Wireless carriers are emerging as leading critics of the FCC’s Lifeline proposal, headed for a vote at the commission's March 31 open meeting. Officials from CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association have been at the agency in recent days to raise concerns about the proposed Lifeline rules, at least as laid out in a March 10 fact sheet. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a draft order last week that would extend Lifeline support for low-income phone service to broadband coverage, and streamline consumer eligibility verification duties and provider participation requirements (see 1603080024). The wireless groups complain the order would mean the end of support for wireless-only voice service, an increasingly popular offering in an era of cord cutting.
Customs Duty
A Customs Duty is a tariff or tax which a country imposes on goods when they are transported across international borders. Customs Duties are used to protect countries' economies, residents, jobs, and environments, by limiting the flow of imported merchandise, especially restricted and prohibited goods, into the country. The Customs Duty Rate is a percentage determined by the value of the article purchased in the foreign country and not based on quality, size, or weight.
The classification for the Microsoft Band is based upon the device's ability to connect to a smartphone, Customs and Border Protection ruled. Its ability to connect to a user's smartphone over Bluetooth is the "essential character" for classification purposes, the agency said Jan. 19 in a ruling it recently released. CBP previously made similar rulings on the Apple Watch and a Samsung smartwatch. The Microsoft Band can display phone call information, news, weather, heart rate, pedometer measurements and other things when connected to a smartphone, CBP said. When not paired, the wrist band lacks the ability to show much of that information, it said. Although the device allows "some basic sound reproducing functions," and other functions, "the Microsoft Band is primarily designed to display, manipulate, and store data via the use of various applications utilized by a Bluetooth-connected mobile telephone," CBP said. That classification means the band gets duty-free treatment when imported from most countries.
The FCC appears likely to cast a wide net in proposed ISP privacy rules, said Mark Brennan, telecom lawyer at Hogan Lovells, during an FCBA panel Thursday evening after remarks by Wireline Bureau Chief Matthew DelNero. DelNero offered a preliminary glimpse of the rules, which are expected to get a vote at the FCC’s March 31 meeting (see 1603030066).
The FCC is well positioned to write privacy rules to protect broadband consumers, Public Knowledge and allies said Wednesday. Broadband providers are collecting huge amounts of information, leaving consumers, in effect, “sitting naked in a glass house,” said PK Senior Vice President Harold Feld at a news conference hosted by the group and New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI), joined by members of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and the Alarm Industry Communications Committee. The FCC may consider a broadband privacy NPRM at its March 31 meeting, informed sources have told us.
As the IP transition continues, state regulators are concerned about network capacity reliability, service quality, device and service interoperability, services for individuals with disabilities, service functionality, communications security, coverage area and public safety answering point and 911 services, said Robin Ancona, Michigan Public Service Commission Telecom Division director. Education and outreach are also concerns, and state regulators want to know what their role is versus the FCC's role, she said Saturday at the NARUC meeting in Washington. Ancona said one of the most important parts of the transition is advance notice to consumers to let them voice concerns. Michigan has also encountered some rights of way problems, she said.
Further motions to stay FCC inmate calling service rules should be filed by Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in a Wednesday order (Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461). The court granted an unopposed FCC motion to file a 35-page consolidated response to stay motions by Feb. 12 (see 1602010027), and gave stay movants until Feb. 19 to file replies. Global Tel*Link, Securus Technologies and Telmate have asked the court to stay ICS rules pending further review of underlying challenges (see 1601270029 and 1601290067). In addition, CenturyLink has asked the commission to stay its own order (see 1601280033). The Martha Wright Petitioners, which prodded the FCC to issue the rules, filed opposition in docket 12-375, saying CenturyLink had provided no support for treating its request differently from the requests of the other three ICS providers, which the agency denied (see 1601220040). On a separate track, the Martha Wright Petitioners asked the FCC to deny a Global Tel*Link petition to waive GTL’s duty to comply by March 17 with a rule prohibiting ICS providers from requiring prison customers to have minimum balances in their accounts. GTL asked that compliance be delayed until a June 20 "no minimum balance requirement" deadline for ICS providers on jail customers. In a filing posted Thursday, the Martha Wright Petitioners asked the FCC to review “certain advice that is apparently being provided to governmental agencies” on the ICS rules that the group suggested appeared to be trying to bypass or game the rules. While the petitioners said they hadn’t confirmed the authorship of a document and aren't asserting it came from an ICS provider, they said the contents were “startling,” particularly in light of a recent Wireline Bureau letter to Securus that had cited the company’s “mischaracterization” of the rules and had warned the agency would remain vigilant in monitoring industry implementation (see 1512040001).
General Communications Inc. asked the FCC to reconsider its forbearance decision relieving local telcos of equal access and dialing parity duties in rural Alaska as part of a broader order on a USTelecom request (see 1512170052). The commission said the rules were no longer needed to ensure long-distance providers could compete with the long-distance services of local incumbents, though it provided some “grandfathering” protections for existing services. The forbearance, “without regard to the level of competition for local services or the status of equal access deployment, threatens to send or suspend consumers in some of the most remote areas of the country in a 1980s time warp for their long distance services. The relief granted was overbroad,” said GCI in a petition for reconsideration posted Thursday in docket 14-192. GCI said stand-alone long-distance service is common in rural Alaska, unlike in the rest of the nation. “GCI estimates that it is the presubscribed [interexchange carrier] for perhaps one-third of rate-of-return customers in Alaska,” it said. Tim Stelzig, GCI federal regulatory attorney, added: “Equal access continues to be a unique source of competition between long distance providers in Alaska. We don’t believe the Commission intended to send rural Alaskans back to the 1980s when high costs made many families think twice before picking up the phone to make a long distance call.” The Alaska Telephone Association is reviewing the equal access issue but hasn't taken a position on the GCI petition. "Over the years we've seen that applying broad policies in Alaska sometimes has unintended consequences, so at times it's been necessary to tailor rules to fit our unique network," emailed Executive Director Christine O'Connor. "I expect there will be contrasting opinions on the petition," she added, calling ATA a "diverse group" of ILECs and wireline and wireless competitors.
The FCC approved a report saying broadband isn't being rolled out broadly enough or quickly enough to meet a statutory deployment mandate. The commission action at its Thursday meeting wasn't a surprise after Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a draft report with a negative finding (see 1601070059). Democratic colleagues supported the report and its conclusion, with one backing an even higher broadband standard, but one Republican dissented and the other concurred while faulting the FCC for failing to bring about more broadband deployment. Key House Republicans and major wireline and wireless telco groups were among those criticizing the report, with USTelecom calling it “not believable.”
The U.S. should "work with the new Canadian government to improve cross border trade opportunities," EBay Senior Vice President-North America Hal Lawton said in a letter to Bruce Heyman, U.S. ambassador to Canada, eBay said in a news release Tuesday. In the letter, Lawton urged Heyman to work with the Canadian government to increase Canada's "de minimis threshold" of $20 on the value of imported goods allowed before customs duties are applied and paperwork must be processed. "The inequity between the U.S. and Canadian de minimis is a major source of friction for eBay customers in these two countries -- an inequity that eBay is committed to improving," the release said. It said the U.S. figure is $200, and legislators are considering upping it to $800.
AT&T and Verizon officials discussed possible accounting rule changes with FCC staffers last week in a proceeding that appears to be heating up after being quiet for most of 2015. AT&T’s meeting discussed “the impact of replacing Part 32 rules with GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles] in two areas: materiality and pole attachment costs,” said a company filing posted Friday in docket 14-130 on a recent meeting. Verizon also discussed materiality and pole-attachment issues, said a Thursday filing on the company's meeting with FCC officials.