Wireless Competition Report Only Big Controversy Seen at May Meeting
The most hotly debated order at the FCC’s meeting Thursday is expected to be the annual wireless competition report, agency sources said Friday. The report is always controversial. The most contested part this year is that, unlike previous reports, it will not declare there’s effective competition in the U.S. wireless market, but it also won’t declare there isn’t.
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Two months after the FCC meeting dedicated to the National Broadband Plan, the commission has a fairly non-controversial agenda. Eighth-floor advisors are awaiting a notice of inquiry and notice of proposed forbearance from Chairman Julius Genachowski on his broadband reclassification proposal. That issue “sucked the wind out of everything else,” an FCC official said.
Rules for the Wireless Communications Service, a second wireless item, have generated lots of discussion, but there’s general consensus on the technical rules under which WCS licensees and Sirius XM Radio will share the 2.3 GHz band, sources said. Addressing WCS spectrum was one of the recommendations in the broadband plan.
The former CMRS competition report, now dubbed the mobile wireless competition report, has usually generated a debate between Democrats and Republicans. Commissioner Michael Copps long criticized the report for not delving deeply enough into the state of competition when Republicans were in charge. The report to be released Thursday offers more granular data, but also is silent on the state of competition, the major controversy this time around.
Republicans Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker raised concerns about a notice of inquiry on wireless competition when it was released in August. “Although there are benefits in collecting additional data regarding the wireless marketplace, we must be mindful that we may be seeking information about services that the Commission may not have the authority to regulate,” Baker said at the time.
CTIA met with commissioner advisors in recent days to make the case that the U.S. wireless market is effectively competitive, ex parte letters on the meetings show. CTIA representatives told FCC officials that “competition in the U.S. is robust at each level of the wireless ecosystem” and made the case that the U.S. wireless market is the “most competitive in the world."
Verizon Wireless and AT&T representatives have also been at the FCC recently to discuss the report. “The record evidence in this proceeding, including economic evidence, unequivocally points to the conclusion that the wireless marketplace is at least effectively competitive,” AT&T said, reporting on a meeting with Bruce Gottlieb, a senior aide to Genachowski. “To find otherwise, or to make no finding at all, ignores this overwhelming evidence.” The report covers 2008 and is not a true snapshot of competition today, an industry source noted.
Technical WCS rules are expected to be largely the same as those outlined in the FCC’s public notice released in April (CD April 5 p11), commission officials said. Updated rules on WCS buildout requirements are more fluid, though, and agency staff is leaning toward relaxing some of the buildout requirements outlined in another public notice (CD March 31 p12), the officials said. The WCS Coalition has said the proposed construction requirements are onerous and would stifle investment and deployment in the technology rather than encourage it.
The FCC will also take up three orders from the Wireline Bureau: A rulemaking notice initiating reforms to the E-rate program, an order and further notice on pole attachments and a report and order standardizing the process for the porting of phone numbers when a consumer switches carriers.
In the pole attachment order, the FCC intends to issue a declaratory ruling that “punts everything else to a further” notice, a commission official said. It will clarify the meaning of the statutory nondiscrimination requirement and a time frame for timely pole attachment access, the official said. The order also addresses the use of different attachment techniques, like using extension arms or boxing. “If a certain technique is unsafe, then the attacher can’t use it,” the official said.
"We find about 25 percent of attachments are unauthorized attachments,” said Brett Kilbourne, Utilities Telecom Council attorney. “They may or may not get caught. We want to have more tools to enforce the process of permitting certain attachments."
The notice asks commenters to refresh the record on implementing parity between the cable and telecom rates, “regardless of what type of service,” an FCC official said. It also seeks information on “ways to cut access costs and avoid time delays,” the person said. There also is an enforcement portion seeking ways to establish a “standard solution to speed certain disputes along,” the official said.
The E-rate order is aimed at “expanding the reach of broadband at schools,” an eighth-floor aide said. It’s also an effort to find ways to streamline the application process, the aide said. The American Association of School Administrators supports the FCC’s proposal to establish three-year contracts for E-rate, Assistant Director Mary Kusler said in an interview. This would “reduce the paperwork burden in the E-rate program and potentially ensure better deals for the applicants,” she said: Many “complicated forms have made the process quite lengthy.”