March 2011

The Federal Communications Commission should take a “surgical” approach toward Universal Service reforms, said Mike Romano, senior vice president of policy for the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association.

As policymakers undertake the process of transitioning today’s voice-focused Universal Service and access charge system to focus on broadband deployment, for example, Romano said they should recognize that “rural telcos have already done a terrific job of using funds for this purpose today.” Romano also noted that the rate of return system has worked well to support broadband deployment and Romano suggested that policymakers should tweak the ROR system rather than “throw it away altogether.” Not surprisingly, Romano also argued that attempts to restrain the size of the Universal Service fund shouldn't be based on arbitrary caps. Although the overall size of the high-cost fund has grown sharply in recent years, he argued that the growth in payments to small rural telcos has seen a compound annual growth rate of only 3%.

EarthLink announced the completion of Phase I of the Eastern Tennessee Middle Mile Fiber Broadband Project by its business communications segment EarthLink Business.

In March of 2010, DeltaCom, Inc., now an EarthLink Business company, was awarded the $9.4 million in federal stimulus funding by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) through the Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) to enable the network expansion. The Phase I network expansion includes a 343-mile overbuild of an existing diverse fiber optic route from Nashville to Knoxville and the addition of a new diverse fiber optic route from Knoxville to Chattanooga. This network expansion is now ready for wholesale SONET intercity transport service. Deployment of a new diverse fiber optic route from Knoxville to Blountville is underway and targeted to be ready for SONET transport service by the end of the first quarter of 2011.

The final phase of the project, targeted for completion in the third quarter of 2011, includes the addition of five new interconnection points, including Cookeville, Oak Ridge, Cleveland, Sweetwater and Morristown, Tennessee. These communities are located in counties designated as underserved by Connected Tennessee, an independent non-profit organization that develops and implements effective strategies for technology deployment, use and literacy in Tennessee. The new network will not only enable broadband access for a number of core community institutions, including education and healthcare providers, but also allow Internet service providers to connect to the EarthLink network for intercity transport service. Combined with recent corporate acquisitions, this fiber broadband expansion also allows EarthLink Business to further expand network coverage and continue to build nationwide connectivity for businesses with locations across the US. When complete, this Federal grant funded project will comprise a fiber optic network of more than 500 miles in Eastern Tennessee which will provide middle mile broadband services to carrier customers, community anchor institutions, and last mile service providers in speeds up to 10Gbps.

[Commentary] Fifty years ago, I stood before the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters for my inaugural public address as President Kennedy’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. My first objective in the job was to clean up the agency and the industry, which before I arrived had been embroiled in quiz-show, payola, and agency scandals. My second was to expand choice for viewers, by advancing new technologies in the belief that more choice would result in more and better content. My objective at the convention was to tell broadcasters that the FCC would enforce the law’s requirement that they serve the public interest in return for their free and exclusive use of the publicly owned airwaves. Too much existing programming, I said, was little more than “a procession of game shows violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.” Television, I said, was too often a “vast wasteland.”

But those were not the two words I intended to be remembered. The two words I wanted to endure were public interest. To me that meant, as it still means, that we should constantly ask: What can communications do for our country? For the common good? For the American people? The next 50 years will see even more technological miracles, including the marriage of computers, television, telephony, and the Internet. What we need, to accompany these changes, are critical choices about the values we want to build into our 21st-century communications system -- and the public policies to support them.

I believe we should commit to six goals in the next 50 years.

1. Expand freedom, in order to strengthen editorial independence in news and information.
2. Use new communications technologies to improve and extend the benefits of education at all levels, preschool through postgraduate.
3. Use new technologies to improve and extend the reach of our health-care system.
4. The nation’s communications infrastructure for public safety and local and national security is a dangerous disgrace -- Congress and the FCC must build and maintain a new and secure communications network as a national-security priority.
5. We need to give greater support to public radio and public television. Both have been starved for funds for decades, and yet in many communities they are essential sources of local news and information -- particularly public radio, which is relatively inexpensive to produce and distribute and is a valuable source of professionally reported news for millions of Americans.
6. If over-the-air television is to survive as a licensed service operating in the public interest, we must make better use of it in our politics.

[Commentary] Republicans in the U.S. House placed financing for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on the chopping block a few weeks ago, passing a bill that would cut all funding for public TV and radio stations across the country. While we appreciate the need for fiscal responsibility, the continuation of a common cultural touchstone justifies the expense. Considering the millions of Americans who benefit from public programming, the annual contribution of $1.35 per person doesn't seem like a bad investment.