The Nebraska Universal Service Fund has had “steady and predictable” remittances since adopting a connections-based contribution mechanism, NUSF Director Cullen Robbins said at a Nebraska Public Service Commission hearing Tuesday, so changes aren't needed. The PSC partly moved away from a revenue-based NUSF contribution in 2018 and expanded the policy in 2021(see 2105110045). The NUSF has a $134 million balance, Robbins said. He noted that the commission is considering a change that would use high-cost support more for operating expenses like maintaining networks as opposed to capital expenses for deployments. One possible benefit is that the fund balance wouldn’t build up as much because support could be paid out monthly, the NUSF director said. At another meeting earlier in the day, Nebraska PSC commissioners voted 5-0 to approve an order issuing the 2024 schedule and application materials for the Nebraska Broadband Bridge Program. ISPs may apply for NBBP grants from June 17 through July 8. Under the program, $20 million is available annually for deploying networks capable of at least 100 Mbps symmetrical speeds in unserved and underserved areas. “NBBP has proven to be an effective way to get broadband to unserved and underserved areas of the state, and we are eager to begin the fourth cycle of this program,” Commission Chair Dan Watermeier said in a news release.
Price-cap carriers appear to fail state service quality standards, the Nebraska Public Service Commission found. The commission voted 5-0 at its Tuesday meeting to require the carriers -- Windstream, Frontier Communications and Lumen’s CenturyLink to submit reports and corrective action plans. Also, commissioners voted 5-0 to seek comments by May 3, and schedule a May 15 hearing, on a second 2024 NUSF reverse auction that could distribute $18.4 million (docket NUSF-131). A multiyear investigation (see 2311280061 and 2210260052) showed customers "are experiencing significant difficulty in obtaining adequate telephone service” from the three carriers, despite receiving large amounts of Nebraska USF (NUSF) support, said the service-quality order in docket C-5303. The PSC is especially troubled that some carriers “do not appear to have taken steps since the investigation was opened to proactively improve their service,” it added. Fiber cuts comprise only "a small percentage" of recent outages, said the PSC: The rest "appear to result from the carriers’ maintenance and repair practices on their own facilities." It’s likely that the carriers “failed to meet the standard of six trouble reports per one hundred access lines per month, per exchange,” the PSC said. The commission ordered each carrier to submit information by May 31 on how many trouble reports it received in each exchange monthly from November to April. Carriers must identify any exchange averaging eight or more trouble reports per 100 lines in any of those months. By June 28, each carrier "must develop a plan to improve service in" each identified exchange “sufficient to ensure the exchange does not exceed six trouble reports per one hundred lines each month.” In addition, the PSC said it found many customers complained about inadequate customer assistance and missed technician appointments. So, each carrier must develop a plan and report to the PSC on how they improved in those areas by June 28, the commission said. "The plan must ensure customers are able to call and reach a customer service representative familiar with Nebraska’s network and customers." Committed to reliability, Windstream is "reviewing the order and will work with the Commission on any findings," a spokesperson said. CenturyLink disagrees with the order’s conclusions and believes “these reports will show that we’re providing good service to our Nebraska customers,” a Lumen spokesperson said. Frontier didn’t comment.
Industry and consumer advocates urged the FCC on Friday to include changes in its draft order reestablishing net neutrality rules. Commissioners will consider the item during the agency's April 25 meeting (see 2404040064). Some said the draft order didn't adequately address forbearance for ISPs. The draft’s state preemption provisions received praise -- and concern -- from current and former regulators.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission will award $21 million for broadband from this year’s state universal service fund reverse auction, the PSC said in a Tuesday order. Great Plains Communications, the Hamilton Consortium, Midstates Communications and Pinpoint Communications won awards. The commission redistributed Nebraska USF support that was unused by or withheld from Frontier Communications and Windstream, using the cash to bring broadband-capable voice to rural areas where the two carriers had historically provided only traditional voice service. “This process is proving to be a valuable method in ensuring distributed NUSF funds are being used for broadband buildout to Nebraska’s unserved areas,” said PSC Chair Dan Watermeier (R).
Nebraska must close the “spigot” and stop using state USF to support old telecom networks that provide internet speeds slower than 100 Mbps symmetrical, said Sen. Bruce Bostelman (R) at the legislature’s Telecommunications Committee hearing Monday. Bostelman’s LB-1031 would end Nebraska USF support for maintaining slower networks starting July 1, 2025. In 2021, Nebraska made 100 Mbps symmetrical the standard for new projects but continued allowing funding for operating existing networks with at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds, said Bostelman: Three years later, there’s no reason to give telcos more time to replace copper networks with fiber. LB-1031 would slow Consolidated Communications' broadband deployment by funding only areas with 100% fiber, said Brian Thompson, vice president-external relations. The panel continued to hear testimony on LB-1031 after our deadline. Earlier in the hearing, Nebraska Broadband Director Patrick Haggerty told state lawmakers that his office hopes to hear “at least a verbal approval” from NTIA this week on volume one of its initial proposal for the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. The state broadband office resubmitted volume 1 Friday with changes recommended by NTIA, said Haggerty: Nebraska can begin its challenge process once NTIA clears that volume.
Industry groups continued to disagree on whether the FCC should include an assessment of broadband speed benchmarks and higher speed goals in its annual report to Congress about the state of broadband deployment and competition. At issue is Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's proposal in the agency's notice of inquiry to increase the definition of broadband to 100/20 Mbps with a long-term goal of reaching 1 GB/500 Mbps. Reply comments were posted Tuesday in docket 22-270 (see 2312040024).
The Nebraska Public Service Commission unanimously adopted state USF and telecom service quality orders Tuesday. The PSC will use the FCC's broadband data collection (BDC) as the replacement for Form 477 data that the state commission previously used to determine broadband availability in each census block, said the Nebraska USF order in docket NUSF-139. Previously, some rural telcos raised concerns about relying on BDC data for NUSF high-cost distributions (see 2310020062). The PSC understands "concerns that, as a newer data source, the BDC data and challenge process may still need corrections," but it expects that many past issues were corrected in the Nov. 17 broadband fabric update, it said. The PSC will provide its own challenge mechanism to "allow carriers to correct any missing broadband serviceable locations or correct any other misidentified information appearing in the FCC’s updated broadband availability data,” it said. Relying on the FCC challenge process wouldn’t be as quick, it said. The PSC decided to retain a 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds benchmark for determining which census blocks are eligible for broadband deployment support in 2024. However, the agency noted it still considers speeds between 25/3Mbps and 100/20 Mbps as underserved, and that NUSF support recipients must provide at least 100/100 Mbps. Also, the PSC adopted a payment structure for NUSF broadband buildout support that aligns with its National Broadband Bridge Program and Capital Projects Fund programs. Commissioners also agreed 5-0 to adopt a service quality order requiring price cap carriers Lumen, Windstream and Frontier Communications to refresh the record by Jan. 5 on repair and replacement timelines, dispatch procedures and how many technicians they have on staff (docket C-5303). The companies’ previous answers to those questions -- first asked in an August 2021 order -- failed to alleviate the PSC’s concerns, and the commission keeps getting consumer complaints, it said. The PSC scheduled a hearing on the matter for Jan. 17 at 1:30 p.m. CST.
Telecom companies raised concerns about adding state USF goals on service quality and other issues in comments posted Monday at the Nebraska Public Service Commission. And as the PSC considers sweeping Nebraska USF (NUSF) changes, Charter Communications warned that it might be unlawful to support broadband with a fund designed for telecom services. Small rural companies said the fund should support ongoing costs that make networks expensive in remote areas even after they are deployed.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission adopted a multitude of telecom orders at a livestreamed meeting Tuesday. In mostly unanimous votes, commissioners adopted policies on broadband funding, state USF, dark fiber leasing rates and rip and replace. Looking ahead, Commissioner Kevin Stocker (R) asked about tightening resiliency requirements after hearing a report on October communications outages.
Proposed changes to Nebraska's USF program saw disagreements during Nebraska Public Service Commission hearing testimony Tuesday over benchmark speeds for targeting support and what data to use to define unserved and underserved areas. State USF Fund Director Cullen Robbins said the USF Fund recommends maintaining the speed threshold at 25/3 Mbps for targeting support. He said changing that threshold would potentially divert unserved support to areas that might qualify as underserved. Robbins said the fund also recommends changing the structure of payments for the high-cost program. Today it pays on a reimbursement basis, but that has resulted in issues of the fund rising to high levels and legislators wanting to access that money for other purposes. Robbins said a structured payout process, with some funding being paid during the course of a project, might work better. Andy Pollock of Rembolt Ludtke, representing the Rural Nebraska Broadband Alliance, urged transitioning by July 1, 2025, away from USF support for infrastructure that cannot provide 100 Mbps symmetrical speeds. He said there's no reason to continue supporting obsolete infrastructure providing lower speeds. Charter Communications Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Tim Goodwin said that rather than 100 Mbps symmetrical, 100/20 Mbps or 25/3 Mbps would be better benchmarks because those speeds align with other state program standards. Making 100 Mbps symmetrical the benchmark for unserved or underserved would be out of line with numerous state and federal programs, he said. Many cable operators offer 1 Gbps downstream speeds but not 100 Mbps upstream, so with a 100 Mbps symmetrical standard, "you just declared almost all of Lincoln and most of Omaha unserved," he said. Consortia Consulting Director Dan Davis, representing a group of rural LECs, said that a transition to 100 Mbps symmetrical to establish served status would be sound policy, but that 2025 was too soon and a graduated approach should be taken through 2028. Multiple speakers testified in support of using FCC broadband data collection data for determining high-cost support distributions for 2024 and forward. BDC data, “as imperfect as it is,” is still better than the Form 477 alternative, said Charter's Goodwin. However, said Davis, BDC data "is demonstrably inaccurate," overcounting the number of broadband serviceable locations. He said once the data is more accurate, the LECs would support using it for future USF distributions.