Commissioner Mignon Clyburn slammed FCC competition policy but saw two "bright spots" ripe for a bipartisan approach: promoting competition in multiple-tenant environments (MTEs) and lowering pole-attachment barriers to infrastructure deployment. She spoke at an Incompas conference Wednesday where speakers cited pole attachments and the "make ready" process as inhibiting broadband expansion. Despite a "backlash" from incumbents and some policy setbacks, new competitors are driving market improvements and winning the battle for public opinion, including on net neutrality, said Incompas CEO Chip Pickering.

FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said USF contributions won't target broadband while he's chairman of a federal-state joint board that advises the agency. Although open to other approaches to shoring up the eroding USF industry contribution base, O'Rielly said he's focused on bringing fiscal discipline to USF programs. The FCC "should set a topline budget and then ensure that spending increases are paired with offsets elsewhere," he said at a Hudson Institute event Tuesday. He also explained his libertarian-tinged conservativism, backed serious cost-benefit analysis in the new Office of Economics and Analytics, and voiced optimism Congress will remove a legal hurdle to new spectrum auctions.

The FCC extended Lifeline recertification waivers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands through April 30. Granting wireless provider Telrite's petition, a Wireline Bureau order Friday in docket 11-42 said hurricane damage justified extending a waiver from annual recertification duties for all Lifeline providers on those islands serving consumers whose low-income eligibility for the USF support program cannot be verified and whose anniversary dates are in April.

Many stakeholders backed hiking USF rural health care program funding support, while industry parties focused more on improving RHC efficiency and oversight. Dozens of comments were filed at the FCC Monday and last week in docket 17-310 on an NPRM on possibly increasing the program's $400 million annual cap and creating a prioritization mechanism if demand exceeds the cap, among other potential changes. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition urged increasing the cap to $800 million to reflect that potential participating providers more than doubled since 1997 when the current cap began. The American Hospital Association said the cap should be "significantly increased to keep pace with growing connectivity demand." Other healthcare interests and Alaskan entities, including tribal groups, backed an increase, citing the need to at least account for inflation. The NPRM "overlooks the significantly greater need for support on a per-location basis in Alaska's rural areas than in the rest of the nation," said Alaska Communications. USTelecom shared some FCC concerns with how the RHC program has operated in the lower 48 states, where "cases of waste, fraud, or abuse have come to light." The commission should focus on helping Universal Service Administrative Co. "detect and reject applications where federal universal service support is not needed" to meet statutory proposes, the telco group said. NCTA supported the promotion of telehealth in rural America "based on evidentiary data with a principal focus on defined needs and desired outcomes." NTCA said the FCC should provide better guidance to applicants, including on the specificity needed to describe requests for service support. "Ensure that satellite broadband services are eligible to equitably compete" for such money, said the Satellite Industry Association.

New Mexico commissioners should expand a probe into Windstream service quality to include whether the carrier is effectively using state USF support to keep its network in good repair, Public Regulation Commission staff said in case 17-00081-UT. The commission began the probe based on informal complaints, but those reflect “just the tip of the iceberg,” staff said Thursday. Windstream service-quality metrics show “the informal complaints are symptomatic of a wireline network infrastructure in distress, and perhaps continuous decline,” it said. Staff is still amenable to reaching resolution by mediation, it said: “The parties have already laid some of the groundwork to that end, but did not reach an understanding.” Windstream disagrees “with the staff’s distorted characterization of our network and our service metrics, and we will file an appropriate response,” a company spokesman said Friday.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Chairman Ajit Pai exchanged barbs over what's holding up a long-pending tribal USF operational-expense relief order, after Clyburn's decision to change her vote to a partial dissent. Clyburn said the order should expand tribal broadband, but Pai said Clyburn's vote robbed the draft of a necessary third vote for an order that would increase tribal broadband funding.

Broadband speeds of 25 Mbps don't appear to offer major economic gains compared to 10 Mbps, the Phoenix Center reported Thursday. "While higher speeds may be of private value to users, there appears to be no broader economic payoff from higher-speed connections, at least when that difference is between download speeds of 10 Mbps and 25 Mbps," said a release on the report by Chief Economist George Ford. The FCC's fixed service benchmark for broadband-like advanced telecom capability (ATC) is 25 Mbps, and its high-cost USF benchmark is 10 Mbps. Examining data from a national broadband map and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Ford compared employment, income and labor earnings growth rates of U.S. counties with predominantly 25 Mbps and those with predominantly 10 Mbps. Ford controlled for county differences in population, education and other factors, the release said. Telecom Act Section 706 report on ATC deployment is effectively due Friday (see 1801180053 and 1801230027).

Universal Service Administrative Co. issued its updated Lifeline national verifier plan for the FCC low-income broadband and voice subsidy program. A 2016 commission order authorized creation of a Lifeline national entity to standardize verification of consumer Lifeline eligibility, and required USAC to report on implementation progress every six months. The plan noted the FCC delayed the national verifier's (NV) Dec. 5, 2017, soft launch and March 13, 2018, hard launch target dates in six initial states to address issues about Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) compliance (see 1712010042). "Functional development of the service provider portal is complete and the FISMA security validation is the final step before the soft launch can occur," said the plan posted Thursday in docket 11-42. "At soft launch, service providers in the six states will be able, but not required, to use the NV system. At hard launch, service providers in the six states will be required to use the NV. Consumers in the six states will also be able to use the system at this time." The six states are Colorado, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The plan also noted USAC and the FCC are implementing tribal Lifeline USF changes adopted in December that affect NV systems.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the name of the group that welcomed a proposal by FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O'Rielly to specify rate-of-return telco expenses that couldn't be reimbursed through USF support or the rate base (see 1801310057).

The USF contribution factor could drop in Q2 from 19.5 percent to 18.3 percent of carriers' U.S. interstate and international (long-distance) telecom end-user revenue, if the revenue holds steady, said industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg's quarterly email update Wednesday. He based his estimate on the Universal Service Administrative Co.'s projection that adjusted Q2 USF demand would be $1.97 billion, $113.4 million less than Q1. "Out of period adjustments," primarily in the high-cost and school and library funds, are "the primary cause of the decrease in quarter-to-quarter USF demand," he said. If the industry revenue base stays constant, that will produce a contribution factor of 18.3 percent, but he noted that base has been trending down and a new decline would produce a higher factor. USAC's revenue base is due out by month's end, he said.