Congress should make cybersecurity, not net neutrality, its main communications priority in the year ahead, James Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president, told reporters. He said he expects quick action from the FCC and Congress on a Universal Service Fund overhaul because of growing recognition that the current system is broken. And he endorsed Verizon’s position that the 700 MHz D-block should be given to public-safety agencies for immediate use rather than go through a second auction.
Regulations such as a la carte and net neutrality won’t help consumers and should be opposed, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Kay Hutchison of Texas told the NCTA convention. “I want to hold back on regulations that are going to stifle innovation,” she said. “I am very skeptical about Congress being able to do it right.” Minority House Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia delivered a similar but broader message at an NCTA lunch: “You don’t need to over-regulate. You need smart regulation.”
The FCC defended its interim cap on high-cost universal service support for competitive eligible telecom carriers, in a federal appeals court filing. The cap isn’t “arbitrary and capricious” and it should withstand a challenge by rural wireless carriers, the commission said in a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Rural Cellular Association is leading a challenge to the 2007 order imposing the cap. The FCC said court decisions give it wide leeway in carrying out the Communications Act. “Under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Commission’s analysis must be upheld unless it is ‘arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion,'” the agency said. “As it works on comprehensive universal service reform, which involves a broad and complex set of issues, the Commission reasonably imposed an interim cap on skyrocketing high-cost support disbursements to competitive ETCs in order to stabilize the program and limit the fees telecommunications customers pay to support it.” Support to incumbent carriers “has not grown in recent years” and “does not have the same potential for rapid explosive growth,” the FCC said, so it decided not to impose the same cap on them. Support for incumbents declined from 2005 to 2007, the commission said. Meanwhile, support for competitive ETCs increased from $17 million in 2001 to $1.18 billion in 2007, with average annual growth exceeding 100 percent, the FCC said. The commission noted that it imposed the cap after getting a May 2007 recommendation from the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service to take “immediate action to rein in the explosive growth in high- cost universal support disbursements.” - HB
There appeared to be little new in the more than 100 comments that flooded into the FCC this week about how to develop a comprehensive broadband strategy for rural parts of the U.S. The recommendations of the commission are expected to be given weight at NTIA and RUS as the agencies develop their respective broadband stimulus programs.
Applicants for broadband stimulus money should prepare for strict oversight and audits, as the NTIA and the RUS try to avoid the kinds of embarrassing problems other agencies have recently suffered after handing out billions of federal dollars, a Commerce Department official said Tuesday in Washington. “My first advice is to plan on audits,” said John Bunting, audit manager in the broadband technology opportunities program with the department’s Inspector General.
NTIA and RUS, holding the fourth of six public meetings on their respective broadband stimulus programs, sought comment on three of the most critical questions officials will have to decide in awarding funds - what constitutes broadband and what is an underserved versus an unserved area. After two days on the road, NTIA and RUS officials were back in Washington for a session at Commerce Department headquarters.
Congressional telecom staffers bring long experience to table as the 111th Congress gets underway at a time when communications issues are a growing priority. The Senate and House Commerce Committees have new leadership for the full committee and communications subcommittees, with the Senate subcommittee reconvening after a hiatus of three years. Changes at the top level of the Commerce Committees, as well as new committee members, mean some changes in titles among key staffers. But most of those involve staffers who are often familiar to the telecom and media industries.
To seek broadband grant and loans at the NTIA and the Rural Utility Service, states need structures and systems, officials said, and fierce deadlines and scarce resources may drive those lacking such mechanisms to adopt or adapt established models.
State and industry officials debated possible limits to NTIA broadband grant eligibility in a Monday public hearing at the Commerce Department. In a morning roundtable, representatives of broadband providers and equipment makers urged a widely inclusive approach, while an official for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners suggested the NTIA mandate state involvement. Later in the day, officials discussed coordination between the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service, and how to spur broadband adoption and public computer center capacity.
The Federal Trade Commission required American Telecom Services, which sold both traditional and Internet phones bundled with communications services through retailers nationwide, to provide timely rebates, the FTC said. The commission charged the company with deceptive marketing by promising consumers they would receive their rebates within eight weeks of submitting properly completed forms. Offering mail-in rebates ranging in value from $5 to $50 for its “Pay ‘N Talk” program, ATS used third-party fulfillment houses to process and pay rebate requests received from consumers who bought its products. The FTC order prohibited ATS from misrepresenting the time in which any rebate will be mailed and from failing to provide any rebate within the time it specifies -- or within 30 days if no time is specified in the offer. It also prohibited the company from misrepresenting any material terms of any rebate program, including the status of the rebate or reasons for delay in providing a rebate. The order contained record-keeping and reporting provisions designed to ensure compliance.