FCC Poised to Take on New Phase of Mobility Fund, Data Roaming by End of Year, Wheeler Says

An area must be considered unserved if it doesn’t have 4G LTE coverage, Wheeler said. “It’s no accident that I have been describing the unserved areas as those without access to 4G stakes for.” Fourth-generation LTE service is “table stakes for wireless connectivity in 2016,” he said. “As we’re gearing up for 5G, we can’t consign parts of the country to second-class digital citizenship by settling for 3G service.”

The agency is planning to release in the next few weeks an analysis of its most recently collected Form 477 data, Wheeler said. The data is collected twice each year by the FCC. “The data confirms what everyone knew from experience, that significant LTE coverage gaps still exist throughout America,” Wheeler said. Taking Alaska out of the equation, 11 percent of the nation’s road miles still have no 4G LTE coverage, including no subsidized coverage, he said.

Wheeler said a key principle of the USF must be that it doesn’t pay for duplicative service. For the new mobility fund to make sense, the FCC must have granular-enough data to assure an area really doesn’t have 4G coverage, he said. For the one-time support distributed under the fund's first phase, the commission relied on a third party and used the data at the census-block level, “which is getting pretty small,” Wheeler said: It turns out that wasn’t “granular enough,” for rural areas with their massive census blocks.

“Every USF dollar used to support duplicative service is a dollar that is not available to bring service to the more than 550,000 miles of unserved roads where somebody might have to make a 911 call,” Wheeler said. “That just won’t do.”

At the CTIA meeting earlier this month, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn urged action on the mobility fund this year (see 1609090016). But Commissioner Mike O’Rielly expressed reservations about whether a separate mobility fund is needed. Phase II builds on Phase I launched five years ago (see 1510080024).

The FCC has been working on fixed service for a long time, Clyburn told the CCA conference, speaking after Wheeler. “Phase II of the mobility fund is an issue that has languished at the FCC for far too long,” she said. “I am so pleased … to hear that the chairman has affirmed that he will move forward and expeditiously on this.”

The FCC originally said in 2011 order it would adopt a distribution mechanism for phase II of the fund in 2014, Clyburn said. At the same time, the FCC began a five-year phase-down of USF support for wireless, she said. “It’s 2016,” she said. “We don’t have a Phase II, but we will soon.”

Clyburn said she understands why it has taken years to act. “There are certainly challenges in evaluating coverage and service quality,” she said. Many questions have been raised about the accuracy of Form 477 and signal strength varies widely in a cell depending on location, she said. The document remains the “best tool” the FCC has for assessing coverage, she said.

“I want to base our decisions on the best data available and I remain open to hearing about how we can approve on the data we are currently using,” Clyburn said.

Wheeler also said he will propose a rulemaking on wireless data roaming by the year's end. The NPRM will look at whether it’s time to revise data roaming rules in place since 2011.

“Our roaming rules are due for a review,” Wheeler said. “In the past two years, multiple providers have filed formal complaints and requests for mediation alleging that the data roaming rates offered by larger providers are commercially unreasonable. Because of high rates, we know that some smaller providers have placed usage restrictions on what their consumers can do” and on their data use.

There are two frameworks for roaming, a “just and reasonable” standard in the voice world and a “commercially reasonable” standard for data, Wheeler said. He said the commission committed in the 2015 net neutrality order to revisiting data roaming obligations of mobile providers to offer data roaming. “CCA has been vocal in holding the commission to its word on this,” Wheeler said. “We’ve heard you.”

Wheeler also said there's broad support among the commissioners for cutting the amount of time it takes to site wireless facilities. “If siting for a small cell takes as long and costs as much as siting for a cell tower, few communities will ever have the benefits of 5G,” he said. “Localities play a vital role in the siting process, and they have important and legitimate rights, but those rights don’t extend to blocking a national communications pathway.”

Wheeler also said the agency remains committed to addressing broadband data regulation and ISP privacy rules by the end of the year. It's widely expected to take on those big items in October (see 1608260055).

Clyburn told the CCA that BDS rules will be critical to helping competitive wireless carriers cut their operating costs. “I have heard numbers as high as 30 percent of operating expenditures being devoted to backhaul by mobile providers,” she said. “In too many areas, the incumbent LEC is the only provider offering backhaul and this can mean gross market power, inflated prices and bad deal terms. We are working to fix that.”

Clyburn hopes recent reform of the Lifeline program, streamlining the rules to make it easier for smaller carriers to take part, will mean more small wireless carriers will become providers, she said: “Your participation here would help many for whom a broadband dream has been a dream deferred.”

“With more than 99 percent of Americans having access to 4G LTE, the U.S. is the world’s leader in deployment,” emailed Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs. “To maintain and enhance next-generation wireless networks in rural areas, CTIA is encouraged by the Chairman’s commitment to creating a permanent Mobility Fund to reach all Americans. We look forward to working with the Commission on this important matter.”