There's still a good chance some House Republicans will support the Save the Internet Act net neutrality bill (HR-1644), said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., on an episode of C-SPAN's The Communicators that was set to have been televised over the weekend. HR-1644 and Senate companion S-682, filed earlier this month, would add a new title to the Communications Act that would overturn the FCC order rescinding its 2015 rules, retroactively restoring reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 1903060077). House Communications Republicans railed against the bill during a legislative hearing last week, leading some lobbyists to predict a party-line vote on the measure at markup later this month (see 1903120078).
Alaska Communications said FCC rural healthcare program rate guidance in a Feb. 15 Wireline Bureau public notice "appears to overlook ... pragmatic realities" of the USF mechanism. "To the Bureau’s credit, it is attempting to improve predictability and transparency," filed the carrier Wednesday in docket 17-310. "But such efforts will not succeed until the Commission modernizes its rules and puts the program on solid footing, with clear rules and processes announced in advance, a predictable funding schedule, and accountability for all." Alaska Communications noted seemingly "elementary" guidance that service providers should determine the rural rate before responding to a healthcare provider's request for bids and ensure the rate is sufficiently documented. That "overlooks the challenges faced by service providers in determining the rural rate under the current rules, and fails to account for the role of [Universal Service Administrative Co.] and the Commission in making this determination," the carrier wrote. Because "rules provide a series of options for determining the rural rate that must be applied sequentially, the service provider often has no assurance when it places a bid ... whether or under which option the rural rate will satisfy USAC."
The FCC's proposed USF contribution factor for Q2 is 18.8 percent of carriers' U.S. interstate and international telecom end-user revenue (see 1903010024), said an Office of Managing Director public notice Wednesday in docket 96-45. That would be down from Q1's 20 percent. The proposal will take effect if the commission takes no further action within 14 days.
The FCC announced legacy USF amounts available to price-cap telcos and fixed competitive eligible telecom carriers after authorization of Connect America Fund Phase II auction support. Carriers declining the "phase down support" have until April 11 to provide notice, state by state, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest and docket 10-90. A CAF transition order adopted Feb. 14 (see 1902140032) decided "price cap carriers receiving legacy CAF Phase I frozen support prior to the CAF Phase II auction will continue receiving such support in areas won at auction until the first day of the month following the authorization of CAF Phase II support in the same areas," said the PN. "In auction-eligible areas not won at auction, price cap carriers will continue receiving legacy support for an interim period. Fixed competitive ETCs, however, will begin receiving two-thirds of their total frozen legacy support beginning the first day of the month following the first authorization of any CAF Phase II auction support nationwide, and will receive one-third of their support the following year, before their legacy support is eliminated." A Wireline Bureau PN Tuesday in docket 10-90 and others said certain high-cost USF waiver petitions filed 2006-2013 would be dismissed unless petitioners state their intention within 45 days to pursue them.
CenturyLink asked FCC staff to not enforce USF withholding penalties and reporting rules, pending resolution of its petition to reconsider a staff determination and Universal Service Administrative Co. broadband deployment findings. A Feb. 22 Wireline Bureau letter notified CenturyLink it's "subject to these penalties and enhanced reporting requirements based on the Bureau’s determination that CenturyLink missed its 40 percent interim deployment milestone for Connect America Fund ('CAF') Phase II in Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, and Wisconsin," said the telco's stay filing in docket 10-90 posted Wednesday. Saying the bureau has no timetable for acting on that petition and USAC will begin withholding $4.45 million monthly in CAF support later in March, the carrier sought expedited consideration of its stay request: "These losses could well be unrecoverable. If CenturyLink’s support is withheld as ordered in the Noncompliance Letter, this may interfere with the company’s ability to continue to deploy broadband to additional locations. Under the CAF-II rules, the company is subject to graduated deployment milestones with each passing year, and significant penalties if it does not complete at least 95 percent of its total required deployment by the end of 2020." USAC auditors declined to verify certain locations as served "because of purported mismatches between the geocoordinate and address information in CenturyLink’s records and the coordinates and address information CenturyLink reported to USAC," said the recon petition. It cited "industrywide discussions" with regulators on multi-dwelling unit locations and "shortcomings" in USAC's high cost universal broadband (HUBB) system, and additional locations it reported Feb. 27 in the HUBB. The additional locations combined "with the Mismatch Locations alone, are sufficient to bring CenturyLink’s total locations served above the 40 percent compliance milestone," it said, suggesting recognition of other served locations would further increase compliance.
An Oregon House panel cleared a state USF measure to establish a broadband fund, increase the maximum surcharge to 7 percent and expand the definition of retail telecom service to include wireless and VoIP. The House Economic Development Committee voted 7-4 Monday for HB-2184, referring the measure to the Revenue and Ways and Means committees. The broadband fund would provide grants and loans in unserved and underserved areas for at least 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps up. The panel adopted an amendment that would cap the fund at $30 million annually for basic phone service and transfer to the broadband fund the lesser of $10 million or the remainder of USF money above that $30 million. Four Republican committee members voted no at the webcast work session. Rep. Christine Drazan (R) wants to let the new state broadband office (see 1812200048) "get up and running, and identify what the projects are and what the actual scope of the need is, before moving forward with a specific measure.” Rep. Kim Wallan (R) wants to see a broadband map before giving money, she said. The Public Utility Commission last year held off voting on requiring VoIP to contribute to state USF (see 1811280057).
Agencies must improve broadband data collection, mapping and coordination to better target funding and prevent government-backed network overbuilding, said lawmakers and witnesses at a Senate Communications Subcommittee rural broadband hearing Tuesday. The FCC and Rural Utilities Service need better coordination to ensure they don't fund duplicates, said Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., noting broadband data and mapping shortcomings. Better maps are needed to prevent overbuilding, agreed ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, also suggesting the FCC overhaul USF contributions to tap broadband connections.
The FCC partially granted a USTelecom, CTIA and ITTA request for a one-time waiver of rules requiring a biennial audit of certain USF-eligible telecom carriers. The groups sought the waiver of the "biennial audit requirement for ETCs that are also subject to a forensic audit by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), where those two audits cover the same time period," calendar year 2017, said a Wireline Bureau order Friday in docket 11-42 and others. "Petitioners contend that these audits are duplicative and impose an unnecessary burden on those ETCs that are subject to both audits, while not advancing the public interest." The bureau found "some overlap" but said "the two audit requirements are not wholly duplicative," and granted in part a waiver of the biennial audit requirement for certain Lifeline providers, and otherwise denied it. "We hereby waive the biennial audit procedures related to: Form 497/NLAD analyses (Objective II, 2 and 3); review of eligibility documentation, recertification, and certification forms for completeness and compliance with Lifeline rules (Objective III, 2); and analysis of data reported on the Form 555 (Objective IV, 4-6)," it said.
The FCC announced new E-rate and rural healthcare USF program caps for funding year 2019, adjusted for inflation of 2.2 percent. The E-rate cap will go from $4.06 billion to $4.15 billion and the rural healthcare cap will go from $581 million to $593.8 million, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Friday in dockets 02-6 and 02-60.
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly again objected to E-rate overbuilding of networks and asked Universal Service Administrative Co. to clarify its understanding of the rules and detail its treatment of applications. He's "very concerned" E-rate subsidies are reportedly being used to overbuild USF-backed fiber networks in some Texas school districts. "At least three regional-based consortia (representing 'Educational Service Centers') have sought proposals, via the Form 470, for the construction of Wide Area Networks (WANs) to provide Internet access to entire school regions, each covering well over ten thousand square miles, even though multiple fiber-based providers are already capable of serving the individual schools," he wrote Thursday to USAC CEO Radha Sekar, citing a Nov. 19 filing by telco cooperatives. The consortiums have filed Form 471 and "largely been approved" for "over $100 million to lay new fiber to schools already served by fiber networks. ... partially paid for with federal funds," O'Rielly said. "This number does not even include the subsidies requested for connecting individual schools within the WAN that were already connected to existing fiber networks." In one case, "a winning bidder was approved to receive over $40 million in special construction costs for a fiber build, even though most of the district already has fiber connectivity," he added. It's "likely that support for these fiber builds will also subsidize warehousing of fiber capacity not needed for E-Rate purposes." He asked Sekar to respond by April 1 to questions, including if E-rate rules let USAC fund: (1) special construction projects, whether through self-provisioned or commercial networks, that "duplicate, in whole or in part, fiber networks" built with federal funds; and (2) consortium "construction of a WAN to provide Internet access to the entire consortium, even where fiber-based providers are already capable of serving individual consortium members." He sought answers on the number of WAN-related applications, approvals and denials, and on any USAC warnings to the FCC about "overbuilding risk" or "an apparent gap" in rules permitting overbuilding approvals. USAC and FCC spokespersons didn't comment.