SAN JOSE, Cal. -- The praises of citywide public Wi- Fi networks for residents and business were sung by officials from Corpus Christi, Tex., to Hermosa Beach, Cal., as well as vendors. But they spoke at the Wi-Fi Planet conference here late Wed. in the shadow of a Pa. law signed the night before that lets municipalities offer paid communications services only at the sufferance of local phone companies starting in 2006 (CD Dec 2 p4).
Verizon made major concessions in Pa. to win enactment of the controversial new Pa. broadband deployment promotion law signed late Tues. night by Gov. Edward Rendell (D). Effective Jan. 1, the law (HB-30) gives Verizon and other incumbent local exchange carriers effective veto power over municipalities’ entry into broadband and other advanced telecom services. In return, the law uses carrots and sticks as incentives for the incumbents to accelerate their broadband deployments by up to 7 years, particularly in rural areas.
A federal appeals court, ordered the FCC to report in 90 days on the agency’s progress in responding to a 2-year-old court remand of the FCC’s reciprocal compensation rules for ISP-bound traffic (CD Oct 1 p3). The U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., deferred action Nov. 22 on a mandamus petition filed by Core Communications but said it wanted the reports every 90 days until action was taken. The FCC has been struggling to come to agreement on how to devise a plan that will hold up in court. At the same time, the FCC is working to devise an intercarrier compensation regime that would unify the many different types of carrier-to-carrier payments including the ISP-bound traffic compensation. Some companies have urged the agency to delay the ISP-bound rules until it deals with the bigger intercarrier compensation issue, but Core Communications -- which petitioned for mandamus in June -- said that would take too long. “The FCC has been running away from this issue for years,” said Core Pres. Bret Mingo: “Now they have to answer for their actions, or inactions.” He said Core “generally supports” efforts to streamline and unify intercarrier compensation schemes but “there is no excuse for the FCC to not act on the court’s remand,” he said. An FCC spokesman said the agency “takes seriously the court’s remand and we are considering that and other complex intercarrier compensation issues,” which the Commission hopes to address “in the near future.”
As House and Senate staff closed offices for Thanksgiving, the prospects of several telecom bills seemed extremely bleak due to struggles over Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain’s (R-Ariz.) boxing bill. House, Senate and industry sources indicate there don’t appear to be negotiations on the issue. House Commerce Committee Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.) objects to moving the boxing legislation, and sources said McCain will let nothing else pass unless the boxing bill is passed.
The prospects for FCC Comr. Adelstein to be renominated to the Commission appeared bright Thurs. after his hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. Senators from both parties praised his attention to rural issues and Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters afterwards that he expected Adelstein’s nomination to pass.
Federal regulators told the NARUC convention in Nashville Wed. jurisdiction changes arising from new technology and service concepts in telecom and energy will make it more important than ever for the federal and state govts. to cooperate. FCC Comr. Abernathy said new technologies like VoIP make adherence to old federal-state jurisdiction lines infeasible, but the states will still have a role. She said the FCC and the states “still should work in collaboration on sound public policy. The FCC can’t handle matters like [VoIP] E-911 without the cooperation of state regulators.” She said some new technologies and service concepts require a single national policy, but “details of implementation should still be worked out with the states.” She said the core question is: “What type of regulatory regime best serves to deliver value to consumers?” She said that with VoIP, federal preemption was necessary because IP-enabled packet-switched technologies don’t recognize boundaries: “IP-enabled services only superficially resemble circuit- switched voice,” she said. “But in the IP world, the old end-to-end jurisdictional analysis simply didn’t work” because IP users could call anyone from anywhere and all calls looked the same. She said the Vonage VoIP preemption order didn’t deny the states a supporting role. She said it gave state attorneys general responsibility for addressing broad matters of VoIP consumer protection. She said the FCC had to settle VoIP jurisdiction before taking up other VoIP issues. Patrick Wood, chmn. of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and a former Tex. regulator, said federal-state cooperation will be crucial in development of policy for broadband over power lines (BPL), which will put the FERC, FCC and state commissions in a regulatory triangle. He said all parties involved must maintain flexible and not lose sight of the fact that they all exist to protect consumers. Hilda Legg, dir. of the Rural Utilities Service, said the states and federal agencies “have to work together and communicate. We need to be willing to listen to each other because we have a common purpose.” She said the telecom and energy infrastructures will remain the foundation of national economic growth despite all the industry changes. She said BPL may present unique circumstances for RUS as a lender. She said RUS could end up lending money to an electric utility that seeks to offer BPL in competition with a phone company that also is an RUS borrower. She said: “It is in the national interest to keep rural America connected. The whole nation benefits from a strong rural economy.” Iowa Comr. Dianne Muns, new NARUC first vp, said no one level of govt. can do all things anymore. “Our discussions need to be about who should be doing what.” She said states have been very effective at resolving wholesale contract disputes and retail consumer complaints and doing public education and information gathering, and they should retain their authority in these areas: “We need to respect each other’s strengths and try to reach agreement on what each should be doing. Both levels are important and have jobs to do.” -- HK
NASHVILLE -- Telecom makes investors nervous because it has regulatory and technological uncertainties that don’t exist in other industries competing for capital, said NARUC panelists at the group’s annual meeting here Mon. The advent of paradigm-breaking new technologies like VoIP and the prospect of a major rewrite of the federal Telecom Act next Congress have led many telecom investors to move to the sidelines and wait out the stormy times, panelists said.
Several important communications-related items could pass Congress this week as it returns for a brief lame- duck session, industry and congressional sources said. The loudest buzz is on the universal service fund (USF) and the controversy over the FCC’s change in accounting mechanisms that could slow some E-rate payments and possibly lead to a rise in contributions, and several sources expected some efforts to push a legislative solution.
More indications emerged Wed. that FCC Comr. Adelstein could be part of a lame-duck session effort to move a slate of pending nominations in the Senate (CD Nov 10 p4). Judicial nominations are at the center of the effort, sources have said, and the Senate Judiciary Committee announced there would be a hearing Nov. 16 on judicial nominees (at 9:30 a.m. in Rm. 226 Dirksen Bldg.). Also, a Senate Commerce Committee spokesman said the committee planned to hold a hearing on nominations on Thurs., Nov. 18. The spokesman couldn’t confirm any of the hearing witnesses, but Communications Daily obtained a list of potential witnesses that included Adelstein. Other witnesses included Claudia Puig, Gay Gaines and Ernest Wilson of the Corp. for Public Broadcasting (all 3 received recess appointments). The list also included candidates for other commissions, including the Federal Maritime Commission.
Carriers remain split on a proposed FCC rule to apply federal wiretap requirements to VoIP and broadband service. In comments on the Commission’s CALEA proceeding, a broad array of lobbying groups drew lines in the sand on the role of CALEA on a new generation of IP- based communications products.