Federal Universal Service Fund

Even historically nonpartisan telecom issues have become political in an increasingly divided Congress, and it’s become increasingly difficult to pass substantive legislation, former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said in an interview Thursday with Communications Daily. The Commerce Committee alum urged the FCC to complete what Congress couldn’t: an overhaul of the Universal Service Fund. Dorgan blamed radio talk show hosts for politicizing the net neutrality debate, but he predicted demise for Republicans’ effort to overturn the FCC’s December order using the Congressional Review Act.

The FCC Thursday unanimously approved three items aimed at improving communications and radio service on tribal lands. Commissioners also heard testimony from tribal leaders about the state of communications in Indian country. The meeting came as the White House held a follow up meeting on last year’s Tribal Nations Summit.

Rural carriers are gearing up to fight against the proposed cap on the Universal Service Fund and other objections they've found to the FCC’s rulemaking notice, association lobbyists said Tuesday. The cap, which would freeze the fund at 2010 levels, “has to be proven flawed,” Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecom Companies Vice President Randy Tyree said on a conference call for members of several rural associations. It’s important that rural telcos and their supporters convince policy makers and legislators that the telcos are handling their USF cash well and that broadband will expand even further if the fund is allowed to expand, too, he said.

The FCC made the right decision by putting off a fight over contribution reform to focus on reforming the high-cost Universal Service Fund distribution system, said National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin. There are “too many moving parts” in the debate over contribution factor, so the commission focused on “low-hanging fruit” in its recent rulemaking notice, Levin said on a panel Wednesday sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. He was having an exchange with fellow panelist National Telecommunications Cooperative Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield. She said she “would have liked to see the FCC wrestle with contribution.” NTCA members are seeing up to 10 percent of their bandwidth gobbled by companies like Netflix and the situation is critical, she said.

Good oversight doesn’t include “wholesale attacks against agencies … for political purposes,” House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday. She rejected amendments to the Continuing Resolution -- debated Thursday -- that would affect FCC operations. Eshoo said at a media briefing that her priorities for this Congress include spectrum reform, overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and building a public safety wireless broadband network.

A broad state role is critical to modernize and streamline Universal Service and Intercarrier Compensation policies, state members of the Federal-State USF Joint Board told an FCC workshop Thursday. Speakers debated proposed changes in fund size.

House Republicans will try to use the Continuing Resolution to stop the FCC from acting on its net neutrality order. In a speech Tuesday, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he filed an amendment prohibiting the FCC from spending any money to implement the rule. Also at the NARUC meeting, Walden said he’s considering legislation to overhaul FCC process. He questioned the White House’s FY 2012 budget estimate for money that could be raised by voluntary incentive spectrum auctions.

The FCC will structure reverse auctions carefully so all carriers will have a shot at federal funding for broadband, Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett assured state regulators at the NARUC meeting Tuesday. “The intent is to be neutral,” she said. The commission’s recent rulemaking on the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation asks broad questions about reverse auctions but is essentially neutral about implementation -- focusing on census blocs, for instance, instead of geographic alignment, Gillett said.

The time may finally be right for an overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and of intercarrier compensation, said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. He’s hopeful a “method” will be found to turn things like the rulemaking notice, approved by commissioners at last week’s monthly meeting, into “momentum” for making fixes to update the rules for the broadband age, he told us in a Q-and-A after his FCBA luncheon speech. “I think we've teed up an item that really raises all the issues,” he said, saying the regulator should hold stakeholder hearings on the issue. Copps used the speech to defend public broadcasting against Republican legislators’ efforts to cut funding and to urge the FCC and Chairman Julius Genachowski to do more to promote media diversity.

The FCC’s failure to deal with VoIP endangers the commission’s broader Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, said Windstream Vice President for Federal Government Affairs Eric Einhorn Monday. The commission’s rulemaking notice isn’t definitive about VoIP traffic, he said at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ winter meeting, and without clarity nagging questions “could unravel the system before we even get to intercarrier compensation reform.” Einhorn was part of a panel on USF/intercarrier comp reform.