Wireline Bureau Seen as Generally Productive, More So on Chairman's Priorities

The FCC Wireline Bureau received generally good marks on its productivity from communications industry representatives we interviewed for this Communications Daily Special Report, even amid gradually declining budgets and staff sizes at the agency overall (see 1512150011). The bureau is seen by most as working hard to generate a large number of regulatory actions on a wide array of complex and contentious issues, with progress in addressing some backlogs. “I can’t think of any specific areas where the Wireline Competition Bureau is lagging,” said Micah Caldwell, ITTA vice president-regulatory affairs. Caldwell was the only person interviewed for this article willing to be cited by name; the rest either requested anonymity or declined to comment altogether on the bureau’s output and performance.

Some processing continues to drag as hundreds of applications, petitions and other items remain unresolved years after they were submitted, according to FCC data. The bureau is also seen as slow-rolling certain proceedings in response to direction from commission leadership. “When they want to move something, it moves; they have no problem finding people and getting things out the door quickly,” a communications industry official said. “And when they don’t want to move something, they have 900 reasons why they can’t get it done.” Many policy disagreements also complicate the agenda.

The Wireline Bureau’s 167 or so staffers “are working harder than ever,” Chief Matt DelNero told attendees at a Practising Law Institute conference Dec. 3. The bureau had produced 21 commission-level items, 91 bureau-level orders and more than 425 public notices so far in 2015, he said. He cited major decisions and developments on net neutrality, municipal broadband, the IP/tech transition, USF support (E-Rate, Lifeline and both price-cap and rate-of-return high-cost Connect America Funding), inmate calling service charges, a broadband progress report, VoIP numbering, local number portability administration, rural call completion data collection, pole attachments, special access business data collection, industry transactions and regulatory forbearance (a draft order on a USTelecom petition is set for a vote Thursday).

“As for open proceedings on big-picture policy questions,” Caldwell said, “it appears to me that there has actually been an increase in output, and that [Wireline Bureau] staff are working extremely hard with limited resources to keep items moving and to reach resolution on outstanding issues in a timely manner.” One former senior FCC official had a similar impression: “My sense is the Wheeler administration has tried to pick up the pace and clear up some stuff.” The ex-official said the bureau has made progress on addressing appeals of USF funding denials -- a long-running backlog source -- through streamlined monthly orders.

The bureau takes its marching orders from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the ex-official said, though the full commission sets agency policy. “They seem to be moving along on whatever is the chairman’s priority," the ex-official said. "They’re obviously more productive in areas where they want to be more productive and less productive where they choose to be.” For example, the bureau deliberately hadn't processed Lifeline USF eligible telecom carrier applications and related compliance plans submitted by nonfacilities-based providers such as prepaid wireless carriers, the ex-official said.

A possible update of the USF contribution system was an example of a bureau proceeding that had languished for years, said the communications industry official: “They don’t want to do contribution reform.” Caldwell agreed the USF contribution system was overdue for an update. She said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel had indicated a federal-state joint board was waiting to see what happens with net neutrality litigation and broadband Title II reclassification before making recommendations.

Wireline Bureau staffing is way down from the late 1990s, when its predecessor, the Common Carrier Bureau, had over 340 full-time-equivalents (FTEs) in the wake of the 1996 Telecom Act, which imposed numerous rulemakings and other duties on it. But after dropping as low as 148 FTEs in FYs 2008-2010, the bureau’s staffing rose to 178 FTEs in FY 2013, before pulling back some the last couple of years to near 170. Priorities matter, but staff levels aren’t irrelevant, said the former senior FCC official: “Even if you prioritize it, you have to have the bodies.”

“I think a lot of the attrition has been dead wood,” said a former bureau staffer, who suggested 10 percent of the staffers did 90 percent of the work, or at least previously did. “They are staffing things smartly. They’ve got a lot of good people over there,” the ex-staffer said. An ILEC official emailed: “We have not observed a decline in Bureau processing times or in output of items, generally. If there has been a reduction in staff, we haven’t noticed, and the Bureau seems to be successfully doing more with less.”

A bureau spokesman pointed us to certain public documents with information, but had no comment for this story. For instance, the bureau met its speed of disposal (SOD) goals for processing applications and complaints between 99.5 percent and 100 percent of the time between FY 2009 and FY 2014, according to the FCC’s FY 2014 Annual Performance Report. That’s the best performance by any bureau (the Office of Engineering and Technology’s record was comparable) as overall the commission met its SOD goals between 92 percent and 98 percent of the time during that period.

The communications industry official questioned the utility of such SOD numbers, given that the importance of some items far outweighs the importance of others. “There’s a lot of stuff that sits over there. Does that count equally?” the official asked.

But that distinction cuts both ways as other data show that Wireline Bureau backlogs of applications, petitions, complaints and requests persist. As of Dec. 31, 2014, there were 442 items that had been pending more than five years, 450 items pending between two and five years, 516 items pending six months to two years, and 256 items pending less than six months, Wheeler said in a Jan. 21 letter responding to a query from Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Tim Murphy, R-Penn., chairmen of the Communications and Oversight Subcommittees, respectively. Those figures were similar to those from Sept. 30, 2014, cited by Wheeler in an Oct. 17, 2014 response.

The former senior FCC official said such application metrics can be misleading: “Those items are important to keep moving along, but they’re not what occupy, at least in the Wireline Bureau, most of the staff’s time." Caldwell agreed simply measuring output by the number of items produced “may not be fair, given the complexity of some issues and the fact that it does take time to address those.”