Affordable voice service for those in need, not financial support for carriers, would be the “paramount” aim of the universal service program, according to draft legislation released Monday at a Free State Foundation panel discussion. Proposed by House Commerce Committee ranking member Joe Barton of Texas, the bill drew panelists’ praise as embodying proposals with widespread support.
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell announced Monday that he had cast an electronic vote supporting a cap on the high- cost Universal Service Fund. He became convinced that a cap is needed because the contribution factor - the proportion of long-distance revenue that carriers must contribute to the fund -- is again on the rise after declining last year. McDowell’s support gives Chairman Kevin Martin the deciding third vote in favor of a cap (CD April 28 p1). Commissioner Michael Copps previously voted against the cap. All the commissioners but Jonathan Adelstein have voted, sources said.
Many decisions must be run past the FCC chairman’s office before the Media Bureau acts, said current and former commission officials. That has delayed action on some license transfers of duopolies, backlogged orders finding cable operators no longer subject to rate rules, and other matters, they said. The bureau’s five division chiefs often must ask their superiors to check with Chairman Kevin Martin or his representatives for guidance, they said. Martin declined to comment for this article.
Lifeline service specialist Fones4All told the California Public Utilities Commission it is planning to quit the state’s telecom market because it can’t comply with a PUC judgment that it must refund to AT&T $2.7 million in Lifeline and access overcharges. Fones4All said the PUC’s denial of a stay while it pursued a federal court appeal, and AT&T’s insistence that it be paid the refund, put the company in an untenable position that jeopardized its ability to continue providing service. It said it has an agreement with Telscape Communications to accept a “substantial portion” of Fones4All’s Lifeline customer base. Fones4All said it expects eventually to win on appeal, but that win would come much too late to allow it to maintain service in California.
States are urging the FCC to reject AT&T accounting rules forbearance (CD April 15 p8). In a Tuesday letter to FCC commissioners, state members of the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations said granting the petition would “dump existing separations procedures in half of the country.” Commissioners also got mail from the Ohio Public Utilities Commission, which said granting forbearance would remove safeguards the FCC implemented in an August order.
Verizon’s use of information from cable operators to lure defecting phone customers back to the Bell broke no FCC number porting rules, the Enforcement Bureau said. In a recommendation to the full commission that was released at 7:45 p.m. Friday and that some found surprising, the bureau said three cable operators had failed to prove that Verizon marketing efforts violated sections 222(a) and (b) of the Communications Act. The provisions define what telecommunications carriers can do with information obtained from competitors. The bureau said it will judge later whether Verizon broke section 201(b) rules on customer retention practices. It asked commissioners to approve a broad notice seeking comment on that question.
The Illinois Commerce Commission gave Level 3 Communications until May 9 to explain to the ICC staff why it hasn’t obeyed a 2007 order barring it from billing Neutral Tandem reciprocal compensation or any similar fee on intrastate traffic from third-parties that crossed Neutral Tandem’s network. The June order resolved a billing dispute between the companies over whether reciprocal compensation applied to transiting traffic. Level 3 had threatened to disconnect Neutral Tandem if reciprocal compensation wasn’t paid. The ICC said Neutral Tandem didn’t owe compensation on transiting traffic, ordered the companies to maintain their interconnection and barred Level 3 from billing reciprocal compensation charges or any similar fee on intrastate traffic not originated by Neutral Tandem. Level 3 appealed the ICC order to federal and state courts, where the matter is pending. The courts didn’t stay the ICC order. The ICC staff last month said Neutral Tandem complained that Level 3 still is billing its transiting traffic a fee similar to reciprocal compensation (Case 08-0621). The staff said Level 3 is billing a fee called “transport compensation” on transiting traffic and recommended that Level 3 be required to explain its actions, since they appear to violate the 2007 order. The ICC agreed and set the May 9 deadline for a Level 3 response. The ICC made clear that if Level 3 ignores this order to explain its conduct, or fails to give complete and specific answers to the staff’s questions, there will be penalties. Under ICC rules, Level 3 could be fined up to $1,000 a day if it fails to respond and other sanctions are possible.
An “international approach” to national environmental regulation of certain materials, electronics recycling and energy efficiency are high on the agenda of a “trilateral” meeting of consumer electronics and information technology trade associations from the U.S., Europe and Japan in Kyoto April 17, officials said.
FairPoint urged Maine regulators to not entangle FairPoint’s privacy policies with the stalled dispute over whether Verizon unlawfully turned over customer call records to the National Security Agency. FairPoint was responding to a Public Utilities Commission suggestion two weeks ago that it expand its privacy protections beyond customer proprietary network information (CPNI) to include “customer records, wiretap, or other requests which may involve the disclosure of customer information or communications,” and to specify that privacy safeguards apply not just to CPNI requests but to all information requests. The PUC itself was responding to concerns from the Maine Civil Liberties Union and ratepayer plaintiffs in the Verizon-NSA privacy case that FairPoint’s privacy policy may not be comprehensive enough. The privacy policy filed with the PUC to fulfill a merger approval condition said FairPoint will turn over customer information and call records only in response to properly- executed official warrants and valid legal orders. But the MCLU and privacy plaintiffs said FairPoint’s policy protected only CPNI information as defined in federal law, while customer privacy also should include any and all records of a customer’s activity. In rebuttal, FairPoint said the MCLU and privacy plaintiffs “appear to assume FairPoint would conduct itself in an unreasonable manner and in violation of federal and state legal requirements with regard to customer privacy.” FairPoint said there have been no findings that its privacy policies have failed to protect customers, are inadequate under law or inconsistent with general industry practices. It said the MCLU and privacy plaintiffs are trying to create privacy issues that have no basis in the record.
FCC approval of an AT&T forbearance request due April 24 may hinge on commissioners’ reading of a condition in an August order letting Bells combine local and long distance divisions (CD Sept 4 p1), agency sources said. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has circulated two alternate orders, one approving and one denying, we're told. The orders combine related petitions by AT&T and BellSouth seeking relief from accounting rules (CD Jan 9 p9).