Telecom will be a “high priority” at the Senate Commerce Committee in 2006, Committee Staff Dir. Lisa Sutherland told a CompTel conference Thurs. It’s premature to say if the House, which has released 2 versions of its draft bill, will take the lead, Sutherland said. “Our bill will take a broader approach and Universal Service Fund (USF) reform will be an important element,” she said. Senate Democratic Counsel Rachel Welch agreed, saying both House and Senate will be looking at one another’s telecom reform efforts.
An FCC Office of Inspector Gen. (OIG) effort to audit more Universal Service Fund (USF) contracts remains stymied by an auditor shortage, OIG said in a report to Congress for the 6 months ending Sept. 30. OIG has long wanted more auditors, especially for E-Rate projects. “Unfortunately, we have made no additional progress in either obtaining additional staff or completing the 3-way contract with USAC (the Universal Service Administrative Co.)” meant to get auditors from an accounting firm, the OIG said. A staff member was to transfer from the Commission’s Office of Managing Dir., but “personnel actions were frozen shortly after Chairman Martin assumed his position and no action has been taken to complete this transfer.” OIG said the 3-way contract for contractors seemed to have FCC approval but in mid-Aug. the FCC Gen. Counsel’s Office raised concerns about the vendor selection process. The OIG said: “We have been working with USAC since the summer of 2004 to establish a three- way contract under which the OIG and USAC can obtain audit resources to conduct USF audits. In addition to providing access to resources to conduct audits, the three-way agreement was intended to provide access to resources necessary to provide support to criminal investigations of E-Rate and USF fraud. As a result of delays in establishing the three-way agreement, the FCC OIG has struggled to provide adequate investigative support to federal law enforcement.”
Universal Service Fund (USF) reform should be a pillar of telecom reform, FCC Comr. nominee Copps told Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) at his Tues. confirmation hearing. The FCC needs to hear from Congress what “universal service” means, Copps said. He also said the contribution methodology needs repair. Responding to Stevens’ query on Copps’s top priority in updating the ‘96 Telecom Act, he said: “USF is so essential to the future of this country… I think we've got to fix that system.”
A Progress & Freedom Foundation proposal for reforming universal service (CD Dec 9 p3) uses “fundamentally flawed key concepts that would harm consumers and reduce rural network investment,” the Coalition to Keep America Connected said Fri. Coalition members include the Independent Telephone & Telecom Alliance, the National Telecom Co-op Assn., OPASTCO and the Western Telecom Alliance. By not earmarking universal service funding for broadband development, PFF shows a “theoretical misunderstanding of rural economics” and rural areas’ need for broadband to create jobs and enhance growth, the group said. PFF also errs by suggesting universal service fund support be based on individual network connections via vouchers and means- testing, the coalition said. “This ignores the fact that telecommunications networks are not built one connection at a time,” the group said. “It would be very costly for consumers if providers were forced to build and maintain networks that are not scalable,” it said. The PFF plan has an “inside the Beltway” mentality, said the coalition.
FCC Chmn. Martin made it clear he still backs a numbers-based approach to reforming the way companies contribute to the Universal Service Fund (USF), despite concerns about that method’s effect on low-volume telephone users. User groups have said a phone number- based approach would hike USF fees carriers pass on to customers.
Plans for a draft House telecom bill markup are on hold until next year, lawmakers decided late Thurs. afternoon, when they couldn’t resolve differences. “We'll have a markup when we're ready to have a markup,” a panel spokesman said. David Hickey, telecom aide to Rep. Stearns (R-Fla.), said at a conference sponsored by the Practising Law Institute (PLI): “We want to get it done and we were debating a markup.”
A plan to reform the Universal Service Fund (USF) with more state control and a cap on growth got Sen. Sununu’s (R-N.H.) conditional backing at a Wed. forum sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF), which also proposed the reform package. As it stands, the USF program “significantly distorts the marketplace, undermines innovation and limits services to customers,” Sununu said. PFF’s plan correctly aims to limit growth and increase efficiency, he said: “We've got too many programs that are on auto-pilot.”
A digital-age communications regulatory regime is needed that embraces competition and IP video services’ promise, said telecom pundits, saying such factors drive broadband demand. Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF)’s Randolph May and Charles Davidson, dir. of N.Y. Law School’s Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute, spoke at a Council on Competitiveness lunch on broadband’s future on Capitol Hill Thurs.
A digital-age communications regulatory regime is needed that embraces competition and IP video services’ promise, said telecom pundits, saying such factors drive broadband demand. Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF)’s Randolph May and Charles Davidson, dir. of N.Y. Law School’s Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute, spoke at a Council on Competitiveness lunch on broadband’s future on Capitol Hill Thurs.
The satellite industry Tues. urged the FCC to reform the Universal Service Fund to promote broadband deployment in rural America, citing the President’s 2007 broadband goal and satellite broadband as an option. Chiming in on USF remedies in ex parte meetings at the Commission, Satellite Industry Assn. (SIA) officials called for a “technologically neutral” fix to the USF, which they called “complicated to administer” and “ill- suited to a world of convergence.”