FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn pushed for a "broadband health safety net" for underserved groups, again highlighting "double burden" counties with higher disease rates and lower connectivity levels (see 1802080057). She thanked Chairman Ajit Pai for his continued commitment to a Connect2HealthFCC task force but said more should be done. "We should stop shaking our heads and conceding that some people will always fall through the cracks," she said in prepared remarks at a conference Wednesday. "Let’s aim higher, by intentionally meeting the health needs of every single American ... and let’s leverage broadband technology." She cited efforts to use broadband to address health needs, including in Appalachia, "where the cancer picture is bleaker than in other rural" areas.
Bitcoin-derived blockchain technology might improve an FCC Lifeline program that is ineffective and has seen "considerable fraud," said Mark Jamison, American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar and director of the University of Florida's Public Utility Research Center. "Studies consistently demonstrate" the low-income USF support program "has little impact and is costly," he blogged Tuesday. Blockchain transactions are conducted using "wallet" software that contains private and public keys to protect security, along with computer "miners" to verify transactions, he wrote. For Lifeline, "each person that is enrolled in one of the qualifying federal programs and that does not have a phone would be assigned a wallet suitable for the service for which the person wants to use the subsidy," he said. "The wallet might be an app on a secure smartphone if the person wants to use the subsidy for mobile service or on a piece of hardware that could plug into a smartphone, laptop, or tablet computer." Universal Service Administrative Co. each month "could transfer the Lifeline subsidy from a USAC wallet to the recipient’s wallet," he wrote. "The recipient could then use the currency to pay all or part of the service fee, depending on how much the person is paying for service. This payment would be made from the recipient’s wallet to a wallet designated by his or her service provider."
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed $954 million to help Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands restore and upgrade their communications networks, which were damaged by hurricanes Irma and Maria. The plan would create a $750 million Uniendo a Puerto Rico (Bringing Puerto Rico Together) Fund and a $204 million Connect USVI Fund, said a release Tuesday. It said the proposal would add about $256 million in new funds and repurpose other USF support currently directed at the islands. Pai had said previously that recovery efforts would require additional funds (see 1711070068)
The FCC proposal to ban reseller participation in Lifeline USF drew more fire (see 1802210045 and 1802220061), now from Daniel Lyons, an American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow and Boston College associate law professor. Lifeline is a "noble" venture, but it's one of the commission's "most problematic" programs, "suffering repeated criticism" from GAO and others "for waste fraud and abuse," he blogged Monday. "But far from improving Lifeline, this proposal is likely to undermine the program and harm the vulnerable populations that the program seeks to serve." Lifeline "is not the vehicle to pursue" broadband investment, though it's a "worthy goal," he said. The reseller ban would restrict choice and ignore Lifeline consumer preferences and "the role that wireless substitution plays in low-income communities," he wrote. The FCC declined to comment.
House leaders formally set a Tuesday floor vote on a compromise version of the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC reauthorization bill (HR-4986) under suspension of the rules, as expected (see 1803010056). Leaders didn’t yet estimate what time the vote would occur. The amended bill now contains a revised version of language from the Senate-passed Making Opportunities for Broadband Investment and Limiting Excessive and Needless Obstacles to Wireless (Mobile Now) Act (S-19) spectrum bill, as part of an agreement announced Friday between the leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees (see 1708030060 and 1803010056). The lawmakers and their staffs agreed to assuage concerns from DOD and other federal agencies about S-19’s previous language by nearly halving -- to 255 MHz -- the amount of spectrum they would be required to identify for broadband use by 2022. The 500 MHz figure previously delineated in S-19 was somewhat "already dated,” a House aide said: “It was a concession to DOD but in some ways it was a matter of updating the spectrum provisions” to reflect reallocation progress by federal agencies. HR-4986 includes language to authorize additional TV incentive auction repack funding (see 1802140064) and from the Spectrum Auction Deposits Act (HR-4109) that would let the FCC place bidders' deposits in future spectrum auctions in a Treasury Department fund (see 1710250026). HR-4986 already also reflected a raft of other Senate bills, including the Rural Wireless Access Act (S-1621), which the Senate passed last week under unanimous consent (see 1710100066 and 1803020026). The revised bill also eliminates all but one provision from the FCC Process Reform Act (HR-290) that had been included in earlier House Commerce-cleared versions of the bill at the behest of Senate Commerce ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla. The remaining HR-290 language extends an existing exemption of FCC USF expenditures from Anti-Deficiency Act requirements.
The Senate passed the Rural Wireless Access Act (S-1621) Thursday under unanimous consent. The bill, which the Senate Commerce Committee cleared in August, would force the FCC to ensure standardized data collection for USF support eligibility (see 1705110060 and 1708020052). "Unless we have accurate information about where the coverage gaps actually are, we cannot put a solution in place that improves the high-speed internet service of consumers in rural areas,” Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Ala., S-1621's lead sponsor, said in a statement. Competitive Carriers Association President Steve Berry said in a statement he hopes Senate passage of S-1621 "guides the FCC to take further steps to help improve the consumer experience, especially in rural areas," including on USF High Cost program funding. A "streamlined, reliable and accurate process for collecting mobile wireless data is critically important to help identify areas [th]at are still unserved and underserved to appropriately target resources to preserve and expand mobile broadband," Berry said.
The USF contribution factor for Q2 will drop from 19.5 percent to 18.4 percent of carriers' U.S. interstate and international (long-distance) telecom end-user revenue, emailed industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg Friday. He said Universal Service Administrative Co. Q2 projection of USF revenue was $12.8 billion, about $66 million less than the previous quarter, which he combined with the previously announced Q2 USF demand projection of $1.97 billion (see 1802010024) to produce the contribution factor estimate. The decline in revenue "continues the downward trend in the USF contribution base, which places upward pressure on the USF assessment factor," he said. "USF revenues for the four quarters ending [in Q2] are $4.55 billion lower than revenues for the four quarters ending [in Q2 2017], an 8.1% decline."
If legislators take action on net neutrality, they should recognize the FCC should be in charge of enforcement rather than the FTC, said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in an appearance on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, set to be telecast Saturday. The FCC is capable of quick action on open Internet issues, but the necessary showings to trigger FTC intervention would make relying on that agency cumbersome, she said. “People want action,” Clyburn said. Any legislative solution should have “strong legal footing,” encourage infrastructure investment, and allow for consumer protection “in real time,” Clyburn said. If net neutrality legislation can accomplish all of that without relying on Title II of the Communications Act, she’s willing to consider it, though she said the FCC “got it right” in 2015. Without Title II authority, there could be issues with legal challenges to Connect America Fund policies, Clyburn said. Such challenges could damage the USF, a “deeply unsettling” prospect, she said. Consumers need net neutrality protections because ISPs now offer bundles of services that could incentivize anti-consumer actions, Clyburn said. Companies changing their statements about whether they consider concepts like paid prioritization acceptable is evidence there's a need for strong net neutrality regulation, she said. Proposals by the FCC majority on 5G don’t sufficiently account for the needs of local communities, Clyburn said. She said some jurisdictions might have restrictive siting rules or high rents for carriers, but bad actors are a small portion of the overall landscape. The FCC shouldn’t “regulate on the fringes,” she said. Treating small cells differently “makes all the sense in the world,” but the FCC should work “collaboratively,” she said. Clyburn also took the FCC majority to task over inmate calling, where she said FCC policies are hurting families: “The FCC has not done it’s job.”
The FCC partially granted a Telrite request to extend a temporary waiver of Lifeline USF "recertification and non-usage rules in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands through May 31," citing lingering hurricane disruption. "Because of these compelling and unique circumstances, we find good cause to temporarily waive for 30 days sections 54.405(e)(3), 54.405(e)(4), 54.407(c)(2), and 54.410(f) of the Commission’s rules for all eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) serving Lifeline subscribers residing in Puerto Rico or the USVI," said a Wireline Bureau order Thursday in docket 11-42. Telrite's petition sought a waiver extension until the FCC determines it's in the public interest to be lifted. A PRWireless petition posted Thursday sought an "emergency waiver of the Lifeline recertification rules to prevent loss of critical wireless telephone service by thousands of low‐income inhabitants of Puerto Rico who face severe challenges in the ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria."
The FCC offered guidance on the Form 477 and broadband reporting duties of carriers receiving high-cost USF support. The commission in 2016 directed Universal Service Administrative Co. to develop an online system for receiving high-cost carriers' broadband location information and certifications, now called High Cost Universal Broadband (HUBB). A Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 10-90 Thursday provided additional guidance and clarifications to carriers on reporting certain details: the "effect of corrected Form 477 data on Connect America Fund-Broadband Loop Support carrier deployment obligations," the "process to demonstrate there are fewer than the required number of locations or that a carrier is fully deployed" and "ongoing HUBB reporting obligations." Major telcos expressed concerns about the process for updating HUBB information, said a USTelecom filing posted Wednesday on a meeting representatives of the group, AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, Verizon, Windstream had with FCC and USAC staffers: "We discussed the need to permit providers to make automated updates, including dropping locations, to previously submitted information. The current suggested process of emailing USAC personnel with a detailed explanation for every dropped location who, in turn, will forward that email to FCC staff for their review and approval, is not workable at scale." The officials also discussed approaches to rationalize legacy obligations and USF support with a CAF II broadband auction looming. CenturyLink wasn't able to make certain data changes due to "HUBB portal restrictions," said the telco's filing posted Thursday in docket 14-58. USTelecom and CenturyLink didn't comment Thursday on the PN.