Trade Groups, Satellite Companies Spar Over Reg Fees
Broadcasters, satellite companies and trade groups disagreed how often the FCC should reevaluate its regulatory fee structure and whether the system needs new payers, in reply comments filed by Thursday’s deadline. The agency should “continue to conduct such reviews of the work of its indirect FTEs [full-time equivalents] annually, as well as to identify additional ways that the Commission’s regulatory fee process can be made fairer and remain current,” said a joint reply from state broadcast associations in docket 23-159. “A complex accounting of indirect FTEs is not fair, administrable, or sustainable” and doing such an analysis annually would create administrative burdens and raise fairness concerns, said CTIA.
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SIA and a group of satellite operators including Telesat Canada and SES Americom said the FCC should do annual analyses of how it divides indirect FTEs, and NAB urged “regular” reviews. The record “highlights the need for the Commission to do further analysis to consider if there are other FTEs that can be shifted from the indirect to the direct column,” said SIA. Indirect FTEs are funded by regulatory fees assessed to all FCC licensees, while direct FTEs affect only the licensees of the particular bureau they're assigned to.
The agency should do that sort of analysis only on “a staggered cycle” and base changes on only the clearest cases for reassignment, countered CTIA. “Reapportioning FTEs on an ad hoc basis without the clearest case for reassignment would create significant uncertainty as regulatory fee obligations are shifted among the core bureaus and payors,” CTIA said.
NAB and other groups also asked the agency to look at broadening the base of regulatory fee payors. Even commenters opposed to new reg fees for edge providers and tech companies “cannot dispute” that the FCC has authority over equipment manufacturers and broadband service providers and expends resources on those issues, NAB said. NAB proposals to change the fee structure for non-high cost USF programs “would discourage participation in these programs from broadband providers” already struggling with reporting burdens and administrative costs, the Wireless ISP Association said.
Satellite companies Kineis and Myriota said the agency should issue a Further NPRM on broadening the fee categories for non-geostationary orbit satellite networks. The agency should consider technical characteristics and the type and maturity of markets served by different satellite service providers, Kineis Kineis said. An “orbit-agnostic in-space servicing space station fee category with an appropriately low fee can be fairly crafted based on existing Commission data and experiences,” said Astroscale.
A joint filing from satellite companies such as Telesat Canada condemned the Kineis proposal as “a hair splitting exercise.” The FCC should “simplify” fees for NGSOs, the filing said. The FCC “should not entertain repetitive efforts to revisit the commission’s establishment of the less complex NGSO system fee category,” said a joint filing from The Tomorrow Companies and BlackSky Global.