The Federal Communications Commission last week released a whopper of an order, putting in motion massive reforms in the U.S. telecommunications industry including the creation of a multibillion-dollar broadband fund that will subsidize high-speed Internet service.
The government documents are of Moby Dick-like proportions – in other words, don't read them over the Lions-Packers game on Thanksgiving. The order is a staggering 759 pages long with 84 pages of rules and more than 2,500 footnotes, writes Steve Augustino, a law partner with Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.
The FCC released the gargantuan order after voting unanimously last month to create a $4.5 billion fund – the Connect America Fund – that the agency anticipates will expand broadband access to more than 7 million U.S. residents of rural areas over the next six years. Among other measures, the agency also is radically reforming the convoluted and inequitable system known as intercarrier compensation by which telephone companies pay one another to connect calls.
"Most concerning, the current ICC [intercarrier compensation] system is unfair for consumers, with hundreds of millions of Americans paying more on their wireless and long distance bills than they should in the form of hidden, inefficient charges," the FCC stated in the order. "We need a more incentive-based, market-driven approach that can reduce arbitrage and competitive distortions by phasing down byzantine per-minute and geography-based charges. And we need to provide more certainty and predictability regarding revenues to enable carriers to invest in modern, IP networks."
It will obviously take time for the industry to fully digest and analyze rules that reflect one of the most ambitious undertakings in the recent history of the FCC, yet the agency already is facing criticism.
"I appreciate the FCC's work to modernize USF [Universal Service Fund], but unfortunately the Order confirms our previous concerns that wireless services are significantly underfunded," said Steven K. Berry, president and CEO of RCA, an association that represents wireless providers serving rural and regional areas of the United States.
