An NTCA official met with aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks on a proposal to end USF rate floor, circulated for a vote at the April 12 commissioners' meeting (see 1903220055). “If the rate floor were to increase dramatically in coming months due to a stalled debate over how otherwise to proceed, this would cause significant harm to rural consumers,” NTCA said Thursday in docket 10-90. The harms would come from “voice telephony rates that could increase by nearly 50 percent per month” and “suppressed network investment,” the group said: “The public interest … necessitates prompt action, and the draft report and order provides the best vehicle for such action.”
The FCC told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit it should reject as untimely a March 5 petition seeking judicial review, after the agency denied a Sandwich Isles Communications request to reconsider a 2016 order saying the Hawaiian telco must repay $27.3 million in improper USF payments it received 2002-2015 (see 1901030024). SIC said in a March 5 petition the FCC wrongly ignored a report from an independent consulting firm that it owed only $4.1 million in overpayments. “By ignoring the evidence, the FCC acted arbitrarily and capriciously,” SIC said (in Pacer, docket 19-1056). The FCC said in a filing posted Thursday that regardless of the merits, the petition for review was due at the court 60 days after the FCC released an order rejecting the telco’s claims. The window closed March 4, the regulator said: “Because Sandwich Isles failed to file its petition within the statutory filing period, this Court is ‘constrained to dismiss the untimely petition for review for want of jurisdiction.’”
FCC members and others ramped up rhetoric on a draft NPRM on a potential USF budget, which hasn't been made public. The commission declined to comment. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, the point person on the rulemaking, is "troubled by early critiques of this item," he tweeted Thursday. "Beyond not having read it, these people don’t seem to have any idea what they are talking about. Shocking for DC, I know." Three of four "USF programs already have hard spending caps & the other has a soft cap requiring Commission action if it were exceeded," he said. "An overall cap doesn’t add new budgetary pressures than those that already exist!" He said, "Instead, an overall cap will force the Commission to seriously grapple with the consequences of raising an individual program’s cap for the total fund, and more thoughtfully confront how it spends consumers’ hard-earned dollars." Commissioner Geoffrey Starks tweeted, "How can we talk about capping our Universal Service programs at a time when the Commission doesn’t seem to have a good handle on who currently has broadband and who does not?" The reported proposal (see 1903270042) "to cap USF funding directly contradicts Chairman [Ajit] Pai’s oft-repeated mantra that his primary focus is to close the digital divide," said Public Knowledge Communications Justice Fellow Alisa Valentin. "Congress has long directed the Commission to ensure that every American has access to essential communications services." Benton Foundation Executive Editor Kevin Taglang said, "We can’t extend broadband’s reach throughout rural America with a USF cap." It's "premature" to consider capping Lifeline, one part of USF, said National Consumer Law Center Staff Attorney Olivia Wein. This would "unnecessarily ration Lifeline support," she added.
A draft NPRM on the USF budget asks some questions that concern stakeholders inside and outside the FCC. Others welcomed a look at the program's spending, since it has been some time since this area was examined through such a proceeding. The NPRM circulated Tuesday to commissioners asks many questions, isn't overly long and doesn't draw tentative or other conclusions, agency officials told us Wednesday. Some saw signals of where an eventual order might go in the NPRM's questions. They fear the potential for eventual spending curbs via what could be the first-of-a-kind-cap.
The House Communications Subcommittee advanced the Save the Internet Act net neutrality bill (HR-1644) Tuesday on a party-line 18-11 vote, clearing the way for a likely full House Commerce Committee vote on the bill next week. HR-1644 and Senate companion S-682, filed earlier this month, would add a new title to the Communications Act that says the FCC order rescinding its 2015 rules "shall have no force or effect." The bill retroactively would restore reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 1903060077).
Texas telecom providers opposed a state bill to expand state USF to rural broadband, at a livestreamed House State Affairs Committee hearing Monday. Phone companies said they’re open to a separate bill allowing rural electric cooperatives to provide broadband. The committee took testimony but didn’t vote on those and multiple other broadband bills at the hearing, continuing late into the afternoon.
A Trump administration supply chain security executive order addressing use of telecom equipment by Chinese equipment makers Huawei and ZTE in U.S. networks appears to be off the table, at least for now, experts said. The administration apparently is concerned about questions by small carriers that have equipment from two providers embedded in their networks. The FCC also hasn't acted.
An FCC order on the upper 37 GHz band, teed up for the April 12 commissioners' meeting, shows the length the agency will go to clear spectrum for 5G, as an ongoing auction tops $1 billion. The FCC proposes rules for coordinating with DOD on future use of the upper 37 GHz band beyond current DOD sites located there. The plan “strikes a reasonable balance,” said the draft order posted Friday. Chairman Ajit Pai unveiled the agenda Thursday (see 1903210062).
GCI said rate guidance in a February FCC Wireline Bureau public notice on a rural healthcare telecom program doesn't "reflect sound or consistent economic principles, and is therefore counterproductive and could both increase costs to [USF] and decrease participation," in a meeting with Office of Economics and Analytics staff including acting Chief Giulia McHenry. The letter was attached to one posted Thursday in docket 17-310 on meetings with Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel, where the same points were discussed. GCI petitioned the bureau Monday to reconsider the PN's guidance (see 1903190019).
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the April 12 commissioners’ meeting will focus on 5G for a second straight month. It includes the public notice for the auction of the 37, 39 and 47 GHz bands and a plan for sharing the 37 GHz band between industry and DOD. 5G is “the next big thing in wireless,” Pai blogged. He plans votes on nixing a rural telco USF rate floor and granting part of a USTelecom forbearance petition seeking ILEC relief from certain structural-separation and reporting duties. And there's a media modernization item, among others in the pipeline (see 1903210072).