Officials at Public Knowledge are urging the FCC to allow small towns and rural areas to use universal service funds to create their own broadband cooperatives and “other self-provisioning.” In an ex parte letter filed Friday, the group also urged FCC staff to use USF funds to ease interconnection for broadband services, and shift the high-cost fund from voice-only access to voice and broadband access.
About 66 percent of Iowans had broadband at home in April, said a report put together by a nonprofit state affiliate of Connected Nation with Iowa’s Utilities Board and its Broadband Deployment Governance Board. The report, the first in a series that Connect Iowa plans on the topic, is to be formally released Wednesday. The document is based on data collected for an interactive map at http://connectiowa.org/mapping/interactive_map.php.
State regulators from Nebraska and Kansas are defending their requests for a declaratory ruling that would allow states to require nomadic VoIP providers to contribute to state universal service funds. In a Wednesday filing, private firm lawyers representing the Nebraska Public Service Commission and the Kansas Corporation Commission said: “Consumers, competitors and universal service are all best served by a wide USF assessment base that does not contain a loophole favoring one particular class of competitors.” Some ex parte filings said opponents are urging the FCC to take a slower rulemaking process on the question, but Nebraska and Kansas regulators said they're worried about nomadic VoIP providers expanding, thus depriving the states of more funds.
AT&T executives met with FCC staff to discuss the Universal Service Fund, said an ex parte filing Tuesday. “While a numbers only-based system was adequate just a few years ago, changes in the marketplace and the direction of USF reform require a more inclusive methodology."
Tying Universal Service Fund support levels to cost models that don’t take satellite broadband into account “severely inflates” the support required to reach the 7 million targeted households, Hughes Network Systems said in a meeting with the FCC’s Wireline, Wireless and International bureaus. That inflation aggravates “the subsidization of inefficient terrestrial build-out,” the company said in a presentation. Hughes said satellite broadband shouldn’t be included in revised USF, since it already offers nationwide service without support. Requiring satellite broadband providers to contribute for the service would be unfair because it would be paying for competing companies’ terrestrial buildout, it said.
ViaSat is willing and able to provide telephone service if required to take part in an updated Universal Service Fund, the company said in a meeting with the FCC Wireless, Wireline and International bureaus. Satellite broadband remains critical for broadband universal service and ViaSat is planning on “timely, sufficient and competitively priced satellite capacity,” it said in a presentation at the meeting. The company, which provides satellite broadband through its WildBlue unit, also suggested revised USF rules consider different partitions of geographic regions and eliminate support where effective competition exists.
Cellphone tax law, public safety, cybersecurity and universal service are among issues expected to get Congressional attention when members return from recess next month, Hill and industry officials said. But with elections in early November, Congress is quickly running out of time to finish pending legislation on those and other matters. “On telecom, the final few weeks will mostly be about laying the groundwork for a busy 2010-11 in areas like spectrum, privacy and broadband regulation,” said Concept Capital analyst Paul Gallant.
A Universal Service Fund overhaul “would best be grounded on classification of broadband Internet connectivity as a telecommunications service” by the FCC, said the Media Access Project in a meeting last week with the Wireline Bureau. “Such a decision would minimize the chance of an anomalous and undesirable outcome in which the Commission plausibly might require contributions from broadband providers but have no authority to provide explicit support for broadband deployment and adoption.” MAP can’t yet endorse either revenue-based or numbers-based contribution to USF, because of the current legal uncertainty about the commission’s broadband authority, it said. Whatever method is chosen, the group said it shouldn’t “increase the relative contribution burden passed through to providers’ residential subscribers, nor promote more regressive assessments."
Sorenson was alone seeking one compensation rate for all video relay service providers under the interstate Telecom Relay Service fund, in comments at the FCC last week. Sorenson is the biggest VRS provider and is paid the least under the current system. Responding to a notice of inquiry about taking a “fresh look” at the VRS program and reducing fraud, Sorenson’s rivals and consumer groups representing the deaf urged the FCC to maintain the current tiered approach, with some minor changes.
In what could be a messy November election for Democrats, telecom industry lobbyists are closely watching the re-elections of several members active on their issues. Those races include House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and subcommittee members Zack Space, D-Ohio, and Lee Terry, R-Neb. They also include Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Senate Commerce Committee member Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Boucher has a large financial advantage over his Republican opponent and political analysts and others give him the edge.