Republicans will have more House Commerce Committee muscle as they attempt a Communications Act overhaul this year, with new members from both parties eager to dig into the issues and showing telecom expertise. Net neutrality also will be a major political focal point, with legislation likely on deck at least in the Senate (see 1412310033) and House lawmakers planning an FCC oversight hearing on net neutrality early in 2015.
The FCC is seeing some of its deepest divisions ever under Chairman Tom Wheeler, said longtime FCC observers and former agency officials. By one count, in the 14 months Wheeler has been chairman there have been 11 party line votes at meetings, which is more than during the previous 106 months before he took office.
The revolving door rotates freely in government public relations. At just one federal agency with about 1,700 total employees, at least 14 public relations experts and lawyers who advise on issues including PR came or left during the Obama administration. Careers of PR practitioners exiting the FCC since about Jan. 21, 2009, spanned the gamut. Some job changes resembled the traditional revolving door, with officials leaving for the industries their employer used to regulate, others were so-called reverse revolvers coming to the agency from entities that lobbied the FCC, while other career paths were less orthodox and don't fall under the revolving door rubric at all. That is according to Communications Daily Freedom of Information Act requests, other records and interviews with those who reviewed our database.
The FCC should act “in short order” to pause, effective June 30, 2014, reductions in intercarrier compensation rates for originating intrastate VoIP traffic, said National Exchange Carrier Association, NTCA and WTA in a Dec. 16 letter to the commission, posted in docket 10-90 Wednesday. The groups filed an emergency petition on July 7, seeking relief from the reductions, and argued they had been approved under the assumption that Connect America Fund reforms would be in place to offset the loss for smaller carriers (see 1409030031). If granted, the pause should remain in place until the USF reforms are enacted, the letter said.
The proposed USF contribution factor for Q1 2015 will be 16.8 percent, said the FCC Office of the Managing Director in a public notice Monday. It said the contribution factor will be deemed approved unless the commission takes action within 14 days after the release of Monday’s notice, and the Universal Service Administrative Co. will calculate USF contributions based on the contribution factor.
FairPoint Communications filed a motion for reconsideration with the Maine Public Utilities Commission Thursday over a Nov. 21 PUC ruling that the telco hadn’t adequately demonstrated its need for its requested $62.8 million subsidy from the state USF for supporting provider of last resort (POLR) service for 29,000 customers in the state. The PUC raised the POLR rate in May to $16.69 per month for residential users and $34.28 for businesses. FairPoint’s requested subsidy is estimated to require an additional $5 rate hike per cellphone bill. FairPoint said Thursday that it “has an unconditional obligation to provide service, but the Order refuses to fund the service because the Commission's preferred forward looking cost and embedded cost analyses failed to produce a result that was acceptable to the Commission.” Without the additional subsidy, the telco said it "is faced with at least another year sustaining tens of millions of dollars of losses to provide the service while the Commission and the Legislature toss this POLR funding ‘hot potato’ back and forth.”
The FCC raised the minimum broadband speeds required of Connect America Fund (CAF) recipients to 10 Mbps download Thursday, but CenturyLink complained the commission didn't provide enough in return to offset the costs, and that fewer expensive-to-serve rural ones will get service than had the commission done more (see 1411260040).
In a move FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the commission's Democratic majority said would bring more broadband and Wi-Fi connections to schools and libraries, commissioners on a party-line 3-2 vote Thursday raised E-rate’s annual spending cap by $1.5 billion. They signaled their intent to approve another reform aimed at giving people more access to the Internet, adding broadband to Lifeline (see 1411120026). Republican commissioners, while backing the aim of E-rate, opposed raising the spending cap.
An idea pushed by FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to have a federal agency determine Lifeline eligibility (see 1411120026) may not be more efficient, officials from companies making up the Lifeline Connects Coalition told Ryan Palmer, chief of the Wireless Bureau’s Telecom Access Policy Division Dec. 5, said an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 11-42. Citing 2013 Universal Service Administrative Co. statistics, the group said administrative expenses were 1.29 percent of USF disbursements, while administrative costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program were 9 percent. Involved in the meeting were Brian Lisle, president of the Telrite Corp.; Jeni Kues, of i-wireless; several Blue Jay Wireless officials including CEO David Wareikis; CGM founder Chuck Campbell; and Kelley Drye’s John Heitmann and Joshua Guyan. Clyburn "encouraged all parties to respond [to her ideas] ... on the best ways to reform Lifeline for the broadband era," Clyburn's office said. "We look forward to a meaningful debate involving all interested parties in order to achieve the goal of affordable broadband for everyone.”
FCC funding won't change in the next year if Congress moves forward with the compromise bicameral funding package unveiled Tuesday night. The 2015 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act slates just under $340 million for the agency, far less than requested, as well as containing several provisions touching on everything from call completion problems to the waiver process for broadcaster joint sales agreements to extending the Internet Tax Freedom Act and to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition process (see 1412100054).