There will be changes in the guidelines governing the broadband stimulus program, said NTIA Chief of Staff Thomas Power at an Federal Communications Bar Association seminar late Thursday. Other speakers urged more clarity and regulatory certainty.
The FCC should clarify the government services exemption from Universal Service Fund contributions, Globecomm Systems told the commission Thursday. The company responded to a public notice on a petition seeking a ruling or clarification on the exemption. The company believes the exemption, which says entities providing interstate telecommunications to government don’t have to contribute to USF, should apply to subcontractors too. Including subcontractors will help minimize costs of high-quality service to the government, which is the goal of the exception, Globecomm said.
The Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) and the National Exchange Carriers’ Association (NECA) go beyond their authority in imposing fund contributions assessments on international-only carriers, Globecomm Systems said in a FCC filing Tuesday. The comments were in response to a petition from the Ad Hoc Coalition of International Telecommunications Companies asking for a ruling on the USAC’s authority. Because Globecomm provides mostly international services, its interstate revenue is “de minimis for purpose of USF contribution,” it said. Globecomm noted that some of its services go through the U.S. via satellite to interconnect with other telecom carriers. The company is also concerned about the prospect of new fees imposed by NECA, “a fund administrator operating with even less specific authority from the commission than USAC.”
CHICAGO -- The need for a long-term and “holistic” commitment to spurring broadband is the most important lesson to be learned from international broadband comparisons, FCC broadband plan coordinator Blair Levin said at Supercomm Wednesday afternoon. “If this is just kind of a one-shot deal, five years from now it will just be like an infinite number of other things” that people talked a lot about but never accomplished, he said.
CHICAGO -- The FCC’s National Broadband Plan presents an opportunity to take on long-awaited revamps for the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation, said industry executives on a panel Thursday at Supercomm. But analysts said they were skeptical. “The realist in me doesn’t think it’s going to happen,” said Moody’s analyst Gerald Granovsky.
CHICAGO - Network neutrality rules could slow or “halt” progress toward a fully connected world, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said in a keynote speech Wednesday at Supercomm. “While this future is imminent, it is not inevitable, and the decisions we make today - as an industry and as a country - will determine whether the benefits of these transformational networks will be felt sooner or much, much later.”
U.S. Cellular Chairman Ted Carlson and other company officials met with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Commissioner Michael Copps, and other FCC officials, to discuss USF funding for wireless broadband, allowing automatic roaming for data services and “harms” caused by handset exclusivity agreements, the company said in an ex parte filing at the FCC.
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The FCC plans to seek more information on the Universal Service Fund (USF) as part of its development of a national broadband plan, said Jennifer McKee, acting chief of the FCC Wireline Bureau’s telecommunication access policy division. On a panel Tuesday at the CompTel show, she said she expects an FCC public notice on how USF fits into the plan to surface in “the next couple of weeks.”
The FCC tentatively concluded that incumbent local exchange carriers should get more universal service support under the local switching support (LSS) mechanism if they lose a significant number of access line customers. The conclusion came in a rulemaking notice responding to a petition by the Coalition for Equity in Switching Support. It protested an FCC rule that reduces a small incumbent carrier’s LSS support when its number of access lines climbs above a specified threshold but doesn’t increase support if the count falls below the threshold (CD Sept 3 p7). Republican commissioners supported the rulemaking but distanced themselves from the tentative conclusion.
Judges seemed skeptical of Rural Cellular Association arguments that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit should throw out the FCC’s interim cap on universal service payments to competitive eligible telecommunications carriers (CETCs), imposed in May 2008. RCA attorney David LaFuria told judges during oral argument Monday that the commission had imposed the cap without a factual or logical basis, without showing an emergency requiring bold action.