NARUC Stops Wireless Consumer Resolution Cold; Sends It Back to Committee

New York Commissioner Garry Brown urged rejection. “This would cede our right to be stricter and impair our ability to respond to new types of market abuses,” he said. Nebraska Commissioner Anne Boyle said the national standards called for in the resolution would be valuable if they set a clear national floor for consumer safeguards. “But I oppose them being a ceiling” that limits what states can do to protect wireless consumers, she said. Boyle said the resolution reflected “too much wireless influence” and there was little discussion of alternative consumer protection approaches.

Washington Commissioner Mark Sidran said the resolution represented a major departure from previous NARUC consumer policy and could have ripples in all states. He said he didn’t want to vote on it before talking with his state’s attorney general, legislative leaders and other consumer protection officials. He asked whether there was some compelling reason it had to be acted on before a July meeting.

Telecom Committee Chairman Tony Clark of North Dakota defended the resolution. He said it’s a vigorous state response to wireless industry preemption pressure and would give states a role in setting and enforcing national wireless consumer standards. When asked about the wireless industry’s position on the resolution, Clark said the industry supports national standards and it’s willing to work with states on developing them, “but they still favor complete preemption.”

North Carolina Commissioner James Kerr said deep dissent over the resolution at the staff, subcommittee, committee and now board level indicated it wasn’t ready. It was rejected by the staff subcommittee and narrowly passed the Telecom Committee. Kerr moved to refer it back to Telecom until the Portland, Ore., meeting in July. South Dakota Commissioner Dustin Johnson agreed the resolution “is still a work in progress, not a finished product.” Rhode Island Commissioner Elia Germani opposed referral: “That’s just tabling it under another name.” California Commissioner Michael Peevey also opposed referral: “After three days of discussion, we shouldn’t shrink from this controversy. Let’s vote the resolution itself up or down.” Commissioner Frederick Butler of Pennsylvania, NARUC’s first vice president, suggested that any referral back to Telecom include an order to work with the Consumer Affairs Committee to produce a joint resolution for the July NARUC meeting in Portland. That’s what the board ultimately decided.

The NARUC board unanimously adopted three other telecom resolutions that: (1) Urge the FCC to act promptly to improve its processes for reviewing incumbent telcos’ regulatory forbearance applications to standardize review procedures and give states and third parties a meaningful voice in reviews. (2) Support “digital literacy” programs by public and private bodies to help people and organizations make effective use of broadband Internet access. (3) Support amendments to the Lifeline and Link-Up programs to give low- income disabled people the option of subscribing to broadband services such as IP relay, and to set aside $10 million annually for adaptive telecom equipment for people who are both deaf and blind.

NARUC Notebook…

Congress probably won’t move comprehensive telecom legislation this year, but narrowly-focused bills with specific constituencies have a fair chance of passage, said a panel of congressional aides at the NARUC winter meeting. In this election year, “politics may overstep the substance” of any big telecom bills, said Amy Levine, aide to House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich. She said comprehensive bills can handle many issues at once, but the more issues weighing down a bill, the more likely lawmakers “will find a reason to not vote on it.” Christopher Dade, aide to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said two examples of narrow issues with active constituencies are E-911 implementation by VoIP providers and banning caller ID spoofing. Aaron Cooper, aide to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D- Vt., said big issues by their nature need time to be completed. He said the network neutrality issue is one of the biggest telecom controversies facing Congress. The panelists said two other issues likely to come up in 2008 are promoting awareness of next winter’s transition to digital TV broadcasting and finding ways to extend broadband to unserved areas. The panelists agreed that video franchising reform won’t be on Congress’ agenda this year, because the Bell companies have found success in the states ending municipal control over video entry.

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Speakers at a NARUC broadband deployment panel said diverse approaches will be needed to bring broadband service to unserved areas where market forces are ineffective. Michele Robinson, Verizon southern region senior vice president, said current market-oriented deployment policies are working in most places, but “there are parts of the country where broadband is slow to arrive.” She said Verizon wants regulators to limit their involvement in deployment, “but we're not asking you to ignore the deployment challenges across the country.” She cited as a workable approach public-private efforts like the Connect Kentucky project that increased broadband availability in the state above 95 percent from 60 percent in 2004. She said projects like that allow state and local governments to fill in gaps while market forces take care of the rest. Rick Cimmerman, NCTA state affairs vice president, said it’s important for policymakers to distinguish between unserved areas where no broadband is available, and underserved areas where some people can get it. He said some federal agencies’ policies for underserved areas ended up subsidizing additional competitive broadband entrants in areas that already have service rather than extending service to people who had none available. He said the definition of underserved is “a very subjective thing.” Nebraska Public Service Commissioner Anne Boyle said there are very rural areas with dwindling populations where spending fortunes on broadband expansion doesn’t make sense. “We're talking about putting millions and millions of dollars into the ground to provide this technology to every square inch of our country. I have to ask -- is there a better way?” She suggested the federal government allot broadband expansion funds to the states, with the states deciding where the funds will be applied.

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State regulators may retain social responsibility oversight of VoIP services -- even if they have no other jurisdiction over VoIP, said NARUC panel speakers. David Young, Verizon federal regulatory vice president, said states could have VoIP authority in areas such as E-911, disability access and universal service programs. But he said state and federal regulators otherwise “need to see a light-touch approach going forward.” Brenda Pennington, assistant District of Columbia People’s Counsel, said VoIP should be regulated more like traditional voice carriers. She said a proposed District of Columbia City Council bill to disclaim city jurisdiction over VoIP and any other IP-enabled telecom services is the wrong way to go. She said state and federal policymakers need to develop a framework that “provides a place for state regulation and consumer interest protection.”

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Interconnection for VoIP and other new telecom technologies will remain a regulatory issue long after all other issues dealing with competition are resolved, said NARUC panel speakers. Consultant Michael Pelcovits with Microeconomic Consulting and Research Associates said if competitive carriers use new technologies to overcome entry barriers, they still face the possibility that incumbents will deny or degrade interconnection to deter or delay competitive service. But Jeff Lanning, Embarq federal affairs director, said IP telephony is a technology, not a network, and regulating technologies hasn’t been very successful because it leads to arbitrage and stifles innovation. Consultant Joseph Gillan said disputes about interconnecting new technologies are inevitable, “and what we want is a regulatory backstop for when disputes occur.” Ken Pfister, strategic policy vice president at Great Plains Communications, said interconnecting with backbone transmission facilities of other carriers has been a problem for rural carriers and suggested universal service fund support be allocated to help rural telcos recover costs of accessing backbone facilities. William Hunt, Level 3 public policy vice president, said his company is a rural backbone provider, backbone capacity is relatively inexpensive and Great Plains’ problems sounded like an economic issue of interconnection costs rather than of access to backbone facilities.