Universal Service Fund

A change in leadership at the Federal Communications Commission has led to rising uncertainty about the future of efforts to boost broadband access, preserve an open internet, and protect online privacy—all issues affecting the K-12 sector. Atop education leaders' list of concerns is the E-rate, a $3.9 billion federal program that helps schools and libraries pay for telecommunications services. A wide cross-section of experts credits the FCC's 2014 overhaul of the program for helping.

T-Mobile’s business selling service to low-income users whose costs are paid, at least in part, through the Universal Service Fund (USF) Lifeline program is “non-sustainable,” said Braxton Carter, T-Mobile chief financial officer. T-Mobile Lifeline customers represent 4.4 million of the carrier’s 73 million subscribers and “we’re going to eliminate them from the base,” said Carter.

Carter attributed the change in direction to changes in the Lifeline program associated with requirements for voice and data service. The changes to the Lifeline data apparently relate to the FCC’s plan to raise the minimum monthly allotment to 2 gigabytes in 2018 from an initial 500 megabytes. “We don’t think Lifeline is a valuable or sustainable product for our base,” he said. Based on Carter’s comments, some or all of those customers apparently are sold through companies that buy service from T-Mobile on a wholesale basis. Meanwhile, smaller rural carriers have been reluctant to offer Lifeline broadband because the rate they would have to charge for the service would be in the range of $100, which the $9.25 discount wouldn’t go far to cover – a situation the rural carriers attribute to an insufficient USF program budget.

The Federal Communications Commission imposed a penalty of $975,000 against Advanced Tel, Inc. (ATI or Company) for violating its federal regulatory obligations as a telecommunications service provider for several years by failing to file required data and make required contributions to important federal programs.

In ATI’s response to our Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL), in which we proposed a forfeiture penalty of $1,588,988, ATI asserted an inability to pay the proposed forfeiture, and argued that its penalty should be reduced or cancelled because of the statute of limitations. ATI, however, did not dispute the facts underlying the violations identified in the NAL. For the reasons discussed below, we reduce the proposed forfeiture penalty and assess a forfeiture of $975,000 against the Company.

With President Donald Trump emphasizing his infrastructure revamp proposal, the Communications Workers of America wants Congress to emphasize broadband investment in any plan it approves. That came in a letter to the leadership, Republican and Democrat, of the House and Senate Commerce Committees.

CWA says any broadband infrastructure bill should: 1) direct $40 billion in funding to unserved communities; 2) change the tax laws to accelerate depreciation for broadband capital expenditures; 3) direct $10 billion to the Federal Communications Commission 's E-rate fund for high-speed broadband to schools and libraries; and 4) supplement the FCC's Lifeline subsidy (basic telecom for those who need help affording it) with a $100 tax credit per year on the purchase of broadband by low-income families (less than $35,000 per year).

In schools across the United States, IT departments are routinely tasked with supporting teachers as they move toward more technology-centric instructional environments. It may seem obvious that this can only be done with a foundation of robust broadband infrastructure. In practice, however, schools don’t always know the state of their infrastructure, or how to best improve it. The challenges that school administrators face when budgeting for and deploying technology vary widely, as do their approaches to supporting its use within their schools. Measuring and assessing network health is a critical challenge facing public schools as they plan for both today’s and tomorrow’s broadband needs.
School districts lack network measurement tools.
School networks present unique technical challenges for network measurement.
Network management practices should be considered in any measurement program.
Upstream ISP peering may affect school network performance.
Performance measurements should be compared with data on network capacity.

Public policies are critical in narrowing the digital divide for older adults and ensuring more accessible broadband access. As the current Federal Communications Commission attempts to change the Lifeline program, policy makers should be reminded that older adults constitute a large number of the program’s beneficiaries, requiring access to essential communications with 911 and other emergency service providers, healthcare practitioners, family and friends and other caregivers. Policies and programs addressing privacy and security also are important for this cohort. Broadband access must be viewed as one of many fundamental civil rights. Guaranteeing that all older adults have unfettered internet access will maintain the vibrancy of these alternatives and others, while ensuring that they aren’t further disadvantaged in the technology revolution.

The Lifeline Connects Coalition spoke with staff at the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau on May 26, 2017 to discuss the Universal Service Administrative Company’s (USAC) current plan to require Lifeline subscribers to re-prove their eligibility when they are migrated to the Lifeline National Verifier and the significant burden and confusion that will impose on Lifeline participants. The Coalition said obtaining re-proof of eligibility from Lifeline subscribers is likely to be highly unsuccessful and the overwhelming majority of those de-enrollments would be due to consumers’ failure or inability to respond, not their lack of continuing eligibility for Lifeline.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau released a Public Notice on May 31, 2017 granting, denying and dismissing various petitions related to actions taken by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) on the E-rate program and rural healthcare. Petitions for reconsideration or applications for review of these decisions must be filed within 30 days of the Public Notice.

What’s the next Wi-Fi frontier? And how can we tap into it for public good? A key band of airwaves that companies are seeking is the unused spectrum in lower frequencies that sit between TV channels. The spectrum in the gaps between bands of airwaves reserved for broadcast television offers prime real estate for companies seeking to bolster connectivity. Those unused bands of airwaves, known as “TV white spaces” (TVWS), are a target for Microsoft in particular. The company recently introduced a program to bring free Internet access to rural families to help bridge the “homework gap” in Charlotte and Halifax counties in southern Virginia.

In 2016, New America’s Open Technology Institute also urged the Federal Communications Commission to allow schools to leverage TVWS to give students lacking broadband at home remote access to the school’s high-capacity broadband, which would be subsidized by the federal E-Rate program.

The American people rightfully expect that all federal programs operate as efficiently as humanly possible and are targeted to help those truly in need. As Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, we have an obligation – as stewards of federal programs funded by monthly fees on American’s communications bills – to improve the functionality and effectiveness of the programs we oversee, including the Federal universal service fund (USF). Failure to do so would waste consumers’ hard-earned income, diverting it from the intended purposes and undermining public confidence in the programs. We should end the practice of spending scarce USF high-cost support to illogically subsidize the cost of communications services for very rich people who happen to live in the more rural portions of our nation. Because of our budgetary constraints, each dollar spent subsidizing service unnecessarily is a dollar that is not being used to help bring broadband to unserved Americans, particularly those who cannot afford the full cost of service. We seek comment on whether, and if so how, to implement means-testing within the high-cost universal service program.