At its October meeting, the FCC adopted an Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in a series of long-open dockets. These cover related topics including the Universal Service Fund, Intercarrier Compensation and VoIP. But the Order itself wasn't released until the Friday before Thanksgiving. And what a document it is! It's 751 dense pages long. I've spent a lot of time since then reading through it, taking notes, and writing up a report on its contents. My writeup turned out to be over 10,000 words long, 18 pages. There's a lot to cover!
Now a lot of people might think that these topics are arcane and of no interest to them, but as it turns out, there's more to it than was mentioned in the FCC's feel-good press releases. They take great liberty with these topics, especially in their proposals in the Further NPRM. While the Order is somewhat surprising for how little it has actually settled after all these years, compared to what's left, the questions they ask go way beyond their original scope. They even reach into the core of the Internet itself, asking if they should regulate the peering and interconnection arrangements of the Internet backbone, relevant on the rather specious grounds that like VoIP telephony, it uses IP, and even carries some phone calls. Here's why it might be worth slogging through my report, which after all is only a fraction of the size of the Order itself: WISPs need to be aware of the Order on USF because in restructuring the High Cost Fund into the Connect America Fund, they will subsidize Incumbent LECs to provide broadband Internet access (the information service, not wholesale access that ISPs can lease) to currently-unserved homes and businesses. This is especially critical to rural WISPs. If an area is not marked as "unserved" on the National Broadband Map, or if an existing unsubsidized broadband provider (cable, WISP, etc.) is already there, then the ILEC can't get subsidized. In some cases, however, WISP competitors may bid to become the subsidized provider in remote areas. Intercarrier Compensation (ICC) sounds arcane, but it provides an excuse to regulate many aspects of VoIP and other advanced services. It can be used as a competitive weapon against competitive providers. It's an important part of many CLECs' revenue stream, and impacts the competitive balance of the industry. The new Order is far from complete; a lot of issues are left to the FNPRM. So the real winners and losers haven't been picked yet. VoIP is presented as an ICC issue, but in this proceeding, it's a lot more. The FCC has finally ruled on how Vonage-type services should be treated for compensation purposes. But it's clear from their Order and especially the questions in the FNPRM that the FCC is almost utterly clueless about how VoIP actually works, especially the non-Vonage kinds, and for that matter how the Internet works. These are telephone-network lawyers trying to impose their ideology atop the Internet. And so they're opening up the option of using this proceeding as an excuse to regulate the Internet itself, to treat ISPs as common carriers. This is a "Danger Will Robinson" moment! Read the latter part of my report to see some of the details, and then you might want to pull down the actual FCC document to see what I'm talking about. It's scary in many ways. I have participated in these proceedings since they began, filing several Comments along the way. In 2008, I organized a group of about 10 client CLECs, the Coalition for Rational Universal Service and Intercarrier Reform (CRUSIR), to make group Comments. I am assembling interest for further Comments. In the meantime, my report is here: http://www.ionary.com/FCC-CAF-and-ICC-Order-analysis.pdf Feel free to pass this on to your colleagues. Your ideas and feedback are welcome. -- Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ +1 617 795 2701 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
