FCC Regulatory Fee Proposal Puts Unfair Burden on Wireless Industry, CTIA Says

The FCC should back away from a proposal to move wireless regulatees to the Interstate Telecommunications Service Provider regulatory fee category, CTIA said (http://bit.ly/VVaofb). The FCC proposed the change “with negligible discussion,” the group said, saying it would shift $20 million in regulatory fees in FY 2014 from wireline to wireless regulatees. CTIA also objected to a proposal to shift indirect full-time equivalent (FTE) employees away from the International Bureau (IB) and to a lesser extent the Wireline Bureau, imposing a larger burden on the wireless industry. In 2013, “over significant concerns expressed by CTIA and others,” the FCC redistributed the majority of International Bureau FTEs to the other core bureaus, “providing regulatory fee relief for IB regulatees at the expense of other regulatees,” CTIA said. The latest proposal would redistribute indirect FTEs in the Enforcement Bureau (EB), Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB) and Office of Engineering and Technology away from the IB and Wireline Bureau, “once again ‘cherry-picking certain divisions’ to provide regulatory fee relief to regulatees in certain core bureaus at the expense of others,” CTIA said.

The FCC should recognize that through spectrum auctions, carriers already pay more than their share, CTIA said. “Unlike any other Commission regulatees, spectrum auction winners already pay the federal government for the right to serve their customers through auction payments for spectrum license rights -- with those auction payments alone accounting for more than 20 percent of the Commission’s overall budget,” the group said.

AT&T raised similar concerns about shifting indirect FTEs away from the IB. The EB is charged with “enforcing the provisions of the Communications Act, the Commission’s rules, orders, and various licensing terms and conditions,” AT&T said (http://bit.ly/1vWiIpu). CGB “develops and implements the commission’s consumer policies ... [and] maintains collaborative partnerships with state, local and Tribal governments in critical areas such as emergency preparedness and implementation of new technologies,” AT&T said. “Both of these bureaus have duties pertaining to the entities that are covered by the International Bureau."

The Satellite Industry Association disagreed, arguing that the indirect FTEs should no longer be supported by satellite licensees. “SIA has demonstrated that there are personnel outside the core licensing bureaus whose work pertains only to a subset of licensee,” SIA said (http://bit.ly/1vWjTFq). “Given the statutory mandate to link fees to regulatory costs, these FTEs must be assigned as direct costs for regulatory fee purposes.” EB and CGB “rarely address matters involving” IB licensees, SIA said.

NCTA said direct broadcast satellite service providers should be shifted to the Multichannel Video Programming Distributor category to pay for direct support of the Media Bureau. “Competitive parity requires not giving special advantages to the use of any particular technology -- a principle that applies equally in the assessment of regulatory fees,” NCTA said (http://bit.ly/1k2eOWy).

DirecTV and Dish Network filed joint comments strongly objecting to NCTA’s arguments. Shifting them to the multichannel video programming distributor category would increase the regulatory fees they pay by 1,100 percent in a single year, the direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers said (http://bit.ly/1oEip1l). “Under this proposal, DBS operators would pay regulatory fees as if they were cable operators, even though they have always been (and remain) regulated very differently than cable operators. The Commission should reject this proposal, just as it has done the four previous times the cable industry has raised it over the years.”