Commissioner Mignon Clyburn believes the FCC can find bipartisan solutions on most issues when Republicans take the agency helm under incoming President Donald Trump Jan. 20. Clyburn said commissioners of both parties share many goals, including encouraging broadband deployment and access. While they have certain disagreements, particularly over net neutrality and broadband reclassification, she believes they should be able to find much common ground.
Educational advocates urged the FCC to approve waivers allowing E-rate USF discounts to be applied to students' off-campus connectivity. Waiver petitions would extend E-rate benefits without adding cost to the USF because the services couldn't be overprovisioned, said various groups. "The petitioners only seek to use the excess services that are left unused after school hours," said representatives of the Benton Foundation, Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation and Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition in a filing posted Monday in docket 13-184 on a meeting with Wireline Bureau staffers. "The participants stressed that many schools that want to extend broadband connectivity to students’ homes choose not to out of concern they may lose their E-rate funding due to lack of clarity in the rules. The Commission should clarify or waive the cost-allocation rule to allow off-campus use, encouraging more schools to help bridge the homework gap." Comments on petitions from Microsoft and Colorado's Boulder Valley School District have been mostly favorable, but ILECs have voiced opposition and NCTA and others have expressed concerns or sought certain safeguards (see 1612060057).
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn would back a temporary and limited waiver of the stand-alone broadband requirement of the Lifeline order, she told NTCA’s meeting in Washington Tuesday, citing a need for recognizing the interplay between Lifeline and broader USF support. Among USF issues, she cited a pressing need for contribution overhaul and addressing an “oversubscribed” new rate of return model that calls for millions of dollars in additional funding. “North of 200” companies elected the Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM), a “truly desirable problem” of over-subscription by more than $100 million a year, Clyburn said.
Senate Democrats are signaling that Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s time at the FCC may not be up despite her upcoming forced exit. “I hope she'll be renominated and the Senate lives up to its word,” Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., told us in a statement Monday. Members of the upper chamber left town early Saturday without reconfirming her, which means she will have to leave the agency by Jan. 3, as expected (see 1612080056). That would create a 2-2 partisan split among remaining members.
The FCC proposed a Q1 USF contribution rate of 16.7 percent -- down from Q4's 17.4 percent -- of carriers' interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, said an Office of Managing Director public notice Friday in docket 96-45. The new rate, which industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg accurately projected (see 1612060019), will be deemed approved in 14 days absent further commission action.
Rural telco groups are pushing the FCC to hike funding for rate-of-return USF mechanisms, but urging the commission to move ahead with a new model-based mechanism, even if the funding comes up short. NTCA stressed to agency officials the importance of providing enough funding for the model-based and nonmodel (revised legacy) USF mechanisms, "and the negative effects on consumer rates and broadband access" absent adequate funding, said a filing from the RLEC group posted Friday in docket 10-90 on a meeting with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly. NTCA noted its recent filing in which it said consumer broadband rates could spike without $260 million in additional annual funding -- $160 million for model-based support and $100 million for nonmodel support (see 1611210042).
FCC staff provided guidance to telcos required to report geo-located broadband information and certify service milestones to the Universal Service Administrative Co. The commission's March rate-of-return USF overhaul order directed USAC to create an online portal to accept geo-located broadband information and certifications, and USAC is close to completing its initial version of the High Cost Universal Service Broadband portal (HUBB), said a Wireline Bureau public notice Thursday in docket 10-90. With telcos serving subsidized rural areas facing reporting and certification duties next year, the bureau said it was providing guidance so carriers can develop internal compliance measures. The PN details what locations must be reported, certain "do's and don'ts," location filing deadlines, broadband service milestone requirements and certifications, reporting on rural broadband experiments, and data-accuracy duties. "Rate-of-return carriers, recipients of Phase II model-based support and ACS [Alaska Communications Systems] must file broadband location information in the HUBB by March 1, 2017, and deployment milestone certifications in later years," it said, noting the March deadline still must be approved under the Paperwork Reduction Act. "By March 1, 2018, rate-of-return Alaska Plan carriers must also report their location data and, in later years, make milestone certifications in the HUBB." The bureau anticipates more than 1,000 carriers will submit 4.5 million location records to the HUBB. That will improve accountability but require automation and administrative efficiency, it said. On Tuesday, the bureau issued a public notice in the docket announcing capital investment allowance (CIA) amounts for rate-of-return carriers. "The CIA is the maximum amount of capital investment expenses that a rate-of-return carrier may include for purposes of calculating High-Cost Loop Support and Connect America Fund Broadband Loop Support," it said.
Congressional and FCC Republicans vowed to roll back communications regulation, starting with the agency's net neutrality and broadband reclassification order. House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said she expects a net neutrality "legislative solution" early next Congress, and also took aim at recent broadband privacy rules: Lawmakers are going to have an "incredible" 2017, with opportunities to address many issues. "We are gearing up for just a terrific year," said Blackburn, one of several speakers at an Free State Foundation (FSF) event.
The USF contribution factor for Q1 will drop to about 16.7 percent from Q4's 17.4 percent of carrier interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, emailed industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg on Sunday. He said the Universal Service Administrative Co. projected the industry revenue base would fall by $247 million to $13.97 billion in Q1, but USF demand was projected at just $1.98 billion. "The decline in first quarter 2017 revenues continues the downward trend in the USF contribution base, which places upward pressure on the USF assessment factor. USF revenues for the four quarters ending the first quarter of 2017 are $2.641 billion lower than revenues for the four quarters ending the first quarter 2016, a 4.4% decline," he wrote.
Educational entities and most others backed the off-campus E-rate subsidy support proposals of Microsoft and others in one petition and the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) in Colorado in another. Some telco interests opposed the petitions, NCTA voiced concerns and a few others asked the FCC to adopt certain criteria for guidance or an alternative approach. Replies were posted Tuesday and earlier in docket 13-184 in response to a public notice (see 1609190051).