The FCC Wireline Bureau granted 46 E-Rate appeals filed by school districts and vendors from Animas, N.M., to Zeeland, N.D., according to an order released Friday. The Universal Service Administrative Co. had either denied or rescinded E-Rate fundings for the districts. “Petitioners offer a number of explanations for why they did or did not have a legally binding agreement in place when their FCC Form 471 application was submitted,” Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief for Telecom Access Policy Gina Spade wrote in the order (http://xrl.us/bmmqz5). “Based on our review of the record, the mistakes made by these petitioners do not warrant the complete rejection of these petitioners’ applications for E-rate funding.” The order, dated Thursday, waives section 54.505(c) of the FCC’s reporting rules for 40 of the appellants; it grants another seven “appeals on the merits because these petitioners demonstrated that they had placed contracts that complied with the Commission’s rules.”
Representatives of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUS) had meetings at the FCC last week to ask that NTUA Wireless be approved as eligible telecommunications carrier under the FCC’s Universal Service Fund program. Among those NTUA Wireless met with were Commissioner Robert McDowell and Zac Katz, aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmmqub). NTUA Wireless officials discussed the build-out of the company’s broadband infrastructure project covering parts of the Navajo Nation, the filing said. “The group discussed the services to be enabled by the broadband project, as well as services that would be enabled through participation in USF programs,” the filing said. “The Tribal members of the group representing NTUA Wireless discussed the need for ETC designation to enable potential funding to address various communications needs on the Navajo Nation. The NTUA Wireless business representatives reiterated their desire for the FCC to act on NTUA Wireless’ pending petition for ETC designation, acknowledging the FCC’s workload."
The FCC Wireline Bureau granted 46 E-Rate appeals filed by school districts and vendors from Animas, N.M., to Zeeland, N.D., according to an order released Friday. The Universal Service Administrative Co. had either denied or rescinded E-Rate fundings for the districts. “Petitioners offer a number of explanations for why they did or did not have a legally binding agreement in place when their FCC Form 471 application was submitted,” Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief for Telecom Access Policy Gina Spade wrote in the order (http://xrl.us/bmmqz5). “Based on our review of the record, the mistakes made by these petitioners do not warrant the complete rejection of these petitioners’ applications for E-rate funding.” The order, dated Thursday, waives section 54.505(c) of the FCC’s reporting rules for 40 of the appellants; it grants another seven “appeals on the merits because these petitioners demonstrated that they had placed contracts that complied with the Commission’s rules.”
The FCC can expect to be flooded with petitions to reconsider its Universal Service Fund reforms (CD Oct 28 p1), telecom officials said and the public record showed. Petitions were expected from nearly every sector of the telecom industry, from state regulators to rate-of-return carriers, several telecom officials said. The commission is drafting a sua sponte -- of its own accord -- reconsideration in an effort to head off one of the thorniest issues in the docket -- whether local rates on local traffic exchanged between wireless and wireline companies should be subject to bill-and-keep immediately, FCC and telecom officials told us.
AT&T filed to intervene in defense of part of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund order (CD Oct 28 p1), even while the company is challenging a separate part of the mammoth order. AT&T filed its motion for leave to intervene in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is hearing all 13 appellate challenges to the commission’s order (CD Dec 16 p4). “As AT&T demonstrated in its comments in the underlying rulemaking proceeding, AT&T’s interests diverge in important respects from the interests of the other parties to this and the related appellate cases,” the company said in its motion, filed Tuesday.
A Senate investigation of the Lifeline program is being explored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Her Contracting Oversight Subcommittee “is taking preliminary steps to investigate” the Universal Service Fund low-income program but hasn’t opened a formal investigation yet, a McCaskill spokesman told us Tuesday. McCaskill is also “seeking a Government Accountability Office review and pursuing expanded reviews by the FCC Inspector General,” the senator wrote in a Dec. 9 letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. McCaskill acknowledged that the FCC plans to soon issue a rule to tighten oversight of the program. But the pending order may not “fully address the scope of fraud, waste and abuse that may be occurring in Lifeline,” she wrote. McCaskill asked the FCC to provide information about the growth in the number of carriers participating in Lifeline since it was expanded to wireless, the amount of duplications and number of ineligible customers discovered by the FCC in the last three years, the number and extent of audits conducted by the FCC and internal processes the FCC has implemented to administer Lifeline and prevent problems.
On December 16-17, 2011, the House and Senate agreed to the conference report on H.R. 2055, a bill to provide appropriations for most federal government agencies1 for the remainder of fiscal year 2012, including the DHS (which includes CBP, ICE, and TSA). Although H.R. 2055 contains $11.7 billion for CBP, an increase of $362 million over the FY 2011 level, FY 2012 funding would be reduced for automation modernization, international cargo screening, C-TPAT, etc. (Note that some press reports suggest that the President wants an agreement on the payroll tax cut before he will sign H.R. 2055 into law.)
Rural and price cap carriers have separately urged the FCC to take another look at its new rules on local traffic. NTCA has already asked the commission to delay implementing the new rules that were part of the Universal Service Fund reform order (CD Oct 28 p1), but NTCA went back to the FCC on Wednesday to add another concern, the group said in an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmk48i). “NTCA observes upon review of Section 51.917 of the rules adopted in the recent Order that the Recovery Mechanism takes effect ‘[b]eginning July 1, 2012,’ while pursuant to Section 51.705(a), the default rates for intraMTA traffic would be reduced effective January 1, 2012. This appears to provide a six-month gap between a potential reduction in rates and the availability of any Recovery Mechanism.” In a separate letter, telecom attorney Karen Brinkman said she’s asking the commission to rethink moving to bill-and-keep for local traffic exchanges between incumbents and wireless carriers. Brinkman said she’s speaking on behalf of CenturyLink, FairPoint, Frontier and Windstream. The FCC has claimed in its order that wireless carriers that don’t have interconnection agreements aren’t paid for local traffic and that “most” large incumbents have already moved to $0.0007 or less for rates. “In fact, situations where the mid-sized price cap carriers lack interconnection agreements cover only a small portion of CMRS-LEC intraMTA traffic today,” Brinkman said. “For example, Windstream has 238 interconnection agreements with 81 CMRS providers and only exchanges traffic with 24 providers without an interconnection agreement. Frontier has 560 interconnection agreements with 61 CMRS providers and only exchanges traffic with 25 providers without an interconnection agreement.” Price cap carriers are also worried that the new rules are “unintentionally creating a new arbitrage opportunity at a time when it has pledged to eliminate ‘wasteful arbitrage schemes’ that cost consumers millions,” Brinkman said. “Because the rates for CMRS-LEC intraMTA traffic will not be reduced in accordance with the transition applicable to other types of traffic, dishonest carriers delivering traffic will be motivated to classify that traffic as CMRS-LEC intraMTA traffic. Such schemes will result in revenue losses above and beyond the losses projected above. While the new rules designed to combat phantom traffic are a step in the right direction, they will not help when terminating carriers receive such traffic indirectly and have no way of verifying that it is indeed CMRS-originated."
Eddie Lazarus’s pending departure as chief of staff to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will create a key opening for what is expected to be his last full year as chairman. Similar to the role of White House chief of staff, a job which didn’t even exist before the Eisenhower Administration, the FCC chief of staff has become a key behind-the-scenes player at the commission.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear challenges to the FCC’s Universal Service Fund order, it was announced late Wednesday. At least 13 challenges have been filed in various circuits; the 10th in Denver was picked in the judicial lottery to take the case. But even as the case was winding its way through the system, FCC officials on Thursday warned lawyers and lobbyists for wireless companies that the commission was hoping to launch a further rulemaking on reverse auctions as early as next month, with a goal of having the first auctions by the end of Q3 2012.