USTelecom, its member companies, and CenturyLink and Frontier believe they...
USTelecom, its member companies, and CenturyLink and Frontier believe they have come up with a “potential” set of intercarrier compensation regime reforms that will achieve “broad consensus” among industry, they said in an ex parte meeting with FCC officials last…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
week (http://xrl.us/bkzp8c). “In the intercarrier reform area, we also discussed how shifts in intercarrier access revenues could be measured and potentially recovered in ways other than through per minute charges that may distort incentives to use communications services and whether reciprocal compensations revenues should be included in any circumstances,” said USTelecom Vice President Jonathan Banks in an ex parte notice released Monday in docket 10-90. “On reform of universal service, our discussion centered on identifying whether and where it is appropriate to establish a limited right-of-first-refusal for potential recipients of explicit support for the construction and operation of broadband networks,” Banks said. “We also discussed the potential role of satellite broadband in providing broadband service to the very highest cost to serve locations and the interplay between reliance on satellite broadband in these locations and the overall size of an explicit support fund for broadband.” A day after USTelecom’s meeting, Dish Network made its own case for giving satellite a slice of the Universal Service Fund. “Satellite broadband is the most-effective technology for providing true broadband to many currently unserved households,” Dish Corporate Counsel Alison Minea said in her ex parte notice (http://xrl.us/bkzp8n). “Its direct and full inclusion in Universal Service Fund reform will maximize efficiency, reduce the size of the fund, and ensure that rural America has access to high-quality broadband.” Also last week, leaders from NTCA, OPASTCO and the Western Telecommunications Alliance met with FCC officials (http://xrl.us/bkzp8x). “The Rural parties discussed the need to ensure sufficient cost recovery to promote and sustain broadband availability and affordability in rural areas in a manner that recognizes the varied characteristics among carrier serving those areas,” the groups said in an ex parte notice. “While contemplating reform of existing high cost recovery mechanisms, the Rural parties discussed: the need for adequate transition periods and reasonable transition paths; management of fund growth without impairing reasonable cost recovery; the role of rate benchmarks; and through identification and recognition of consumer impacts.”