Congress should set national goals and performance metrics in the deployment and adoption of broadband, Sunne Wright McPeak, president of the California Emerging Technology Fund, plans to testify Tuesday. The goals and frameworks should include a timetable and assigned responsibilities, she will say, urging continued implementation of the National Broadband Plan and use of NTIA’s broadband adoption tool kit, released earlier this year. McPeak is to be a witness before the Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on broadband adoption, set for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in 253 Russell. Other witnesses include Aaron Smith, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, Blandin Foundation Director-Public Policy and Engagement Bernadine Joselyn and Broadband for America Honorary Co-chair John Sununu. McPeak will discuss her experiences leading the California broadband fund and back the integration of broadband and information technologies into all federal policies and programs. “There is a need to ‘connect the dots’ with a set of coherent strategies that transcend ‘bureaucratic silos’ to optimize access to and use of the Internet with high-speed connections,” she will say, according to her written testimony. The U.S. Department of Education must ensure broadband is integrated throughout schools, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development should pursue “smart housing,” she is to say. The Homeland Security Department should be a “proactive partner” to FirstNet, according to McPeak. She will ask “the FCC to structure USF reforms for a Broadband Lifeline Rate Program and eRate [sic] to encourage and reward providers who partner with non-profit intermediaries (such as EveryoneOn) and trusted [community-based organizations] with a proven track record and align with state plans,” according to her testimony. “Reimbursement and subsidies from the USF should reward public-private partnerships that drive to and achieve explicit broadband adoption goals."
Beleaguered Alaskan telco Adak Eagle Enterprises, whose requests for waiver of the FCC’s new Universal Service Fund rules have been roundly denied by the Wireline and Wireless bureaus (CD July 17 p14), pleaded with the commission to reconsider. In a filing Wednesday the company and subsidiary Windy City Cellular characterized themselves as “tiny companies that worked tirelessly against the odds” to offer phone service in the Alaskan wilderness “when no one else would” (http://bit.ly/1hcWStf). They urged the agency to stop its ceaseless requests for more supplemental information, which have ravaged the carriers: “The FCC is now on the verge of completely destroying the companies.” The Alaskan congressional delegation sent a letter to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn last week warning of the harm that could befall the Adak community if the commission lets its decision stand.
The Iowa Utilities Board did not make any significant changes in its staff report on telecommunications regulation, but it established a roadmap for the IUB going forward, Iowa Telecommunications Association President Dave Duncan told us Wednesday. The staff report (http://bit.ly/HfqPf0), attached to an order to end the IUB’s notice of inquiry, listed some statutory changes to clean up the legislation based on comments and a workshop in September (CD Sept 11 p16), said Duncan. “The IUB addressed some issues that were clearly outdated that needed to be cleaned up,” he said. The IUB played the next steps “close to the vest,” Bret Dublinske, Gonzalez Saggio attorney, told us. Dublinske acted on behalf of several interested parties including Sprint, tw telecom, Cox, Securus and CTIA. “It collectively raises the possibility for rulemakings and what will be teed up in the future, but a lot remains to be seen."
The FCC’s USF reforms are costing jobs, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield said Tuesday while taping an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators to be telecast in the coming weeks. Things such as the commission’s quantile regression analysis (QRA), meant to compare similarly situated companies, aren’t nuanced enough to take into account all the unique challenges faced by NTCA’s 900 members, she said. That uncertainty reduces investment and hurts NTCA’s members, Bloomfield said.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., led criticism of the “failed” Lifeline program Friday. “If Congress had the opportunity to reauthorize this program instead of allowing it to grow on auto-pilot, Lifeline wouldn’t be able to survive,” said a letter signed by Blackburn and 43 Republican House members, addressed to FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn (http://1.usa.gov/1hILOBt). Lifeline, intended to help low-income Americans, has come to “symbolize everything that is wrong with Washington as it’s one of the worst examples of corporate welfare in the federal government,” they wrote, citing its rising costs in recent years and reports that question its effectiveness. There’s no way to win back trust for the program, they said. The letter included several queries to Clyburn, such as what makes Lifeline more important than other USF programs, whether she would support a $2 copay to participate in Lifeline and ways to cut spending in half by the end of 2014. “How much time and how many resources has the FCC wasted trying to save this failed welfare program?” The FCC has defended recent changes to the program as ending waste, fraud and abuse. On its website www.lifelinesupport.org/ls, the Universal Service Administrative Co., which administers the program says: “Eligible households can receive up to $9.25 per month in discounts. Additional state support may be available."
The partial federal government shutdown, in its fourth day Friday, is raising varying levels of anxiety among members of the communications bar. The shutdown’s effects rippled through the Washington area last week, giving most federal workers an unexpected, possibly unpaid, vacation, and raising some fundamental questions for those whose business is dealing with the government. Further adding to problems lawyers face, the FCC unexpectedly took almost all filings and other documents offline for the duration of the shutdown, a much more draconian response than many federal agencies (CD Oct 3 p2).
Public-private partnerships can help rural communities thrive in the face of USF reforms that limit federal funds to rural areas, said telecom analyst Craig Settles. The most successful rural broadband initiatives build community support for collaboration among public and private entities, he told ZCorum, a Georgia company that provides network monitoring and diagnostics. In the face of a “worst case” scenario of USF money just disappearing -- or, more likely, new rules that make it difficult for small telcos to qualify for funds -- rural telcos can survive by forming partnerships with local governments, he said in the interview on ZCorum’s web site (http://bit.ly/1dYmV4R). Local governments can “aggregate the demand,” and can “identify and bring to the table customers for the private sector company.” Local governments themselves can be “a primary customer base,” he said.
The FCC beat the shutdown of the federal government at midnight Monday by releasing an agenda for the Oct. 22 meeting and a handful of orders. The agency is now mostly shuttered, and will stay so as long as Congress fights over the closure, which by some accounts could extend deep into October. The FCC website is all but down, with only a few documents available related to auctions and the shutdown itself.
The E-rate program “simply needs more money,” said Jon Bernstein, president of the Jon Bernstein Strategy Group and co-chair of the Education and Library Networks Coalition. The current demand of more than $5 billion is actually “tamped down demand” because a lot of schools don’t even apply for Priority 2 funding for internal connections, as they know they won’t get it, Bernstein said at the Comptel Plus conference Wednesday. The likely demand is probably closer to $8 billion, he said. Asking for the true demand would be a nonstarter, he said, so his coalition is pushing hard for an initial increase in the E-rate cap to $5 billion. He conceded “we don’t talk about the mechanics” of how that will happen. “We are not telling them how to get there,” he said of the FCC, but when the agency wants to raise money for other USF programs, “they do what they need to do on people’s phone bills.” Bernstein estimated that adding 40-50 cents a month to telephone consumers’ bills would raise enough money to double the cap. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told us last week that raising the cap “certainly merits a discussion” (CD Sept 23 p3).
The FCC is getting ready to shut down most of its operations if there’s an overall government shutdown, acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn told reporters Tuesday after a lunch address to the FCBA. Clyburn spoke for about 20 minutes, touching on the big issues she has addressed at the helm of the agency, including 700 MHz interoperability and prison calling reform.