The FCC should allow rate-of-return carriers to allocate federal audit expenses completely to interstate jurisdiction, said small carriers supporting a petition by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. The change would make recovery of audit expenses more certain, and save small companies time and money, they said. However, Verizon condemned the petition as having “no basis,” and urged the FCC to do away with jurisdictional separations altogether.
The FCC needs more time to finish an overdue revamp of jurisdictional separations, said states, carriers and consumer advocates. In comments last week, they supported the commission’s tentative conclusion to extend the eight- year-old freeze on separations, but fought over how much longer the “interim” measure should last. Without FCC action, the freeze will expire June 30.
FCC commissioners are studying a rulemaking notice that would set permanent rates paid to video relay service providers under the Interstate Telecom Relay Service fund, an FCC official said Monday. The FCC circulated the notice last Wednesday, according to the agency’s Web site. Relay providers get paid based on consumer usage by the minute. The National Exchange Carrier Association, which administers the fund and proposed the permanent rates, had been following a three-year interim plan established in 2007.
Two judges seemed supportive of FCC auction rules in oral argument Friday at the U.S. Circuit Appeals Court for the District of Columbia. Alvin Lou Media is challenging the commission’s handling of an auction for a permit to build an AM radio station in Las Vegas. In the argument, Judges Douglas Ginsburg and Judith Rogers seemed to defend the FCC. Judge Brett Kavanaugh mostly kept quiet.
A major transition this summer may leave thousands of Americans without service, and it has nothing to do with digital TV. Starting July 1, deaf consumers using Internet- based telecom relay service will no longer be reachable through the proxy numbers they've used for years. But despite education efforts, many TRS users still don’t realize they need to register a local 10-digit phone number, said executives of relay companies and consumer groups we polled. “There are a lot of consumers who are still confused and experiencing problems getting a telephone number,” and they're facing new problems once they do have one, said CEO Sheri Farinha of the NorCal Center, a consumer group.
When making cybersecurity policy, government mustn’t throw critical infrastructures into “one big box with a set of solutions that get applied exactly the same in all contexts,” said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy & Technology. Decisions on power grids and water facilities don’t have “free expression and democracy implications” like the Internet does, she told a media briefing Wednesday. Policymakers should avoid assigning cybersecurity a broad definition “that could squeak virtually any aspect of American life into the mix,” she said. CDT is engaged in the cybersecurity debate at the White House and on Capitol Hill. A White House report on its 60-day review of the federal cybersecurity is due Friday, while Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, have floated a bill in Congress on the topic. Harris expects more cybersecurity bills to show up soon because “at least” eight subcommittees can claim jurisdiction over the issue. CDT plans to assess the White House report based on how it addresses transparency, what entity it picks to lead the cybersecurity effort and what market incentives it establishes for information sharing between government and industry, said Senior Counsel Greg Nojeim. “Transparency builds trust” with businesses and the public, who want to know how their privacy and security will be affected, he said. So far, the Obama administration review team “gets high grades” because they have reached out to all interested parties, Nojeim said. The White House shouldn’t make the National Security Agency the leader of the cybersecurity effort, CDT officials said. The NSA “is not designed or inclined … to protect civil liberties,” said Harris. Worse, the NSA has conflicting interests, Nojeim said. “Say you're the NSA and you discover a vulnerability in a system used by a foreign government and you exploit it. Will the NSA be disclosing information about that vulnerability in order to protect U.S. systems against similar intrusions by foreign governments?” A better choice might be the Homeland Security Department, which was “statutorily charged with protecting critical infrastructure,” he said. DHS has faced problems with funding and leadership, but “that should change with a change in administrations,” he said. In making new cybersecurity policy, the White House doesn’t need to abandon all efforts of the Bush administration, Nojeim said. “Just because something hasn’t worked to date is not a reason to end its activity,” he said. “What they need to do is figure out how to fix problems that weren’t fixed in the last administration.”
It’s not clear how much the FCC will use the definitions it must provide the NTIA -- on what “broadband,” “open access” and “unserved” and “underserved” areas are -- to make broader decisions on future commission policy, commission and industry officials said Tuesday. The commission is required to act quickly, making major policy calls difficult. “The pragmatist in me says it would be difficult to do anything beyond” current policies, said an industry lawyer. “There isn’t a whole lot of time and those issues would be very contentious, slowing the process down.”
Comparing the U.S. to other countries on broadband availability will be the FCC’s toughest task as the agency implements the Broadband Data Improvement Act, telecom executives and researchers said in comments at the commission Friday. Many international reports miss key variables needed to draw accurate conclusions, they said. Although most comments focused broadly on how to satisfy Congress’ goals in the act, some groups urged the FCC to focus on special interest areas where they said information is lacking.
The FCC will likely get lengthy input on a vast array of controversial telecom issues, as it attempts to develop a national broadband plan, said industry officials we polled for reaction Thursday. In a 52-page notice of inquiry released Wednesday (CD April 9 p1), the FCC asks questions on universal service reform, open networks and nondiscrimination, the role of competition, how to define broadband, and several other big issues. The FCC is required under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to deliver its national broadband plan to Congress by Feb. 17.
The FCC opened a rulemaking to revamp universal service high-cost support for non-rural carriers. In a notice of inquiry adopted 3-0 Tuesday and released Wednesday, the FCC asked how it should respond to a 2005 remand by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2005, the court called unlawful the FCC’s current non-rural rules, which address carriers like Qwest that serve high-cost areas with too many lines to be considered “rural” by the statutory definition.