"Significant steps must still be taken” to fix the quantile regression analysis caps on high-cost USF support, NTCA told an aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/13aMufO). The commission will need to incorporate high-cost data updates and correct study area boundaries in any revision, NTCA said. The commission could also consider using the caps only as a “trigger for review of carrier operations,” it said. The association spoke of the uncertainty resulting from “threats of additional cuts”; the harm caused by some carriers’ loss of safety net additive support; and the need for improvement of waiver mechanisms.
Some Senate Republicans questioned the need for new regulations to govern telecom providers as they increasingly transition from copper wireline connections to IP-based connections, at a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday. Meanwhile, panel Democrats focused on what they called the persistent problems with call completion issues in rural areas. Next week, the Commerce Committee plans to mark up S.Res. 157 expressing the sense of the Senate that telephone service must be improved in rural areas and that no entity may unreasonably discriminate against telephone users in those areas. A committee spokesman did not confirm the date or timing of the markup.
Federal policymakers must act to ensure that the IP transition and USF programs operate smoothly and help citizens increase their connectivity, according to witness testimony that circulated Wednesday. The remarks from executives representing wireline carriers, a public advocacy official and a technology analyst came ahead of Thursday’s Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on the state of the wireline marketplace. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.
If the FCC’s quantile regression analysis (QRA) caps were in place from 2006-2012, they would have caused “tremendous financial uncertainty” that could have prevented carriers from investing in broadband, said industry-sponsored research. The study (http://bit.ly/1bhvQAv), by former FCC Chief Economist Simon Wilkie, examined the effects of the FCC’s 2011 modifications to the USF’s high-cost loop support mechanism. A better implementation would be to use the caps not as an immediate limit on support, but as a “trigger” for further individualized attention from the agency, Wilkie said. An FCC spokesman said the reforms “provide much-needed fiscal discipline” on the fund.
The FCC should use unclaimed money from the Connect America Fund to jumpstart the development of “gigabit communities,” proposed the Fiber to the Home Council Americas on Tuesday. In a petition, the association of telecom providers, utilities and municipalities said the unspent CAF USF money should be distributed as “catalyst funding” to support deployment of ultra-high speed networks with symmetrical gigabit services for community anchor institutions and surrounding neighborhoods.
DENVER -- FCC reforms have both complicated and benefited the deployment of broadband, speakers said Tuesday at the NARUC meeting. As telcos have transitioned to focus on offering broadband service as well as voice, the reforms promise a shift in purpose and support but also have created uncertainty, stakeholders said.
The Texas Public Utility Commission granted Valley Telephone Cooperative’s request for state USF money to offset losses due to FCC USF reform. The order released Friday (http://bit.ly/13TASAm) outlined that the co-op telco “will recover a total of $613,903.50 in reimbursement from the TUSF in the Company’s net reduction of FUSF revenues for 2012 and 2013.” Valley Telephone has sought to raise its rates and offset its own losses. The November 2011 FCC USF order is “reasonably projected to reduce the amount that VTCI receives in FUSF revenue by $444,933 in 2012 and $388,955 in 2013,” said the PUC. It granted similar relief requests earlier this year regarding national USF losses.
Changing dynamics in Washington may influence the balance of federalism, multiple state utility commissioners told us. Commissioners from around the country will gather in Denver Sunday through Wednesday for NARUC’s summer meeting and will address questions of state-federal relations as part of NARUC’s Task Force on Telecom and Federalism and in policy debates. The state role remains critical, said the commissioners, stressing evolving technologies and consumer protections after years of what some consider federal and industry overreach. The five draft telecom resolutions being considered also speak to these changes, they said.
An FCC rulemaking on potential changes to the federal E-rate program has touched a political nerve in a Washington, where the debate takes place against the backdrop of a bigger fight between Republicans and Democrats over entitlement reform. The NPRM, teed up for a vote Friday, builds on a June speech by President Barack Obama urging the commission to make high-speed Internet available to enough schools and libraries to connect 99 percent of American students (CD June 7 p7).
Senate Republicans criticized what they called cost and service deficiencies of President Barack Obama’s recent proposal to reform the E-rate program. During a committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., questioned whether the president’s proposal would unfairly benefit those in schools in more urbanized areas. Obama recently proposed to modernize the E-rate program to ensure that schools and libraries are connected through broadband of at least 100 Mbps with a target of 1 Gbps (CD June 7 p7).