The FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee, which will have a special focus on AI, held its first meeting under its new charter Thursday at FCC headquarters. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the FCC eagerly awaits the group’s work on AI and robocalls. The group also heard reports from FCC staff about several consumer issues before the agency, including the affordable connectivity program's demise (see 2404020075). CAC last met in August (see 2208300059).
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel re-emphasized the potential impact of affordable connectivity program funding exhaustion in letters Tuesday to Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and other congressional leaders. Cantwell and other lawmakers are eyeing ways they can allocate stopgap funding that would keep ACP running through the rest of FY 2024. Congress approved the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act minibus spending bill last month without that money (see 2403280001). Rosenworcel warned lawmakers Tuesday that notices from the Universal Service Administrative Co. and ISPs warning participants that April would be the last month of a full ACP subsidy may be sent when many committee members "are at home in their districts and hearing from their constituents about the benefits of the ACP.” She attached data to each letter outlining “the number of enrolled ACP households in each state, territory, and congressional district.” Press reports about ACP participants’ reactions to the program’s potential end “echo" what the commission has heard "from ACP households directly, with many writing the agency to express their distress and fear that ending this program could lead them to lose access to the internet at home,” Rosenworcel said. “In what is perverse, both rural and Tribal communities will likely see new broadband deployment in remote areas” via funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, “but persistent challenges with cost -- absent the ACP -- may limit the ability of this investment to close the digital divide.” The FCC “remains ready to keep this program running, should Congress provide additional funding,” she said: “We have come too far to allow this successful effort to promote internet access for all to end.”
Pointing to Comcast's broadband business facing headwinds due to fixed wireless and fiber competition and the discontinuation of the affordable connectivity program, Deutsche Bank Research said Monday it was lowering the cabler's stock price target by $2, to $53. In a note to investors, an analyst said it was upping Comcast's 2024 broadband subscriber loss forecast by 285,000, to 435,000, mostly due to ACP-related churn: It's assuming 15% of Comcast's roughly 1.4 million ACP subscribers will disconnect without the subsidy, costing Comcast 210,000 subs across Q2 and Q3.
The California Public Utilities Commission will audit carriers for compliance with the state’s April 2023 shift to connections-based contribution to universal service public purpose programs. In a Wednesday ruling, CPUC Administrative Law Judge Hazlyn Fortune directed the agency's utility audit branch to ensure carriers are reporting and remitting the surcharge in a reasonable manner and as directed in the CPUC's October 2022 decision (docket R.21-03-002). T-Mobile has resisted the contribution mechanism change in the courts (see 2310170042). In a separate ruling Wednesday, ALJ Robyn Purchia clarified that California LifeLine pilot programs using federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) funds will continue through at least May 31. "If the ACP receives additional federal funding, the pilot programs may continue up to June 8, 2025," said the ALJ: If the ACP doesn't receive more funding by April 30, providers must notify California LifeLine customers by May 1 "that their service may be discontinued or otherwise changed."
Advocates of the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program believe funding for both priorities remains available this year, despite Congress having omitted funding in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package enacted last week (see 2403210067). Program backers acknowledge funding will be more difficult as the FY24 package was their best opportunity. They also admit appropriations politics will only prove trickier with Capitol Hill hunkering down for the 2024 election campaign.
Rising opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion policies puts the latest iteration of the Communications, Equity and Diversity Council in a difficult position, said several CEDC members Wednesday during the group’s first meeting under its new charter. “We have always been challenged in our work, but I cannot remember a time that we have been so challenged,” said former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, who has served on every FCC diversity committee dating to the 1980s.
House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (N.J.), Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui (Calif.) and 10 other subpanel Democrats urged NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson Tuesday "to continue to prioritize affordability in your administration of" the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program as the agency reviews states' plans for the money. The Democrats wrote Davidson days after Congress approved the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package without hoped-for stopgap money for the FCC's affordable connectivity program or Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2403210067). "Access to internet service is meaningless to consumers if the cost of signing up is a barrier,” the lawmakers said in their letter. “Studies show that nearly half of all broadband non-adopters cited cost as the primary reason they did not have home internet service." The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which created ACP and BEAD, "includes separate affordability provisions that are specific to the BEAD program," the lawmakers said: "Congress decided to allocate BEAD funds to states and territories since they are best situated to determine the needs of their communities, but it did not change any existing authority to oversee broadband or pricing." NTIA has "administrative oversight and programmatic support responsibilities to ensure the funds would be spent consistent with Congressional intent, including the review and approval of proposals after significant consultation between the state or territory and NTIA," the Democrats said. "These are critical procedures for NTIA to follow in determining whether low-cost plans are in fact affordable for the areas and markets where they are proposed." It "would be a significant missed opportunity in the administration of BEAD if these affordability provisions are not exercised to their fullest to help middle-class and low-income Americans afford the cost of internet service, consistent with the statute," the lawmakers said. Congressional Republicans have criticized NTIA's reviews of state plans' affordability provisions as a form of rate regulation (see 2312180063).
President Joe Biden signed off Saturday on the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package (HR-2882), the White House said. The Senate voted 74-24 Saturday morning on the measure, which allocates $390.2 million to the FCC, $425.7 million to the FTC and $535 million in FY 2026 funds for CPB. Congressional leaders omitted stopgap funding for the FCC's affordable connectivity program and money for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, despite repeated calls from the initiatives' backers (see 2403210067).
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., led filing of the Supporting National Security with Spectrum Act Friday as an alternative vehicle for allocating an additional $3.08 billion for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program after congressional leaders didn't agree to include the funding in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending bill (see 2403210067). Congress inched closer Friday to passing the minibus, which also didn't include stopgap funding for the FCC's ailing affordable connectivity program despite a strong push by the initiative's backers (see 2402210073).
Verizon said the FCC doesn’t need a usage rule for Wi-Fi hot spots that the E-rate program funds (see 2401300063). E-rate rules “will require schools and libraries to pay part of the cost of Wi-Fi hotspots, which will discourage" them "from subscribing to unused services,” the carrier told Wireline Bureau staff, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 21-31. The commission “has found it necessary to apply a usage rule only when the support amount covers the entire cost of a service” including services offered under the emergency connectivity fund, Lifeline and the affordable connectivity program, Verizon said: “If the Commission adopts a usage rule in this proceeding, the rule should be flexible and simple for schools and libraries to apply, and focus primarily on guarding against large-scale warehousing.”