Any grand infrastructure plan should go beyond public-private partnerships and tax credits and find ways to incorporate broadband, senators and witnesses said Wednesday during a Commerce Committee hearing. It followed another call Tuesday from President Donald Trump that Congress act on infrastructure. Senators repeatedly questioned what a broadband component should look like.
The FCC approved 2-1 a stay of data security parts of ISP privacy rules, which otherwise would have taken effect Thursday. Chairman Ajit Pai asked the commissioners to vote by the end of Thursday on the stay, saying otherwise staff would act (see 1702240055). Democrat Mignon Clyburn already indicated she opposed the stay. She issued a sharply worded dissent.
NCTA urged Congress, in any infrastructure proposal, to identify “problem areas before spending money to fix them,” “deliver broadband to those who don’t have it,” offer “equal opportunities for all qualified broadband providers,” and accept “alternative technologies in remote areas,” in a blog post prior to a Wednesday Senate Commerce Committee hearing on infrastructure spending. Policymakers should guarantee “transparency and accountability to ensure government funds achieve intended results,” said NCTA, which isn’t testifying. The one witness at the hearing with a clear telecom focus is NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield. She and USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter offered what they called a “simple road map” for the broadband spending they recommend. “Rather than reinventing the wheel, let’s put to better use initiatives and programs that have worked in the past to enable the availability and sustainability of rural broadband,” they said in a blog post for The Hill. “Serious consideration should be given, for example, to leveraging the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) programs as part of any new broadband infrastructure initiative.” They urged Congress to streamline and kill regulatory barriers in the process. ITTA, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA joined earlier this week to send a letter with recommendations (see 1702270038). Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Affairs Chris Lewis sent a letter to committee leaders urging Congress to weigh "how to ensure affordable, reliable access for all Americans, to expand economic opportunity for all." Lewis pointed to what he called market failures: "While high prices have driven robust rates of return on capital investment for broadband providers, they have not led those providers to invest those profits into deployment to rural, unserved, and underserved communities." President Donald Trump pressed for an infrastructure proposal of up to $1 trillion but didn't offer precise details. He was expected to have addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, and infrastructure is one topic slated for the speech. “I hope that the president will lay out what it is he wants to do,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday. “We don’t know exactly what approach he wants to take. From my standpoint, I’m interested obviously in how you would do any infrastructure plan that includes these private-public partnerships, or P3s as they call them, that work in more populated areas but how you would fund infrastructure in rural areas.”
Telecom associations warned against public money going to efforts to build where the private sector is acting, in recommendations on broadband infrastructure investment to the leadership of the Senate and House Commerce committees Monday. “Any new broadband investment program must ensure sufficient resources to meet the challenges of delivering broadband to rural America” and “to truly realize universal broadband access by all Americans, in all regions of the nation, any funding should flow to areas currently lacking meaningful access to broadband services in order to establish and sustain such services,” said the letter, signed by ITTA, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA. “Adequate broadband services must meet reasonable and realistic service parameters -- e.g., with respect to speed, latency, and price -- and funding should flow to broadband investment that best meets national broadband goals regardless of the technology or technologies employed. To promote fiscal responsibility, funding should not be made available for duplicative networks that overbuild another provider’s existing broadband infrastructure.” The associations released an outline of principles. Lawmakers have been pressing President Donald Trump to make broadband part of administration infrastructure proposals (see 1702220054).
Current and former journalists defended their profession at a discussion about a report that news coverage of technology gradually has become more negative. Some panelists speculated one reason the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation study found increased negativity was greater sophistication about tech.
The FCC approved an order setting a broad range of bid weights for a planned Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction of almost $2 billion in subsidy support for fixed broadband/voice services over 10 years. The CAF II bid weights are designed to value "high speeds, higher usage allowances and low latency," balanced with "cost efficiencies" to deploy broadband widely, said a release Thursday. Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn voted for the order; Commissioner Mike O'Rielly partially dissented.
The FCC adopted an order to streamline telco accounting duties, including by scrapping a requirement that large, price-cap carriers maintain regulatory reporting books in addition to financial reporting books. The large telcos will be given the option of shifting from a Part 32 uniform system of accounts to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), subject to conditions intended to prevent spikes in pole-attachment rates, said officials and a release Thursday. The vote was 3-0, though Commissioner Mignon Clyburn concurred in part. AT&T (here), CenturyLink and USTelecom (here) statements applauded the action.
A court agreed to an FCC request to hold in abeyance its review of a 2015 technology transitions order and a 2014 backup power order. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a brief order (in Pacer) Tuesday granting an FCC motion -- which wasn't opposed by petitioner USTelecom -- and directing the commission to file status reports every 60 days starting April 24 in USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1414. The FCC sought the hold to give its new leadership time to decide on its course (see 1702070026). Then-Commissioner and now-Chairman Ajit Pai and fellow Republican Commissioner Mike O'Rielly dissented from the orders.
USTelecom opposed Sandwich Isles Communications' petition for the FCC to reconsider and to set aside a Dec. 5 order imposing $27 million in repayment duties on the company for violations of the USF high-cost program in Hawaii (see 1701050068 and 1612060032). Sandwich Isles Communications (SIC) "has filed the Petition solely in an effort to avoid the penalties associated with the related Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture and Order that resulted from the findings in this Order and was released on the same day. Unfortunately for SIC, there are no new facts or arguments presented in their Petition that refutes the facts already presented," said USTelecom comments Thursday in docket 10-90.
Free Press told the FCC it should ignore NCTA and USTelecom requests that the agency issue a broad stay of the effective date of the enhanced disclosure rules in the 2015 net neutrality and broadband reclassification order (see 1702060064). The regulator shouldn’t spare just smaller carriers, especially since the rules may be overturned by the FCC, the groups argued. The associations are just recycling old arguments, Free Press said in a filing in docket 14-28. “The NCTA/USTA Letter presents no sufficient justification for granting its last-minute request,” Free Press said. "But what it lacks in reason, it makes up for in audacity and hypocrisy. This letter is part of a years-long concerted effort by BIAS [broadband internet access service] providers to profess unyielding adherence to the principles of transparency, all while working to undermine effective and sensible transparency rules such as those adopted in the various Open Internet orders."