Central Texas Telephone Cooperative needs the FCC to act quickly on its petition for waiver and application for review of USF rules, it told Wireline Bureau officials Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bob2nb). Central Texas has high capital expenses because it buries cable in the rocky terrain it serves, but this also means extremely low operating expenses, the telco said. Under the current regression model, which looks at capital expenditures and operating expenditures separately, the co-op’s “substantial cost savings” are not being recognized and the company’s costs are “arbitrarily” being labeled as “imprudent,” the telco said. By collapsing the opex and capex results into “one overall loop cost output,” the commission could take into consideration operating efficiencies, the telco said. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel has urged the agency to combine the two separate benchmarks into one benchmark “to simplify the regression analysis and provide carriers with flexibility to meet our new limits” (CD Nov 20 p5).
The Kentucky Public Service Commission granted Boomerang Wireless status as an eligible telecommunications carrier as long as the company complies with its commitments to the PSC as well as to FCC rules. The company is certified for “the purpose of offering Lifeline service only in the underlying carriers’ licensed service areas throughout the state” and will now be able to receive federal and Kentucky USF money for that service, the PSC said in its Tuesday order (http://xrl.us/bob2nj). Boomerang will advertise the Lifeline service and comply with the FCC’s certification rules, the PSC added. The “planned wireless Lifeline offering will provide eligible customers with the following two alternative Lifeline plans: 125 units that roll over; or 250 units without roll over,” one unit the equivalent of one minute or one text, and customers will get free handsets and can “purchase additional airtime,” it said. Other included services, without charge, are voicemail, call forwarding, three-way calling, caller I.D. and call-waiting services.
Major changes in the U.S. telecom marketplace in the 15 years since passage of the 1996 Telecom Act highlight the need for reforms to that legislation, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May Wednesday during an event. The pro-deregulation think tank was promoting its new book, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age, which focuses on how U.S. telecom law and policy should change over the next five years. Reforms should reflect changes to the marketplace since 1996 -- the switch from analog to digital, the switch from narrow-band to broadband networks and the switch from a mostly monopolistic marketplace to one that’s highly competitive, May said. “Those changes call for a new communications law, and certainly, absent waiting for the new law, changes in the direction of communications policy,” he said.
Reply comments on intrastate access charge reform before the New York State Public Service Commission continue to show a sharp split among parties. The divide is between AT&T and Sprint Nextel, which both argue for settling the reform through litigation, and a November joint proposal. Verizon, the PSC staff, cable companies, smaller telcos, tw telecom and Level 3 argued in the proposal that the reform should wait on FCC proceedings. The proposal from 13 entities urges for status quo consideration of intrastate access charges and has been a source of contention for months, most recently in initial comments earlier this month (CD Jan 8 p7).
The FCC needs to take “both near-term and longer-term steps to address statistical and data-related shortcomings” of USF regression-analysis based caps, NTCA told aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn on Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bobd4p). The agency should refrain from extending the caps to other components of USF support, or applying them in full effect, “in light of the many obvious and significant issues that remain to be worked through,” the association said. NTCA also called for “Commission-level oversight” of the caps to high-cost loop support.
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on two petitions for waiver of the rule that requires ILECs receiving high-cost USF support to report their local residential voice rates in effect as of June 1 each year. FairPoint Communications Missouri said it wants a waiver to correct errors in the rates it reported (http://xrl.us/bobdxm). Steelville Telephone Exchange seeks permission to refile its local rate data to reflect rates that went into effect after June 1 (http://xrl.us/bobdxo). Comments on each waiver are due Feb. 19 in docket 10-90, replies March 6.
An adviser to FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach filed comments Wednesday to inform interested parties that the commission’s responses to the House Commerce Committee Request for USF data “may be relevant to a number of issues raised in the petitions for reconsideration pending before the commission” (http://xrl.us/boa8ii). Several parties have filed petitions for reconsideration of the reforms passed in the USF/intercarrier compensation order. The commission’s responses to Congress, which were provided in October, are available at http://xrl.us/boa8ik.
The telecom industry is at a “defining moment” that gets to the heart of “the way we used to think” about investment, versus how the industry needs to think about it in the future, said Bob Quinn, AT&T senior vice president of federal regulatory. At a Minority Media and Telecom Council event Wednesday, telecom executives urged lifting legacy regulations they say are counterproductive in an increasingly wireless world. Panelists also called for more spectrum to help narrow the digital divide, and more outreach programs to encourage broadband adoption.
Don’t doubt the success of the federal government’s wide-ranging broadband stimulus launched two years ago, program officials said. NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling gathered representatives from four of its 224 Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grantees at the Brookings Institution Wednesday to discuss different projects’ virtues, lessons learned and as Strickling said, “to demonstrate the successes” and “humanize” the $4-billion stimulus investment with “tangible” details of how the different projects work. The message glossed over past concerns, such as overbuilding (CD Sept 27 p6), accountability (CD Nov 15 p15) and, in the past year, partial suspension of eight of the program’s largest infrastructure grantees -- seven in May due to FirstNet compatibility concerns (CD Aug 7 p1) and one in December (CD Dec 10 p6) due to compliance problems. The event coincided with NTIA’s 15th quarterly BTOP update to Congress (http://xrl.us/boa3z2).
Before the FCC can implement its Connect America Cost Model, it must settle a more fundamental question than what capabilities should be added to the model, said commenters on a December rulemaking notice on the features. The real question, they said in filings and interviews, is whether to use a greenfield or a brownfield approach to estimating costs. “Of any changes that could be made to the model, this is by far the biggest,” said Ross Lieberman, American Cable Association vice president-government affairs. The ACA has been a primary proponent of the brownfield model, one option offered in the latest version of the CACM.