Anticipation is high for the NTIA and the RUS to reveal first cuts in round one of the broadband-stimulus awards. The notice of funding availability required agency to announce initial eliminations “no sooner than September 14, 2009.” Spokesmen for the agencies said Monday they had nothing to announce.
Interconnected VoIP providers should be required to pay state universal service fees, said states and rural wireline carriers in comments filed at the FCC Wednesday on a petition by the Nebraska Public Service Commission and Kansas Corporation Commission (CD Sept 4 p6). But Verizon and Google fought the concept of VoIP having an intrastate component subject to state jurisdiction. Vonage and some other VoIP providers didn’t object to paying state USF, but said the FCC must open a separate rulemaking first.
FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker starts “with the assumption that markets work better than government intervention and that competition regulates market behavior more efficiently than regulators can,” she told a Free State Foundation conference in her first speech since joining the commission. “Fundamentally I believe that consumers will benefit most from continued investment, innovation and competition.” Earlier, FCC Broadband Plan Coordinator Blair Levin responded to criticisms by Foundation President Randolph May that FCC workshops haven’t focused enough on what regulatory philosophies work best.
Carriers almost universally opposed in comments late Tuesday a Telcordia petition criticizing the ability of North American Portability Management and Neustar to administer the Number Portability Administration Center database. The FCC asked whether it should adopt competitive bidding for local number portability administration and end the North American Portability Management’s role in handling contracts for number portability administration. Only Comcast voiced concerns about NAPM, urging the commission to open a rulemaking to make LNP administration “more competitive, transparent, and representative of the current industry landscape.”
Broadband is “clearly not” available to all Americans, said state members of the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services in comments last week on the FCC’s latest inquiry into whether advanced telecom capabilities like broadband are being deployed to all Americans in “a reasonable and timely fashion.” Others provided mixed reviews of U.S. broadband deployment (CD Sept 8 p5). The FCC must deliver the report to Congress by Feb. 3.
Some small rural phone companies are asking if Google and other content providers should contribute to the Universal Service Fund. In filings and meetings this summer at the FCC, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association has urged the FCC to open a rulemaking on the subject (CD Aug 31 p9). Content providers impose significant costs on companies’ networks, and charging them for USF would further the FCC’s broadband deployment goals, said NTCA Vice President Dan Mitchell in an interview. But a Google spokesman disputed the credibility of NTCA’s evidence. And some phone companies aren’t sure the proposal can be implemented.
“Significant questions exist about the extent to which broadband access markets are competitive,” the Federal Trade Commission said in comments Friday to the FCC. The FCC’s pending national broadband plan provides an opportunity to do “a competitive market analysis that can be used as the foundation for the development of ongoing regulatory policies governing broadband Internet access.” The FTC also urged the FCC to collect more data on network management practices.
It’s not bad to be worried about the FCC’s national broadband plan, because that response probably will increase creative thinking as the commission develops its recommendations, plan coordinator Blair Levin said Wednesday at an event held by the Udwin Breakfast Group. “To a certain extent, I want you to be worried. I want everyone in this room to be worried. I'm worried.” The country’s broadband problems aren’t easy to solve, he said. “What should worry you is if we have a knee-jerk reaction.”
Cooperation among federal, state and private bodies is pivotal to the success of the national broadband plan, government officials said Tuesday at an FCC workshop. “If we win, it will be because we figure out that balance,” said Jane Patterson, executive director of the e-NC Authority in North Carolina. Eric Garr, the general manager of the FCC’s broadband plan, agreed. “This is a team sport,” he said. “It certainly requires federal action. It requires great partnerships with industry. It requires very dedicated officials from state and local government to make all this work.”
Prisons and their phone companies urged the FCC to ban call routing services that reduce the cost of prisoner phone calls. In comments Monday supporting a petition by inmate telco Securus Technologies, the groups said security and public safety is threatened by ConsCallHome and similar services that give families of inmates local numbers in a specified prison’s exchange. The local number reroutes calls to the family member’s actual number. Securus, which owns several companies providing phone service for inmates, wants the commission to declare the service is a form of dial-around calling that inmate telcos may block.