USF Tracker - August 26, 2019

Commentary

If you took a long holiday this summer and, upon your return, asked, ​“What did I miss?” the answer in USF would be, ​“quite a lot.”  It has been a busy summer and is setting up for a busy finish to the year. 

Among the highlights:

• The USF cap proposal hit the comment cycle, and USF stakeholders organized to overwhelmingly oppose the idea. 
• The FCC’s broadband mapping was questioned, and the FCC responded with a new proposal for broadband data collection while the industry just debuted a new tracking method.
• Two new programs were proposed – a $100 million connected care telehealth pilot and a Rural Digital Opportunities Fund awarding up to $20.4 billion over ten years;
• A GAO Report recommended the FCC consider expanding e-rate to off-campus wireless uses;
• Reforms to the E-rate (Category 2 funding), Rural Healthcare and Lifeline programs were proposed or are circulating; and
• Comments were received on the Texas carrier e-rate overbuilding petition and the CTIA/Public Interest Group petition to suspend increases in Lifeline minimum service standards pending completion of the FCC study on the impact of the minimum standards.

 
Meanwhile, USAC now is tracking complaints about its activities and is gearing up to collect self-submitted data on broadband coverage and to support revisions to the E-rate Form 470 for the next funding year.  All of the above indicate that this busy period in USF is likely to continue through the fall and the end of 2019.  Stay tuned, folks. 

Recent News

• At its July 2019 board meeting, USAC discussed progress it has made to track complaints about its operations.  The new tracking data results from changes in the MOU with the FCC, which required greater transparency in USAC’s operations.  According to the briefing, USAC began tracking complaint data in January 2019.  USAC reported an increase in E-rate complaints in 2Q 2019, attributing much of it to expected challenges associate with a BPO change.  USAC has prioritized its invoice backlog and conducted training of its call center employees. 
• The FCC adopted a Report and Order and FNPRM that would establish the Digital Opportunity Data Collection to collect more detailed data on fixed broadband to more accurately identify gaps. The new data collection will get geospatial broadband coverage data from fixed providers, and make targeted changes to the Form 477 to reduce filing burdens.  The FNPRM considers technical standards to improve reporting and possible changes to the collection for mobile wireless and broadband data.

Contributions

• The Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) issued a Public Notice seeking comment on Network Communications International Corporation’s petition for forbearance asking the FCC to forbear from enforcing the obligation that inmate calling service (ICS) providers contribute to the universal service fund on interstate and international ICS calls. The petition states that many ICS customers that pay the pass through of the USF fee are eligible to receive USF support and thus, would be contributing to the program they are receiving benefits from. Comments are due by September 16; replies by October 1.

Schools and Libraries (E-Rate)

• WCB issued the draft eligible services list (ESL) for the schools and libraries program for funding year (FY) 2020.  WCB explains that there are no substantive changes from the FY2019 ESL but notes that there are three Category Two services that are only eligible for support through 2019 based on a 2014 Order unless the FCC extends the eligibility in a pending proceeding. Comments are due by September 3.
• USAC continued to release FY 2019 Funding Commitment Decision Letters with commitments totaling $1.5 billion as of August 22. USAC also announced additional funding commitments for FY 2018.

Lifeline

• The FCC has circulated amongst Commissioners a draft order and further NPRM that would further address the Lifeline program.  The text of the draft order has not been released, but in press briefings, FCC personnel have described the order as reducing improper enrollments, particularly the enrollment of deceased subscribers identified in a GAO report in 2017.  It is reported that the draft item also prohibits carriers from paying commissions to agents based on the number of applications. The draft item would also return responsibility for ETC designation to the states.

High Cost/Connect America Fund (CAF)

• The FCC adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, that proposes creating a Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to target support to areas that lack access to 25/3 Mbps broadband service. The RDOF would provide a budget of $20.4 billion in high cost support over a 10-year period through a two-phase clock auction.
• The FCC has authorized $4.9 billion in support for rate-of-return carriers to maintain and build out affordable broadband networks in rural areas over the next 10 years, beginning January 1, 2019. Carriers that receive the support must provide service of at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream and keep on track with set deployment goals.
• The FCC announced $121 million in funding for the next 10 years to expand broadband to 36,579 unserved rural residential and business customers. This represents the fourth wave of support from the 2018 CAF Phase II auction.  In addition, $16.2 million in funding over the next decade was authorized to expand broadband to unserved areas in rural New York as part of the New NY Broadband Program.

Rural Health Care

• The FCC adopted a Report and Order (R&O) to reform the way the Rural Health Care (RHC) program distributes funding. The reforms include prioritizing funding to more rural areas, reforming and lengthening the competitive bidding process to more closely mirror the E-rate bidding process and adopting program-wide rules to simplify administration of the program. 

USF Appeals Tracker

Kelley Drye’s Communications group prepares a comprehensive summary of pending appeals and guidance requests before the FCC relating to USF contributions issues.  Due to the number of appeals and the FCC’s routine disposition of them, appeals relating to the imposition of late filing fees and petitions seeking waivers of the quarterly Form 499 revision deadlines are not included in this summary.

This list covers appeals filed on or after January 1, 2016.  Pending appeals filed before January 2016 are not included.

1.  Tata Communications, Inc. Primary issues: Limited International Revenue Exemption

• Petition for Waiver (filed March 29, 2019).
• In its petition, Tata asks to continue contributing to USF solely on the basis of its interstate end-user telecom revenues, thereby excluding international revenues from assessment. Tata’s contributions are already based on interstate revenues alone, pursuant to the Limited Interstate Revenue Exemption (LIRE), but it seeks to extend this exemption through a waiver of Commission rules. Tata believes that recent changes to its jurisdictional mix will change in a way that would preclude Tata from the LIRE. Under the LIRE rules, if less than 12% of a carrier’s combined interstate and international revenues is derived from interstate traffic, that carrier is exempt from contributing based on international revenues.
• If the company were forced to contribute on the basis of all revenues, claims Tata, it would amount to a ​“draconian penalty” that exceeds Tata’s total interstate telecom revenues. According to Tata, the FCC should waive the rules and extend its exemption because such a dramatic increase in contributions would violate Section 254(d) of the Communications Act and have deleterious effects on the public interest, including undermining competition in the interstate telecommunications marketplace. The Commission has previously encouraged carriers faced with this massive contribution spike to file petitions for waiver—Tata is now taking the Commission up on its offer.

2.  Gtek Computers and Wireless, LLC.  Primary issues:  Systems integrator exemption.

• Request for Review and Contingent Request for Waiver (filed Sept. 16, 2016).
• Renewed Request for Review and Contingent Request for Waiver (filed Feb. 22, 2019).
• Gtek seeks to review USAC’s denial of its appeal to cancel the sanctions, interest, and penalties imposed for its failure to file a Form 499-A for 2010-2015. Gtek argues that the levying of sanctions was improper and erroneous because Gtek is a systems integrator that derives less than five percent of its revenue from the resale of telecommunications. Thus, Gtek asserts, it is qualified for the systems integrator exemption and is not required to file a Form 499-A.  Alternatively, Gtek requests a waiver in light of its reliance on the Form 499-A instructions, the FCC’s longstanding systems integrator exemption policy, and the fact that the sanctions would surpass the revenue Gtek derived from providing interconnected VoIP service.
• In 2019, Gtek renewed its request for cancellation of sanctions. Gtek argues that it is a systems integrator that receives less than five percent of its revenue from reselling telecommunications, and is therefore exempt from filing Forms 499-A according to the form instructions. Gtek contends USAC is trying to limit the systems integrator exemption to a subclass that offers ​‘legacy’-type telecommunications—a definition that Gtek contends is unsupported by any prior Commission statements or by the language in Form 499. Gtek thus asks the Commission to rule on its 2016 appeal, reverse the USAC denial, and cancel the sanctions.

3.  Sprint Spectrum, L.P. Primary issues:  Jurisdictional classifications (prepaid cards), use of safe harbors.

• Request for Review of a Decision of the Universal Service Administrator (filed December 14, 2018).
• In its request, Sprint asks that the Wireline Competition Bureau reverse USAC’s conclusion that Sprint’s reported allocations for bundles of telecom and non telecom services were unreasonable, and to reverse USAC’s decision to reject Sprint’s traffic studies.  In connection with its prepaid card services, Sprint reported USF revenues as a bundled offering, using an allocation method it considered reasonable.  USAC had begun an audit in September 2016 of Sprint’s 2016 Form 499-A filing.  In the audit, USAC concluded that Sprint did not adequately support its allocation method and instead applied the USF safe harbor of treating 100 percent of the bundled revenues as telecommunications.  Additionally, USAC rejected Sprint’s traffic studies to determine the jurisdiction of its prepaid services.  Sprint appealed. 
• In the request for review, Sprint poses two questions: first, whether USAC erred when, in assessing the allocation of revenue for one prepaid bundled offering, it applied the 100 percent telecommunications safe harbor method due to an alleged failure to retain documentation of the allocation used; and second, whether USAC erred when it retroactively created and enforced new rules regarding the sufficiency of jurisdictional documentation, of which Sprint had no notice. Sprint contends that its allocation method was reasonable, that USAC did not have a valid basis to reject the method, and that USAC applied the safe harbor method allegedly as a penalty for the failure to retain documentation of the allocation.  Sprint further contends that USAC acted unlawfully in retroactively concluding that Sprint’s traffic studies (which were filed regularly) were insufficient to justify the carrier’s reported revenue.

4.  SLIC Network Solutions, Inc.  Primary issues: Form 499-A deadline

• Request for Review and Consolidated Action (filed April 6, 2018).
• SLIC requests that the FCC review and reverse the decision by USAC to reject SLIC’s Forms 499-A submitted for 2014, 2015, and 2016, and that the Commission vacate the requirement that any revised Form 499-A that would yield decreased contributions be submitted by March 31 of year after the original filing due date (i.e., the one-year downward revision deadline). As a result of an error, SLIC’s non-assessable revenues were incorrectly reported to USAC as assessable revenues for the years 2008 through 2016. When SLIC tried to submit revised Forms 499-A and recover its overpayments, USAC rejected the filings as untimely, citing the One-Year Deadline Order. Because that order is still subject to petition for reconsideration and applications for review, SLIC has submitted this request for review.

5.  Altice USA, Inc.  Primary issues: Jurisdictional classifications (private line)

• Request for Review of Decision of the Universal Service Administrator (filed February 2, 2018).
• Altice seeks reversal of USAC’s reclassification of revenues from certain geographically intrastate private line services as interstate in an audit of Lightpath NJ, an Altice subsidiary. In the January 2017 audit, USAC interpreted the FCC’s ​“Ten Percent Rule” to establish that geographically intrastate private lines are presumptively interstate, and to require carriers and their customers to furnish evidence establishing the appropriate jurisdictional allocation for private line revenue. Altice contends that this application of the Rule was incorrect and violated the prohibition against USAC’s resolving ambiguities in the Commission’s rules. USAC denied Altice’s appeal of the audit, and, in doing so, retroactively relied on the Wireline Competition Bureau’s Private Line Order, which offered a substantively new interpretation of the Rule for determining the jurisdictional nature of revenues associated with private line service, and created new burdens of proof and evidentiary standards for carriers. Thus, Altice requests that the Commission direct USAC to 1) reverse its audit finding and 2) not retroactively apply the Private Line Order.

6.  XO Communications Services, LLC.  Primary issues: Jurisdictional classifications (private line)

• Application for Review of Decision of the Wireline Competition Bureau (filed May 1, 2017).
• XO Communications Services (XOCS) asks that the Commission review the Wireline Competition Bureau’s order denying several requests for review, including one by XOCS. In an audit, USAC rejected XOCS’s intrastate classification of physical intrastate circuits because XOCS could not produce evidence that the traffic was not interstate. USAC operated on the presumption that an intrastate circuit was nonetheless interstate unless XOCS could prove that the circuit’s traffic was no more than 10% interstate. In response, XOCS filed a request for review, which the Bureau denied in the 2017 Private Line Order.  XOCS seeks review of the Bureau’s decision because, XOCS argues, it is in conflict with case precedent and Commission policy.  XOCS contends that the Bureau misapplied the Commission decisions establishing the Ten Percent Rule and also that the Bureau, in effect, created new standards that could not be applied retroactively.  

7.  TDS Metrocom, LLC.  Primary issues: Jurisdictional classifications (private line)

• Application for Review or Clarification, or in the Alternative, Request for Waiver (filed May 1, 2017).
• TDS filed an application for review of the Wireline Competition Bureau’s 2017 Private Line Order regarding application of the Ten Percent Rule for allocating jurisdictionally mixed intrastate private lines.  In its application, TDS contests USAC audit findings related to the amount of interstate traffic carried by private lines. In 2012 USAC notified TDS of its intention to conduct an audit of the company’s Form 2011 Form 499-A filing. In response, TDS provided a list of private lines documenting the end points, showing that all but one had intrastate end points. TDS also furnished end user certifications collected during and after the audit period from certain 2010 private line customers. However, because TDS did not demonstrate that 10% or less of the traffic carried over its remaining end user private lines was interstate, USAC required TDS to make USF contributions on all remaining revenue reported in line 406 of Form 499-A. TDS filed a request for review of the audit report, requesting that the Commission reverse USAC’s finding, which the Wireline Competition Bureau denied four years later. The Bureau instead remanded the audit to USAC to consider additional documentation. TDS Metrocom thus filed an application for review of the Bureau’s order, arguing that it violates FCC precedent, is based on mistakes in fact, and violates the APA.

8.  Eureka Broadband Corporation. Primary issues: Reseller revenues

• Application for Review (filed Feb. 10, 2017).
• Eureka submits its application for review of the Commission’s decision to remand to USAC Eureka’s 2007 petition for reconsideration. In 2003, Eureka responded to a USAC investigation concerning missing contributions owed by Eureka, for which Eureka had been billed for USF contributions by its underlying carrier, MCI, and which MCI was supposed to remit to USAC. During its 2003 investigation, Eureka contends, USAC did not try to confirm if MCI had remitted these charges to the Fund. Instead, in 2004, USAC chose to assess upon Eureka those same charges. Thus, in 2007, Eureka filed a petition for review, which the Wireline Competition Bureau denied. Eureka shortly thereafter filed its petition for reconsideration.
• In response, after nine years, the Bureau remanded the issue to USAC for further consideration. Therefore, in this application, Eureka contends that the Bureau violated the APA and the Commission’s Rules by refusing to promptly act on Eureka’s earlier petitions; rendering an arbitrary and capricious decision in conflict with the directive that USF contributions are due only once with respect to any revenue stream; announcing a drastic policy change in its memorandum opinion and order, and applying that policy retroactively against Eureka; and reaching an erroneous finding as to whether the Fund had already been fully compensated USF contributions on the revenue in question.

9.  Locus Telecommunications, LLC.  Primary issues: Private carrier revenues

• Petition for Declaratory Rulings Relative to the Treatment of Private Carriage Revenues (filed Nov. 22, 2016).
• Locus seeks declaratory rulings to clarify carriers’ rights relative to the treatment of private carriage revenues under federal law. Specifically, Locus requests rulings that revenues derived from private carriage offerings are exempted from non-USF Title II fees and North American Numbering Plan administration fees; that USAC’s policy of sharing Form 499-A revenue data with Title II Program administrators is unlawful; and that carriers must be afforded the opportunity for redress—both retroactively and prospectively—for these Title II fees calculated on private carriage revenues.

10.  Locus Telecommunications, LLC.  Primary issues: Private carrier revenues 

• Request for Review of Decisions of the Title II Program Administrators (filed Nov. 2, 2016).
• Locus seeks review of the decisions of Rolka Loube (TRS Fund Administrator) and Neustar (administrator of the LNP funding mechanism) for assessing revenues from both common carriage offerings and private carriage offerings. Locus argues that the Form 499-A is deficient for failing to provide carriers a means to segregate private carriage revenues from common carriage revenues. Locus therefore asks that the Commission instruct the Title II Program Administrators to recognize its private carrier status and to reissue invoices as requested; direct USAC to withhold private carriage revenues from data shared with the Program Administrators; order USAC to discontinue its policy of relying on the ​“primary” service identified in Line 805 of Form 499-A; and provide relief as appropriate.

11.  2009 USAC Guidance request.  Primary issues:  Prepaid calling cards, Frame relay/ATM, VPN and Dedicated IP services 

• Letter from Richard A. Beldon, USAC, to Julie Veach, Wireline Competition Bureau, FCC, August 19, 2009 (received August 24, 2009). 
• On August 19, 2009, USAC submitted a list of outstanding policy guidance requests which it had presented to the FCC. Of the 6 individual items on that list, 3 were requests for guidance on USF contribution matters. Specifically, these concerned reporting on prepaid card revenue; the classification of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay revenue; and the classification of VPN and Dedicated Internet Protocol revenue.
• USAC requests clarification regarding the revenues to be reported by prepaid calling card providers.  Prepaid cards present an issue for accurate assessment of revenue because they may be sold through a third-party distributor, sold without a face value, or sold at a discount. Further, the date on which a prepaid calling card is sold to the end-user may be ambiguous (because of sales through distributors or wholesalers), so it is unclear when a carrier should report the associated revenue. Because of the uncertainty surrounding these cards, USAC asked the FCC to identify the amount of revenue that should be reported and the date when such revenues should be counted.
• USAC also seeks advice relating to revenue from Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay products. In its audits of Forms 499-A, USAC found several instances where this ATM revenue was classified as ​“non-telecommunications” because carriers considered it derived from an information service. USAC seeks greater clarity regaring the proper classification of ATM and Frame Relay revenue.
• Finally, USAC seeks guidance on the revenue received from VPN and Dedicated Internet Protocol services. This revenue was related to data transport using IP, which, according to USAC, is similar to Private Line/Frame Relay. That revenue is supposed to be reported as telecommunications-derived, but carriers had classified IP revenues as ​“non-telecommunications.” USAC has requested guidance on this issue.