The FCC should act “in short order” to pause, effective June 30, 2014, reductions in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate VoIP traffic, said National Exchange Carrier Association, NTCA and WTA in a Dec. 16 letter to the commission, posted in docket 10-90 Wednesday. The groups filed an emergency petition on July 7, seeking relief from the reductions, and argued they had been approved under the assumption that Connect America Fund reforms would be in place to offset the loss for smaller carriers (see 1409030031). If granted, the pause should remain in place until the USF reforms are enacted, the letter said.
The proposed USF contribution factor for Q1 2015 will be 16.8 percent, said the FCC Office of the Managing Director in a public notice Monday. It said the contribution factor will be deemed approved unless the commission takes action within 14 days after the release of Monday’s notice, and the Universal Service Administrative Co. will calculate USF contributions based on the contribution factor.
FairPoint Communications filed a motion for reconsideration with the Maine Public Utilities Commission Thursday over a Nov. 21 PUC ruling that the telco hadn’t adequately demonstrated its need for its requested $62.8 million subsidy from the state USF for supporting provider of last resort (POLR) service for 29,000 customers in the state. The PUC raised the POLR rate in May to $16.69 per month for residential users and $34.28 for businesses. FairPoint’s requested subsidy is estimated to require an additional $5 rate hike per cellphone bill. FairPoint said Thursday that it “has an unconditional obligation to provide service, but the Order refuses to fund the service because the Commission's preferred forward looking cost and embedded cost analyses failed to produce a result that was acceptable to the Commission.” Without the additional subsidy, the telco said it "is faced with at least another year sustaining tens of millions of dollars of losses to provide the service while the Commission and the Legislature toss this POLR funding ‘hot potato’ back and forth.”
The FCC raised the minimum broadband speeds required of Connect America Fund (CAF) recipients to 10 Mbps download Thursday, but CenturyLink complained the commission didn't provide enough in return to offset the costs, and that fewer expensive-to-serve rural ones will get service than had the commission done more (see 1411260040).
In a move FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the commission's Democratic majority said would bring more broadband and Wi-Fi connections to schools and libraries, commissioners on a party-line 3-2 vote Thursday raised E-rate’s annual spending cap by $1.5 billion. They signaled their intent to approve another reform aimed at giving people more access to the Internet, adding broadband to Lifeline (see 1411120026). Republican commissioners, while backing the aim of E-rate, opposed raising the spending cap.
An idea pushed by FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to have a federal agency determine Lifeline eligibility (see 1411120026) may not be more efficient, officials from companies making up the Lifeline Connects Coalition told Ryan Palmer, chief of the Wireless Bureau’s Telecom Access Policy Division Dec. 5, said an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 11-42. Citing 2013 Universal Service Administrative Co. statistics, the group said administrative expenses were 1.29 percent of USF disbursements, while administrative costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program were 9 percent. Involved in the meeting were Brian Lisle, president of the Telrite Corp.; Jeni Kues, of i-wireless; several Blue Jay Wireless officials including CEO David Wareikis; CGM founder Chuck Campbell; and Kelley Drye’s John Heitmann and Joshua Guyan. Clyburn "encouraged all parties to respond [to her ideas] ... on the best ways to reform Lifeline for the broadband era," Clyburn's office said. "We look forward to a meaningful debate involving all interested parties in order to achieve the goal of affordable broadband for everyone.”
FCC funding won't change in the next year if Congress moves forward with the compromise bicameral funding package unveiled Tuesday night. The 2015 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act slates just under $340 million for the agency, far less than requested, as well as containing several provisions touching on everything from call completion problems to the waiver process for broadcaster joint sales agreements to extending the Internet Tax Freedom Act and to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition process (see 1412100054).
The FCC is expected to approve the order proposed by Chairman Tom Wheeler to raise E-rate’s spending cap by $1.5 billion, at its meeting Thursday (see 1411170042). A number of significant other issues were up in the air, but education, library and industry lobbyists said they expected the commission to take steps to make it easier for schools and libraries to get connected to broadband, including requiring Connect America Fund (CAF) recipients to submit bids to serve the institutions. Schools and libraries have complained about not getting bids from broadband providers to serve them.
The question of whether and how much to increase the length of Connect America Fund support in return for recipients providing faster broadband remains under discussion at the FCC, with the commission scheduled to take up the issue Thursday (see 1411260040), industry representatives involved in the debate said. One issue that has emerged is a sentiment within the agency that CAF recipients continue to get funding for five years, as they do now, the representatives said.
USTelecom’s Oct. 6 petition for forbearance from an array of legacy regulations brought competing claims about whether the rules are still needed and if being excused from the rules would help or hurt competition. Some involved in the net neutrality debate saw the petition as having implications in the debate over whether forbearance could easily ease the problems some see with a Title II net neutrality approach.