Work on comprehensive emergency communications legislation will come next year when the FCC finishes its broadband plan and perhaps takes up revamping the Universal Service Fund, House aides said at an E-911 Institute meeting Thursday. The need for a nationwide strategy and funding for next-generation E-911 services could be taken up in a USF bill or some other broadband-related vehicle, aides said. Some of this year’s broadband stimulus awards could go to public-safety projects, as called for in the Recovery Act, but much more money will be needed to fulfill longstanding plans for a nationwide interoperable network, people at the conference said.
It’s important to recognize how broadband, universal service, inter-carrier compensation reform, special access reform and wireless investigation are all interrelated, said consultant Andy Regitsky during a webinar Wednesday. He said there’s a growing consensus on several inter-carrier compensation issues at the commission, including moving intrastate access rates to interstate rate levels, addressing phantom traffic and traffic stimulation, implementing an alternative cost mechanism in certain circumstances and eliminating the identical cost rule. That offers eligible competitive local exchange carriers the same amount of universal service support as incumbent LECs, he said. He mentioned a sample ICC and universal service reform proposal by the FCC last year, which would decrease the cost of universal service and increase subscriber line charge. As a result of that proposal, there would also be a single terminating rate for interstate and intrastate access and reciprocal compensation, he said. Winners of ICC and universal service reform could be ILECs if they're permitted to recover all revenue lost, and VoIP providers if there aren’t access charges, Regitsky said. Large companies that could more easily shift common costs to other products could benefit too if an additional cost standard is used, he said, joking that telecom lawyers are certainly among the potential beneficiaries. Potential losers could be state commissions if they lose final say over rates and rural providers unless lost access revenue is recovered, he said. CLECs seeking USF support will be impacted too, Regitsky said. Meanwhile, until now, the FCC has failed to take any action on special access, he said. There’s pressure from wireless providers in the broadband proceeding to reduce special access rates for the middle mile between the retail Internet provider in a rural area and its backbone network in a lower-cost urban area, he said.
The FCC’s National Broadband Plan probably will conclude that Americans are getting less broadband than they pay for, judging from hours of presentations Tuesday at the commission’s monthly meeting. Another likely conclusion is that universal broadband won’t come cheap: The cost could soar to $350 billion, based on commission estimates.
The Wireline Bureau wants comment on a petition by the Ad Hoc Coalition of International Telecommunications Companies (CD Sept 9 p13) asking the agency to rule that the Universal Service Administrative Co. can’t “indirectly” impose universal service fund (USF) fees on international-only long-distance providers. Ad Hoc also asked the FCC to rule that it lacks jurisdiction to impose USF obligations on those from outside the U.S. Comments are due Oct. 28, replies Nov. 12.
AT&T’s July petition seeking an immediate FCC revamp of universal service fund contribution (USF) formulas will be treated as an ex parte filing in the FCC’s open rulemaking on USF and intercarrier compensation reform, the Wireline Bureau said Monday. AT&T urged the FCC to replace its current system based on interstate revenue with one based on phone number count (CD July 31 p5).
All federal universal service support payments must be made by electronics funds transfer, the FCC said Friday. USF recipients should provide their financial information on FCC Form 498. The requirement will become effective this fall when the FCC releases a revised form, it said. “Eliminating the mailing of paper checks will minimize the possibility that payments are lost in transit or delivered to the wrong addresses, and reduce the chance that payments are misappropriated,” the FCC said.
Collecting and sorting broadband data, including on pricing, speeds, competition and availability, will be one of the greatest challenges for the FCC in the next five months, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at the Media and Technology Institute Policy Forum, held Monday by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Broadband adoption is as important as deployment, she said, adding that she will be doing community outreach on issues with adoption, particularly in disadvantaged communities. Clyburn said she will be talking to “real consumers” and work on community outreach projects, adding that many broadband solutions could be found through community outreach efforts. Consumer’s choice to engage with technology is a critical, and affordability and availability are only some of the barriers of adoption, Clyburn said. Helping people realize the relevance of technology to daily lives is important, she said. Extending broadband infrastructure to everyone and solving deployment challenges aren’t enough, she said. Many are not making broadband a priority and “my goal is to understand why,” Clyburn said. One-size-fits-all isn’t the solution for adoption issues, she said, saying listening and learning are key. Meanwhile, “we need to find ways to encourage broadband investments” and more USF portions for broadband, Clyburn said. A successful national broadband plan can only be created after understanding consumers’ mind set, she said. The Joint Center is working on broadband data, the implications of social networking tools on African American communities and other minority communities and partnering with organizations across the nation and working with local elected officials on issues including broadband adoption, said Nicol Turner-Lee, vice president at the center.
Companies should have to provide broadband as a precondition to receiving universal service funding, said Public Knowledge. In a meeting with FCC broadband plan coordinator Blair Levin, the group said the rule “would be phased in over a number of years, and would allow USF money to be used to help pay for the necessary infrastructure upgrades,” according to an ex parte. Also, Public Knowledge urged the FCC to map existing government fiber assets, and ask Congress to “remove any existing legal barriers to such a mapping.”
Government support is necessary to deliver broadband to all Americans due to the cost of building broadband infrastructure in rural areas, a white paper by consulting firm McLean & Brown said. Rural broadband service providers depend heavily on a combination of explicit support provided by the Universal Service Fund and implicit support through intercarrier compensation, it said. But the current USF and ICC regimes are based on voice-service metrics that aren’t sustainable in an increasingly broadband world, it said, urging “fundamental reforms.” Without them, rural carriers will face financial collapse, it warned. Meanwhile, the historical dichotomy between “telecom service” and “information service” is no longer necessary and is inconsistent with the evolution and growth of broadband services, the consultant said. Wireless networks lack the speed and throughput capacity to fully or economically replace rural wireline networks as an “important rural broadband delivery vehicle,” it said.
Donald Evans, counsel to Corr Wireless, met with aides to Commissioners Michael Copps, Robert McDowell and Mignon Clyburn to discuss universal service issues of interest to competitive eligible telecommunications carriers. “I emphasized the importance of those funds to smaller CETCs in support of their universal service obligations, especially in light of the limiting effect of the interim cap on funds available for this purpose, and the benefits of dealing with this appeal discretely and apart from the broader issues of USF reform,” Evans said.