The FCC will release a public notice seeking data on pole attachment costs and their impact on the deployment of super fast networks, Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the agency’s first gigabit community broadband workshop Wednesday. The six-hour workshop brought together industry executives, activists and officials to look at the fast networks out there today and see how they're used and what could be done to speed the deployment of more. “We need more gigabit communities in the United States,” Genachowski said. “We need to have a critical mass of a one-gigabit market to spur ultra high speed innovation here in the United States.” He counted off the fast networks developing in the U.S. -- “We're seeing communities and we're seeing companies” -- and suggested more are necessary to compete globally against countries like South Korea and Japan: “If we build super fast networks, the innovators will come."
House Commerce Committee members said they plan a hearing to examine the FCC’s Lifeline program on April 25, according to a letter sent Tuesday. The letter, sent to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, asked whether the USF program should be frozen until additional reforms can be implemented to reduce waste and abuse in the program. The letter also asked whether the FCC should reconsider providing waivers for carriers to receive funding “even if they deploy no facilities of their own,” and if the Lifeline program should be put on a budget or capped. The letter was signed by Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.; Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore.; Joe Barton, R-Texas; Bob Latta, R-Ohio; Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; and Tim Murphy, R-Pa. Witnesses for the hearing were not announced.
Congress voted 46-53 against an amendment aimed at curbing USF subsidies for wireless service during Friday’s Senate budget resolution vote (S. Con. Res. 8). The amendment, proposed by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., would have prohibited subsidizing commercial mobile service with USF funds, without raising new revenue.
Otelco, a wireline provider for several states, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware Sunday, in order to restructure. The company, which is incorporated in Delaware, has $168.5 million in assets and $310.06 million in total debt, according to documents filed at the Wilmington, Del., bankruptcy court. Otelco operates 11 RLECs throughout Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Vermont and West Virginia as well as two CLECs providing telecom service in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and is “the sole wireline telephone services provider for many of the rural communities it serves,” the documents said.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she opposed any amendments to the Senate’s budget resolution (S.Con. Res. 8) aimed at limiting USF funding for mobile services. Her comments came in a news release Friday. The amendments, which had not been voted on at our deadline, “fail to take into account how vital a program Lifeline is for low income families to stay connected, help secure and maintain jobs, and reach law enforcement in case of emergencies,” Clyburn said. She acknowledged that the program lacked proper controls when it was first implemented but “last year we took appropriate and significant steps to correct that,” she said. “The Commission is open to making additional adjustments where necessary, but in no uncertain terms should qualifying low-income consumers who have followed the rules, be refused service.” Competitive Carriers Association President Steve Berry also objected to any proposed amendments which would limit USF funding for mobile services in a separate news release. “This is not the time nor the place for consideration of policies that would fundamentally impact Universal Service Fund programs,” Berry said. “Eliminating USF support does not reduce the Federal Budget; it only harms rural and low income consumers.”
South Carolina has run into state USF funding issues with its ILECs. “The incumbent local exchange carriers ('ILECs') that receive disbursements from the State USF pursuant to prior Commission orders file an annual ILEC Data report with [the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff],” Chief Counsel and Director of Legal Services Nanette Edwards told the South Carolina Public Service Commission in a letter posted Friday (http://1.usa.gov/Yu7FGA). “ORS has observed that the forms completed by certain ILECs show that the monthly USF support amount exceeds their reported cost.” Edwards’ office “seeks guidance from the Commission as to what actions, if any, should be taken,” she said.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Friday he will leave the FCC in a matter of weeks. Industry officials told us they expect an announcement from the White House as early as this week on a replacement, with former CTIA and NCTA President Tom Wheeler still considered the likely front runner. In the interim, industry and government officials expect the White House to designate Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as the first woman to chair the commission, until a new permanent chairman is confirmed and in place.
Susan Crawford remained positive when discussing the exit of the FCC chairman on the morning he announced his departure. (See separate report in this issue.) “Julius Genachowski is an unfailingly gracious, kind man,” she said on stage after her Friday keynote at the SouthEast Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors meeting in Charlotte, N.C. “He catered to a situation in which he felt his freedom of action was quite strained.”
The FCC responded to attacks on several fronts, arguing in four briefs filed with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it had authority to adopt the reforms in its landmark 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation (ICC) order. The commission defended Monday its new Access Recovery Charge for ILECs to recoup lost access fees, a rule governing ICC for CLEC-VoIP partnerships and a rule banning call blocking by VoIP providers. The reforms it adopted will let the commission meet its congressionally directed mandate to make broadband service available throughout the U.S., it said.
The state of Washington may change how it taxes telecom. Legislators introduced House Bill 1971 Feb. 27 and held a House Finance Committee hearing last week. Sponsored by one Democrat and one Republican, the bill would remove some tax exemptions from the law and draw millions of dollars more in taxes, as well as create a five-year state USF. The bill’s central purpose is tax parity, said House Finance Committee Chairman Reuven Carlyle (D), a bill sponsor, at the hearing. The state’s tax policies “are behind the age and the era,” he said. “We're also trying to recognize that issues like bundling ... really call us to try to get a much simpler, more consistent approach to taxation that is a better reflection of what’s happening in the marketplace."