The Oklahoma Corporation Commission will hear a motion to reopen the record on state USF and set a procedural schedule to readjust the contribution factor, the OCC said in docket 201900036. The current 6.28 percent factor needs modification to ensure the state fund has enough money, said the Oklahoma USF administrator in Thursday’s motion. Data used to calculate the factor changed significantly since the factor was set, it said. Total intrastate revenue was lower than expected from July to September, a trend that will likely continue, and funding needs will exceed what the administrator previously estimated, it said. Also Thursday, New Mexico Public Regulation Commission staff urged commissioners not to recommend to the legislature any changes to state USF’s size, purpose or structure. "To date, the $30 million cap has been sufficient to cover the various demands on the fund that fall within the support programs currently in place,” it said in docket 19-00046-UT. The commission can make short-term tweaks through rulemaking or order, staff said. CTIA told the New Mexico PRC to wait to recommend USF changes (see 1911010022).

Don't rely on the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to ban equipment from Huawei for USF, as proposed by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, asked the Chinese company. Huawei opposes the ban, scheduled for commissioner vote Friday (see 1910290054).“The Commission cannot rely on CALEA as a source of authority for its rule because it never proposed to rely on CALEA in its NPRM,” Huawei said in docket 18-89, posted Friday. “In the Draft Report and Order, the Commission cites two provisions of CALEA, 47 U.S.C. §§ 229 and 1004. But the Commission cited § 229 nowhere in the NPRM and cited § 1004 only in a footnote with no explanation or context whatsoever,” Huawei said. The FCC’s proposed interpretation of CALEA “departs from the statute’s plain text, ignores statutory structure, purpose, and legislative history, and is otherwise patently unreasonable,” the company said.

Frontier Communications' South Carolina USF could face a freeze pending an audit to determine whether the carrier appropriately used the funding. The Public Service Commission opened docket 2019-352-C Wednesday after the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff petitioned Nov. 8 to suspend and hold state USF disbursements to the carrier. Frontier blamed antiquated equipment for a 24-day outage last month in Georgetown County, but tried to repair rather than replace or upgrade it, ORS said. “It is unclear how much additional equipment Frontier has in South Carolina that is in such an antiquated state as the equipment at issue here.” There weren’t enough local technicians to work on the problem, ORS added. The firm is the largest USF recipient in South Carolina, scheduled to receive about $6.6 million this year including about $553,000 this month, ORS said. “This raises serious concerns about whether Frontier has been utilizing the USF ... for the programs for which the funds were intended, including investing and maintaining its South Carolina network to provide basic telephone service," or is using the money for other things. The company plans to respond by Monday, its attorney wrote Tuesday. The telco didn’t comment Thursday.

The FCC addressed waste, fraud and abuse in the Lifeline USF program in a fifth order and a Further NPRM in docket 17-287, issued Thursday and OK'd about two weeks ago. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks dissented in part and concurred in part. Comments are due 30 days after Federal Register publication, replies 30 days later. The rulemaking seeks comment on prohibiting Lifeline providers from offering handsets to consumers at no cost.

Rural Wireless Association General Counsel Carri Bennet raised concerns (see 1911080017) about a proposed national security order (see 1910300036) to ban equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE from networks funded by the USF, meeting with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. “RWA members would like to understand whether maintenance or support would expand to areas not related to payments to Huawei and ZTE,” she said in docket 18-89, posted Wednesday.

The FCC Wireline Bureau issued guidance Tuesday for funding recipients in USF competitive bidding on how to notify the bureau of discrepancies between the number of funded locations and locations a provider can serve with broadband (see 1809100042). An order in docket 10-90 establishes a one-time eligible locations adjustment process (ELAP). A Connect America Fund-II participant officer must certify under penalty of perjury the provider did due diligence. Eligible stakeholders have 90 days from release of the new data to file a challenge; responses will be due 30 days after that. The bureau will work with Universal Service Administrative Co. on a process to accept and retain ELAP location submissions and control access to the information for confidentiality and privacy purposes, and the bureau will work with USAC on an ELAP map.

USTelecom and members want the FCC-proposed Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to "invest today in terrestrial broadband to provide a future of rural connectivity," wired and wireless, they said in meetings with the Office of Economics and Analytics and Wireline Bureau Thursday and posted Friday in docket 19-126. They request "clearly defined roles and responsibilities" as USF high-cost programs transition to RDOF (see 1909230013). The telecom industry wants the FCC to use lessons learned from the Connect America Fund phase II auction "to ensure reasonable accountability while ensuring the program is not bogged down with unnecessary requirements," saying RDOF should reduce the risk of inaccurate location data. AT&T, Consolidated, CenturyLink, Frontier, Verizon and Windstream also sent representatives.

Concerns mounted Friday about a draft order to bar companies that may pose a national security threat to U.S. interests from having USF money paying for their equipment when used in American telecom networks. Wireless and wireline interests sought changes. Huawei, which could be subject to the ban, retorted. And a professor whose report was cited in the draft expressed some surprise at that inclusion, while defending his report from the company's criticism.

The FCC Wireline Bureau granted petitions to Allamakee-Clayton Electric Cooperative and Consolidated Communications Networks to waive a commitment to serve a specific number of locations under rural broadband experiments in the USF Connect America Fund program, in an order posted to docket 10-90 Thursday. "Petitioners demonstrate that the required number of locations exceeds the actual number of locations that the petitioners have been able to identify within their respective study areas," the bureau said. The agency will direct Universal Service Administrative Co. to reduce payments accordingly.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., wrote President Donald Trump Wednesday about Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers' “ongoing refusal to pay lawfully owed licensing fees to U.S. developers of standards-based wireless technology.” Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE, neither of which is identified in the letter, are under FCC and Capitol Hill scrutiny (see 1909270063). A draft FCC proposal would bar USF funding for the purchase of telecom equipment from companies “posing a national security threat to the integrity of communications networks or the communications supply chain.” The order is seen as targeted at Huawei and ZTE (see 1910300036). Inhofe and Wicker urged Trump to address “this flagrant and willful decision by Chinese companies to ignore the intellectual property rights of the U.S.” and other countries “as a part of your ongoing trade negotiations with China.” The Chinese manufacturers' decision not to “adhere to” licensing laws “not only undermines faith in a world-recognized system of license fee payments, it also exposes the ambition of certain Chinese companies to unfairly seek an advantage over other law-abiding companies,” Inhofe and Wicker said. “We must change the ability of Chinese companies to access the U.S. market while simultaneously eroding the ability of the U.S. and other Western market-based companies to maintain their leading role in the research and development of advanced wireless technology.” The White House didn't comment.