Chairman Tom Wheeler promised the FCC will take up an order addressing a second phase of its mobility fund by the end of the year. It will also soon release Form 477 data that shows a mobility fund is necessary and too many locations remain unserved, Wheeler said at the Competitive Carriers Association annual meeting, in remarks streamed from Seattle.
The National Tribal Telecommunications Association gave the FCC more details on two proposals to promote tribal broadband deployment. NTTA has asked the FCC to waive or modify an operations-expense limitation for rural carriers that predominantly serve tribal locations, and adopt a tribal broadband factor that provides more USF support to carriers serving tribal lands. Fourteen carriers would qualify for the opex relief if a predominantly tribal carrier is defined as having more than 75 percent of its served locations on tribal lands, and 19 carriers would be eligible if the FCC required only a majority of locations to be on tribal lands, said an NTTA filing Friday in docket 10-90 that cited analysis Alexicon did for the group. It said the impact on the overall distribution of high-cost rate-of-return USF support would be "negligible," though the impact on the affected carriers would be "significant," allowing them to deploy and maintain their broadband infrastructure. NTTA said 112 carriers would be eligible for a tribal broadband factor (TBF), but it expected the number that would elect to receive the extra support would be lower, given the "very small number" of tribal locations that many serve along with proposed buildout duties and reporting requirements. The filing offered further details on NTTA's proposals, including to cap the tribal broadband factor at $25 million annually, and establish a buildout schedule that would require deployment to at least 50 percent of TBF-targeted locations within five years, increasing by 10 percentage points a year until achieving 100 percent deployment in year 10. Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC would deal with tribal broadband issues "by the end of football season" (see 1609150058).
FCC staff set a pleading cycle on requests for off-campus E-rate USF support to help students get internet access at home without creating cost-allocation complications for schools. Initial comments are due Nov. 3, replies Dec. 5, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Monday in docket 13-184. One petition filed June 7 by Microsoft, Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. and others seeks to use TV white space technology in Charlotte and Halifax counties, Virginia. The other petition filed May 16 by the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic on behalf of the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado seeks to allow nearby housing authorities to connect to the school system's self-provisioned fiber network. "The petitions request that the Commission allow E-rate subsidized broadband networks to be accessed by students at home for educational purposes, without an obligation on the E-rate applicant to cost allocate the portion of the traffic attributable to off-campus use;" said the PN. Separately, Funds for Learning met with bureau staffers to discuss analysis of funding year 2016 E-rate funding data and responses to a nationwide survey of E-rate applicants. More than 118,000 school and library sites benefited from the E-rate program affecting over 50 million K-12 students and millions of library patrons, said a filing. It said the number of gigabit or faster connections more than doubled in the past year; half of applicants who considered a self-provisioned network believe it lowered their per-megabit pricing; 22 percent expect their broadband internet connection speeds to at least double in the next three years, while just 10 percent expect their speeds to be unchanged; there's broad support for restoring E-rate discounts for phone service; and the vast majority found Universal Service Administrative Co.'s new online E-rate portal "made the application process significantly more difficult and time-consuming."
The California Public Utilities Commission agreed to reduce the phone bill surcharge rate for the state low-income fund to 4.75 percent from 5.5 percent, effective Nov. 1. At a meeting Thursday, commissioner unanimously approved that and several other telecom items on its consent agenda. The new rate for California LifeLine “strikes a good balance between sufficient revenues to meet anticipated growth in participation and maintain a positive program fund balance,” CPUC said in a draft of the order. The surcharge applies to all telecom carriers and interconnected VoIP providers. As of June 30, more than 2.1 million customers were enrolled in LifeLine, the CPUC said. The previous surcharge was in effect since Oct. 1, and was meant “to increase program fund reserves and meet increased program growth from wireless customers,” it said. Communications Division (CD) "analysis shows that current CA LifeLine surcharge may be reduced to 4.75% due to adequate fund reserves, even though CD expects an increase in program participation during the second half of FY 2016-17.” The CPUC noted a declining billing base for the fund, a trend seen in other state USF funds (see 1607010010), due to fewer landlines, dropping prices and an increasing number of wireless carriers reporting intrastate revenue using the FCC safe harbor formula. Also at the meeting, CPUC agreed to an AT&T Mobility motion to dismiss a complaint against the telco by O1 Communications. O1 sought an order prohibiting AT&T from disconnecting direct connections between their networks. But the commission found the complaint procedurally defective because it failed to state a cause of action for which relief could be granted. “Nothing in California or federal law or Commission orders requires AT&T Mobility Wireless to directly interconnect with O1 Communications network,” CPUC said in the proposed decision. Also, the commission granted a certificate allowing eNetworks to provide full facilities-based and resold competitive local exchange service throughout territories of AT&T, Frontier Communications, Consolidated Communications and Citizens Telecommunications, and full facilities-based and resold interchange services statewide. And it granted a certificate to Mobilitie Management to provide resold and limited facilities-based competitive local exchange telecom services.
The FCC proposed a Q4 USF contribution factor of 17.4 percent of carrier interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, said the Office of Managing Director in a public notice Monday in docket 96-45. It will be deemed approved if the agency doesn't act on it within 14 days, the PN said. Industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg had predicted the Q4 factor would fall to 17.4 percent from Q3's 17.9 percent (see 1609010062).
A court panel heavily scrutinized an FCC VoIP decision allowing local competitors to collect certain switching charges for routing over-the-top long-distance calls to local phone customers. Two of three judges asked numerous questions and sparred with attorneys -- though in different ways -- in oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1059. The session ran well over the scheduled 40 minutes as the judges delved into the technical and legal intricacies of telecom network switching of Internet calls.
The FCC met its USF duties to price-cap telcos even though a few of their high-cost areas aren't subsidized, the government said, responding to carrier court challenges to 2014 and 2015 commission orders denying telco relief requests (see 1607120073). The FCC reasonably required the telcos to continue to provide "interim" voice service without USF support in about 6 percent of their rural census blocks to protect consumers during a complex shift to broadband-oriented subsidy mechanisms, the commission and DOJ said in their brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit posted Tuesday (AT&T, CenturyLink v. FCC, No. 15-1038 and consolidated cases). The government entities said the arrangements complied with a requirement that qualifying telecom carriers be "eligible" to receive USF support "because nationwide carriers are 'eligible' for and receive, considerable high-cost support," and they can seek support for unsubsidized areas through petitions or a planned Connect America Fund Phase II subsidy auction. The FCC and courts have never found that carriers must receive support in every particular area to be "eligible" for such support, they said, citing the commission's "broad discretion" to balance competing USF principles. Once the CAF II process is fully implemented, carriers "will be supported or receive forbearance in all or nearly all blocks," and the FCC has promised to revisit remaining obligations, they said. For now, carriers are free to prove they need additional support to provide service, "a showing no carrier made here," they said.
Parties disagreed on the adequacy of the scope and pace of broadband deployment under a Telecom Act Section 706 mandate, and on the metrics the FCC should use. Major wireline and wireless telco groups said advanced telecom capability (ATC) is being rolled out to all Americans in a reasonable and timely way, and urged the commission to keep or soften its current ATC criteria. Smaller wireless carriers and consumer advocates said broadband isn't being deployed widely and quickly enough, and urged the commission to raise and expand ATC benchmarks. Comments were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 16-245 in response to a notice of inquiry, which cited ATC and broadband similarities but said not all broadband services provide ATC.
The USF contribution factor for Q4 will decrease from 17.9 percent to 17.4 percent of carrier interstate and international telecom end-user revenue, said industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg in an email update Thursday. Despite a Universal Service Administrative Co. projection that the industry revenue base will fall to its lowest quarterly level ever at $14.2 billion, the contribution factor will drop because USAC had projected Q4 USF demand would drop (see 1608030047). Total 2016 USF demand will be $8.76 billion, "$67.4 million higher than 2015, but $772.7 million less than peak annual USF demand during 2012," he wrote. "However, because of the continued decline in the USF revenue base, the average assessment factor for all of 2016 will be 17.8%, the highest average assessment factor in the history of the USF." The previous highest average was 17.1% in 2012, and it was 16.9 percent in 2015, he said.
The Alaska Telephone Association and others lauded FCC adoption of a modified ATA plan to provide broadband USF support to fixed and mobile providers in Alaska high-cost areas served by rate-of-return carriers and their wireless affiliates (see 1608310067). ATA said the plan "ends recent funding declines and secures 10 years of predictable federal support" for providers to expand broadband in underserved areas. "This is a big win for Alaska," said Christine O'Connor, ATA executive director, in a release citing 16 plan "partners," including General Communication Inc. “Alaska carriers like GCI will be able to leverage the federal support to incent private investment and bring Alaskans the kind of service that people in the Lower 48 take for granted,” said GCI General Counsel Tina Pidgeon in the release. Wireless providers must deploy 4G LTE or better mobile service to 85 percent or more of rural Alaskans, up from 9 percent, and participating wireline providers are committed to bringing fixed broadband speeds of at least 10/1 Mbps to 90 percent of the locations in remote Alaska, up from 60 percent, the release said. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who pressed for action on the plan, issued a statement commending the FCC for recognizing challenges facing Alaska carriers. “NTCA has long urged the FCC to take stock of the special challenges of serving Alaska," said CEO Shirley Bloomfield in a statement. "Today’s order attempts to do that, while being careful to make sure the steps taken will not have an adverse impact on smaller carriers committed to serve the rest of rural America." A Further NPRM attached to the order sought comment on the specifics of implementing a process to head off any duplicative support to providers serving the same areas. Dissenting Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai said the order allowed duplicative support and didn't solve middle-mile problems. But Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said duplicative support will be eliminated after five years if it develops. Alaska Communications, which had criticized the original plan as providing GCI a big windfall, didn't comment.