Rural telco groups pressed the FCC to increase their annual high-cost subsidy support. WTA said a "fully-funded" rate-of-return (RoR) USF budget would start at $2.43 billion in 2018 and gradually increase to $2.975 billion in 2026. "This increase is warranted, in major part, because of the substantial construction and operating cost increases that have occurred during the course of the transformation of the predominately voice and lower-speed broadband network of 2011 into today’s higher and higher-speed broadband network," said WTA's filing posted in docket 10-90 Friday on a meeting with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and an aide. Similar filings were posted on meetings with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel (here, here, here). GVNW Consulting cited NTCA estimates that $2.55 billion will be needed in 2018, with budget demand growing to about $2.8 billion by 2026, said filings on meetings with all four commissioners (here, here). It also said "the vast majority of comments" opposed using reverse auctions to distribute USF support. In a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, ITTA urged the FCC to "fully fund separate budgets" for the two RoR segments of the high-cost program: the Alternative Connect America Cost Model program and legacy support mechanisms.

Tribal groups and Lifeline providers asked a court to stay FCC tribal Lifeline restrictions, pending judicial review of their challenges to an order in late 2017 (see 1711160021). The FCC decisions to prohibit resellers from receiving enhanced tribal Lifeline support and to narrow the geographic scope of tribal lands will "disconnect eligible low-income Tribal members from phone and broadband service," and were made without meaningful consultation with affected tribes, said the motion (in Pacer) Friday of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, Oceti Sakowin Tribal Utility Authority, National Lifeline Association, Assist Wireless, Boomerang Wireless and Easy Telephone Services, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in NLA v. FCC, No. 18-1026. The Wireline Bureau July 8 denied the parties' request for an administrative stay (see 1807060011). The D.C. Circuit Friday granted (in Pacer) an unopposed revised briefing schedule on underlying petitions challenging the order, with the DOJ/FCC brief due July 23, and petitioners' reply brief due Aug. 20. At the FCC, the NLA backed a Q Link Wireless emergency petition asking the FCC to direct Universal Service Administrative Co. to implement an application programming interface for its Lifeline national verifier of consumer eligibility for the low-income USF subsidy program. Comments are due in August on the petition (see 1807120004 and 1807050046).

The FCC plans a daylong workshop July 31 at the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in Wisconsin to discuss a challenge process on areas initially deemed ineligible for USF in the Mobility Fund Phase II reverse auction. “There will also be presentations on other Commission proceedings and programs of Tribal interest, including overviews of the Universal Service Fund, the Tribal Radio Priority, and the Tribal Engagement Obligation,” the FCC said. “There will be an opportunity for government-to-government consultations with Tribal leaders or their designees in a collaborative and constructive environment.” The workshop starts at 8:30 a.m.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed rules providing a new framework for “the vast majority” of pole attachments under federal jurisdiction by imposing a one-touch, make-ready” (OTMR) regime. An accompanying declaratory ruling attacks local or state moratoriums on new wireless and wireline facilities. The order and declaratory ruling are set for a vote at commissioners’ Aug. 2 meeting (see 1807110053) along with items on broadcast incubators, repacking reimbursement, a telehealth item and a spectrum/5G auction-related action.

An FCC school and library USF draft order would address a school district request to waive a deadline for appealing Universal Service Administrative Co. denial of its E-rate application, a commission spokesman told us Tuesday. The draft circulated June 29, according to an agency list.

The FCC will auction off three more high-frequency bands in the second half of 2019, Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday as he unveiled the items for an Aug. 2 commissioners’ meeting. Pai said the meeting will focus on 5G, with draft rules for the first high-band spectrum auctions targeted for a vote. Pai also tentatively plans votes on a draft order to adopt "one-touch, make-ready" pole attachments and bar state and locality moratoriums on network buildouts, a draft order on broadcast ownership diversification through incubators and a draft notice of inquiry on creating a $100 million telehealth pilot program.

The FCC should try harder to thaw the separations freeze, two state members of the Joint Board on Separations and the state chair of the Joint Board on Universal Service said in interviews ahead of NARUC's summer meeting. They complained that the federal side of the Joint Board isn’t engaging to update separations factors set more than 30 years ago and first temporarily frozen in 2001. NARUC members plan to vote next week in Scottsdale, Arizona, on asking the FCC to extend the freeze’s 2018 expiration by two years, and other draft resolutions related to the Lifeline national verifier, IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) and a precision agriculture bill pending in Congress (see 1807030052).

Q Link Wireless asked the FCC to ensure application programming interfaces (APIs) are implemented by the Universal Service Administrative Co. in a USF Lifeline national verifier, to permit eligible telecom carriers (ETCs) "to exchange information with USAC, including information necessary to establish eligibility, on a machine-to-machine basis when consumers seek to enroll" in the low-income program. USAC’s current implementation "will be unnecessarily difficult and confusing for consumers, especially rural Americans; will expose consumers to phishing fraud by unscrupulous individuals; and will increase the National Verifier’s annual operating costs by tens of millions of dollars," said Q Link's emergency petition in docket 17-287 Thursday. "There are right ways and wrong ways to do things, and USAC’s current path is the wrong way."

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., urged the FCC Thursday to view the University of Mississippi Medical Center's Center for Telehealth and its partnership with C Spire as national models “for telehealth expansion across” the U.S. as the agency examines ways to provide rural telehealth access beyond the confines of the USF Rural Health Care Program. The FCC issued an order last month raising the RHCP cap to $571 million to account for 20 years of inflation and address a funding shortfall and rising demand. The Pai-proposed order got unanimous support from the commissioners (see 1806060057, 1806140017, 1806190063 and 1806250042). The UMMC-C Spire partnership “allows rural patients to take preventative steps and avoid hospital stays, reducing costs and greatly improving patient outcomes,” Wicker said in a letter to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. “Supporting this type of partnership will open access to critical telehealth services for the estimated 23.4 million rural Americans who lack broadband today.”

CTIA said the FCC is in no position to determine if any telecom companies are a threat to U.S. security, and it should work with the Department of Homeland Security, which has more expertise in the area. Other commenters also urged caution. The Rural Wireless Association said the FCC has already chilled investment in rural networks. Reply comments were posted this week in docket 18-89 on the NPRM approved 5-0 by commissioners in April (see 1804170038).