulation exceed the benefits." The groups said there's ample support for the need to "modernize" the rules and "the single opposition lacks support and is misguided." In initial comments, RLEC interests generally backed the petition, Sprint filed opposition and AT&T raised some issues (see 1707070030).
Some parties urged the FCC make cybersecurity an E-rate eligible service in its USF school and library telecom discount program for funding year 2018. "School districts around the country are increasingly becoming the targets of cyberattacks against government infrastructure," commented Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Aruba in docket 13-184, asking the FCC to expand the eligible service list. A public notice sought comment on a proposed list and two issues in particular: whether further clarification is needed to assist applicants seeking support for on-premise network equipment, and "the category of service that should apply to inside wiring between different schools or libraries sharing a single building " (see 1706210069). The K-12 National Advisory Council on Cybersecurity said millions of students "are connecting to unprotected broadband services -- jeopardizing their online safety and the integrity and reliability of public schools local and wide area networks." It asked the FCC to make eligible certain secure web gateway network capabilities "to make Category One broadband service functional." Iboss had similar comments. Kellogg & Sovereign, which manages E-rate applications, supported the FCC's proposal "regarding the eligibility of on-premises Network Equipment with both Category One and Category Two functionalities to clarify that on-premises Network Equipment that interfaces with a Category Two-eligible local area network (LAN) is eligible for Category One support if it is necessary to make a Category One broadband service functional." ApplianSys proposals included implementing "a balanced approach of smaller increments of bandwidth upgrades with caching, or caching in lieu of bandwidth upgrades," and adjusting "actual bandwidth targets for schools by using caching to achieve the same classroom Internet performance with a smaller Internet connection." AdTec asked the FCC to allow applicants to seek funding under either category for inside wiring between different schools or libraries sharing a single building.
The tone of the House Communications Subcommittee’s Tuesday FCC oversight hearing is likely to turn on the degree to which Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other Republicans focus on Blackburn’s draft FCC reauthorization bill at the expense of other hot-button policy issues, communications sector lobbyists told us. House Democrats are likely to air pent-up grievances about controversial topics, particularly the May NPRM examining 2015 net neutrality rules and reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, lobbyists said. Senate Commerce Committee Democrats repeatedly referenced their concerns about a potential rollback of the rules amid a confirmation hearing last week for Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner nominees Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel (see 1707190049). Pai and FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O’Rielly are to testify at the hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
A draft FCC item on advanced telecom capability deployment is a notice of inquiry, a spokesman told us Friday. Chairman Ajit Pai in January withdrew a draft report on broadband-like ATC deployment under Telecom Act Section 706 (see 1701300058), which previous Chairman Tom Wheeler had circulated to conclude an inquiry begun in 2016. "It sounds like this is a reset, and they're basically going to skip a report," said an informed source.