Four Missouri Republicans joined rural telcos’ campaign to ward off what they see as the worst of the pending Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms. Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer, Sam Graves, Jo Ann Emerson and Vicky Hartzler said a letter dated Tuesday and released the next day. “We believe that in order to achieve the goals of this [1996 Telecom] Act, changes to the USF and ICC system must be made carefully and in a way that would enable carriers serving rural areas to sustain and improve upon affordable broadband where it already exists, to encourage deployment to unserved customers and not to harm rural customers who already have broadband service,” the letter said.
House Republicans are thinking about using the Universal Service Fund to help pay down the budget deficit, Congressional documents show and Hill and industry officials told us. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., circulated a slide presentation among his colleagues Tuesday that contained cuts and savings proposed in talks with Vice President Joe Biden, including between $20 billion and $25 billion in “spectrum/USF” savings.
A handful of rural rate-of-return telco executives took aim at the USTelecom-led efforts to create cost models for Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, an ex parte notice released Monday showed. USTelecom had brought in analyst CostQuest to create cost models as it continues to lead industry-wide talks on wholesale reform. CostQuest executives have been sitting in on ex parte meetings since at least May to discuss some of their findings (CD May 24 p14).
CHICAGO -- The FCC’s overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation system may take a little longer than had previously been anticipated, an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the Cable Show in Chicago. Finishing an order on the subjects may take until the fall, said Sherrese Smith, who advises Genachowski on media issues. “I'm only talking about a month or two delay,” not a longer period of time, she told us during a Q-and-A Wednesday. She also said an item on program carriage will be out soon.
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The House Commerce Committee is content to let the FCC take a first run at the Universal Service Fund overhaul, a committee spokeswoman told us Friday. “We are waiting to see what the FCC decides to do before we make a decision on whether legislation is necessary,” the spokeswoman said. Congress’ tacit approval of the FCC’s reform schedule had been expected (CD Feb 8 p1) but Friday’s statement comes amidst a blitz by rural telcos trying to get the Hill to intervene in the USF proceedings (CD May 25 p8). On the Senate side, Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. has said D-block legislation is his “highest priority” (CD Feb 17 p4).
Industry remains divided on how best to fix the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regimes, with a few months left before an FCC-promised deadline. Despite broad agreement that USF and intercarrier comp need fixing, reply comments show deep divisions over such questions as how quickly to transform to an all-IP network, how to treat VoIP service and the role of satellite and wireless technologies. “There is no doubt that the current universal service fund … and intercarrier compensation regimes are not sustainable in light of market and technological changes,” the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance said. “The comments show that there is no industry consensus in favor of the reforms outlined in the Notice or any other plan to promote broadband deployment to unserved areas.” The replies were posted in docket 10-90.
DALLAS -- The prospect of wireless security regulation is “changing the basic incentives of many management structures,” said Sam Curry, RSA chief technology officer. RSA is the security division of storage hardware and data recovery firm EMC. But officials at the TIA convention said that may not be happening quickly enough as malware for Android operating systems, for example, proliferates with a compounded growth rate of 400 percent monthly. “Security is a dirty word at many companies,” Curry said. “The language of risk at the C-level and elsewhere is not always fully developed.” Chief financial officers see security as just a cost to be managed, said Phil Attfield, CEO of Sequitur Labs. He said they need to start seeing security as a “profit center."
Staff in the office of FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker was lobbied on more than a dozen occasions by Comcast, the NCTA, cable company rivals, nonprofit groups and others as she considered a job offer at Comcast, agency records show. Since April 18, when Baker privately recused herself from voting on anything at the FCC (CD May 16 p7), the lawyers who advise her also were visited by executives of AT&T, the CTIA, News Corp., Verizon and other companies and public interest groups. Baker’s not the first FCC member to directly leave for a large company regulated by the agency, though it’s been decades since that’s believed to have last occurred, said several who have long watched the commission.
Staff in the office of FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker was lobbied on more than a dozen occasions by Comcast, the NCTA, cable company rivals, nonprofit groups and others as she considered a job offer at Comcast, agency records show. Since April 18, when Baker privately recused herself from voting on anything at the FCC (WID May 16 p9), the lawyers who advise her also were visited by executives of AT&T, the CTIA, News Corp., Verizon and other companies and public interest groups. Baker’s not the first FCC member to directly leave for a large company regulated by the agency, though it’s been decades since that’s believed to have last occurred, said several who have long watched the commission.