Tag Archives: USF Reform

My USF Comments to Congress

A bipartisan group in Congress is tackling the topic of USF reform. They created a portal to solicit comments, which are not being made available to the public. I provided comments to the group on two topics.

The first is Lifeline support, specifically for low-income MDUs. There are two issues faced by those trying to bring broadband to MDUs that have tenants who can’t afford a broadband subscription. The first issue is bringing the needed infrastructure for better broadband. There was hope that BEAD might provide some of the needed solution since non-deployment funds could be used to upgrade low-income MDUs. However, it looks like NTIA might not give the non-deployment funds to states, even though that was mandated by Congress. I’m working with some non-profits that are looking for other ways to fund infrastructure upgrades.

The bigger issue is that the landlords or ISPs that serve low-income MDUs need some ongoing subsidy since tenants can’t afford to cover the cost of broadband. Lifeline can be used for that purpose today in a limited way. However, most Lifeline recipients direct the savings to their cellphone rather than to home broadband.

I’ve suggested some changes to Lifeline that could make it a powerful tool for improving broadband in low-income MDUs.

  • At least for these MDUs, the FCC should double the current $9.25 Lifeline subsidy. That would be enough to make a meaningful subsidy for monthly broadband for a building. It would be great if the Lifeline subsidy were increased in the future for inflation. The $9.25 subsidy meant a lot more when it was created in 1997 than it does today.
  • Landlords should be able to become Lifeline recipients on behalf of their tenants. It would be particularly beneficial if landlords could require tenants to assign them the Lifeline as a component of a rental agreement. For the assignment of Lifeline, a landlord would provide free broadband.

My other comments to the Working Committee were related to the giant subsidy programs in the High-Cost Program. Anybody who has been reading my blog knows that I think the FCC has done a poor job with some of these large subsidy programs.

The CAF II program that gave over $10 billion to the largest telcos was nearly a total failure. Telcos were supposed to use the money to upgrade rural DSL to 10/1 Mbps – but the program started making subsidy payments in the same year that the FCC increased the definition of broadband to 25/3 Mbps. There have been wide criticisms that the telcos never made many of the upgrades and just pocketed the summaries, such as this complaint filed by the Public Service Commission of Mississippi.

RDOF was not a massive failure and, in many cases, was successful, like with the many cooperatives that used the funding to build fiber to their members. But like CAF II, RDOF also failed in many ways. The program started by using terrible FCC broadband maps to define the RDOF areas, and this effort missed many millions of locations that should have been eligible, as witnessed by the many locations not eligible for BEAD. The program ended up with massive defaults on 1.9 million of the 5.2 million locations in the reverse auction. Probably the biggest problem was the mess the RDOF awards made of the broadband landscape by awarding a subsidy to a hodge-podge group of Census blocks that were interspersed with Census blocks that should have been included. This has made it highly challenging to find a broadband solution for the remaining areas and is a big reason that BEAD grant costs are higher than what people think they should be.

My recommendation to the Working Committee is that Congress should not allow the FCC to unilaterally create new giant subsidy programs on its own. It’s poised to launch the 5G for Rural America Fund that looks to have as many problems as the other past programs. Congress should find some way to get buy-in for new programs from outside the FCC. This sounds like a major criticism of the FCC, but this is a regulatory agency that is not staffed by folks who are attuned to what it takes to lure ISPs and carriers to solve the broadband and cellular gaps in rural America.

USTelecom’s 2025 Wish List

Jonathan Spalter, the President and CEO of USTelecom wrote an open letter to the White House and Congress with its wish list for government action in  2025. USTelecom is the trade association and lobbying arm representing the biggest telcos and cable companies. The most interesting thing about the list is that most smaller ISPs will agree with almost everything on it.

Champion Networks of the Future. This asks the federal government to make it easier to tear down copper telco networks. It’s an interesting request because, for the most part, the big telcos are already doing this. They are really asking the federal government to intercede in states that want to see customers provided with an alternative option for basic communications before they lose a copper telephone line.

Secure and Reform Universal Service. USTelecom recognizes that the existence of the Universal Service Fund is in jeopardy due to open court cases that could kill or maim it. This is a request for Congress to pass legislation that reinforces the mission of the USF and that also fixes the broken funding mechanism that gets funding today from telephone services.

Put the Pedal to the Metal on Broadband Deployment. This is support for moving quickly with BEAD grants while relaxing some of the BEAD rules such as requiring low rates. The big ISPs assume a lot of this funding will go to them. Some of the reforms that USTelecom wants can be done by NTIA, but others will need action by Congress.

Review All Legacy Regulations. USTelecom asks to eliminate outdated regulations and reporting, a reasonable request. Unfortunately, some of the silliest outdated requirements come from Congress and legislation is needed to kill some old requirements.

Break the Federal Permitting Log Jam. This has been on the list for twenty years. Getting permits on federal land can be nearly impossible. There has been announcements from the last several White Houses that supposedly addressed the issue but that haven’t resulted in any meaningful change.

Model Efficient, Effective Cybersecurity. This is the hardest wish to accomplish and undoubtedly comes from the recent Chinese hacking of our telecom networks. I have to wonder if this is too big of a challenge to fix with centralized government edicts – and if telcos really want the government telling them how to handle cybersecurity. But it definitely must be addressed.

What’s interesting is what is not on this list. There is no request to eliminate heavy FCC regulation, because the big telcos already know they now have a friendly FCC.

FCC Issues for 2016

Alexander_Crystal_SeerIn what seems to be the new normal the FCC has a lot of issues on their plate at the end of this year. Following are the regulatory issues that I think will most affect small telcos, cable companies, and ISPs in the coming year.

Net Neutrality: Assuming that the courts don’t completely overturn this, this is liable to be at the top of the list for several years to come. The ink is barely dry on the new rules and companies like Comcast, T-Mobile, and Verizon are pushing new products that will test the FCC’s resolve to implement net neutrality. And if the courts uphold the law, expect to see a slew of arbitrations between content providers and ISPs. If the courts overturn parts of the new rules, expect the FCC to take one more shot at fixing the parts that don’t pass court muster.

TDM to IP Conversion: This is an ongoing process that is looking at modernizing the backbone telephone network to IP. The large telcos like AT&T and Verizon have commandeered the docket to try to use it as a way to get rid of rural copper lines. The FCC has been micromanaging this process so far and there should be a lot of activity in 2016.

USF Reform: The FCC wants to transition the Universal Service Fund from paying for rural telephone lines to paying for high speed data connections. This process has already started but there is still a lot to be decided. Further, the FCC is facing a crisis in funding the USF and the latest USF contribution factor, representing the ‘tax’ on interstate telecom services, is up to an astounding 18.2% for the first quarter of 2016. The FCC is going to have to find some other ways to help fund this as interstate telecom revenues keep shrinking. This is becoming a big burden on carriers that are buying interstate special access.

Lifeline Reform: Lifeline is another part of the USF that is used to help pay for telecom services for low income households. The FCC decided last year that this should cover both telephone and data expenses for low income households and there is not enough money in the fund to do that. So this year they need to figure out a way to make it work.

Skinny Bundles and OTT: There has been a docket open for most of 2015 that asked for comments on how the FCC ought to regulate video services on the web. There hasn’t been a lot of talk about this for a while, but it’s likely that the FCC is going to have to do something with this in 2016, and anything they do will be groundbreaking. Further, the FCC is in the process of cleaning up their operating rules and Congress is also mandating that they resolve dockets sooner, so this is liable to be forced to come to a head in 2016.

WiFi versus LTE-U: The large wireless carriers really want to dip into WiFi to make cellular data connections using a technology they are calling LTE-U. In places where cellular data is already overloaded this would almost certainly swamp WiFi, making it hard for anybody else to use. The FCC is going to have to decide if and how cellular carriers might be allowed to do this. In a related area, the FCC is also likely to look at opening up new public spectrum next year.

Federal Legislation: While this is nothing to count on, there has been a lot of noise about seeing a new telecom act of some sort out of Congress. If that happens there is no way to predict what Congress might tackle. If a new law passes expect the FCC to get swamped with implementing new law like they did after the Telecom Act of 1996.