WASHINGTON-The Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies urged the Federal Communications Commission to set stringent standards for competitors-usually wireless carriers-to receive universal-service subsidies and then require the staff to stick to those rules.
“If the FCC’s own bureaus cannot adhere to an adopted framework for conducting public-interest analyses, how can it reasonably expect state commissions to follow any federal guidelines on minimum eligible telecommunications carrier eligibility criteria that are adopted? It is essential that the commission lead by example and conduct a rigorous public-interest analysis each and every time it considers an ETC application for a rural service area,” said Stuart Polikoff, OPASTCO director of government relations.
The FCC is set to rule on ETC eligibility criteria by the end of the month following a recommendation by the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service last year. A carrier must be designated an ETC to receive subsidies. The FCC set ETC standards based on applications from two wireless carriers, Virginia Cellular and Highland Cellular.
“The accusation that the states and the FCC are not doing their jobs does not square with the facts. The FCC can take pride in having successfully struck a careful balance … between enabling varied facilities-based services in rural areas and ensuring accountability in the use of high-cost funding. These precedents have governed FCC ETC designations and have been highly influential with state commissions,” said Mark Rubin, director of federal government relations for Western Wireless Corp.
Polikoff was objecting to last August’s FCC bureau decision to grant Nextel Partners ETC status to receive subsidies to provide service in the area served by wireline carrier TDS Telecom. Polikoff believes the bureau ignored standards it set earlier when it granted the Nextel Partners ETC application.
Believing that Nextel Partners does not intend to serve its area, TDS Telecom has asked for a full commission review. The issue is pending.
Nextel Partners acknowledged it does not plan to serve TDS Telecom’s area, but said it didn’t ask or receive ETC status for that area. “Nextel Partners is committed to serving the areas for which it has been designated ETC status and clearly met the standards for ETC designation established by the FCC in Virginia Cellular. TDS Telecom’s coverage information is wrong. They are questioning coverage in areas in which Nextel Partners has not requested ETC status. The clear objective of TDS and OPASTCO is to block competition-thereby depriving those in rural areas of the economic and technological advantages that a wireless carrier brings to customers,” said Don Manning, Nextel Partners vice president and general counsel.
Nextel Partners said earlier this year that it would use the universal-service subsidies to build 13 cell sites in Alabama, 12 cell sites in Florida, 13 cell sites in Georgia, 19 cell sites in New York, 10 cell sites in Pennsylvania, three cell sites in Tennessee and 16 cell sites in Virginia.
In other universal-service news, the two champions of E-rate, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.), have introduced legislation to permanently exempt the universal-service fund from the Anti-Deficiency Act. The E-rate is the part of the USF that pays to connect schools and libraries to the Internet.
