Opinion ID: 2675565
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Universal Service Fund Issues

Text: 1. Did the FCC’s broadband requirement exceed its authority under 47 U.S.C. § 254? 2. Did the FCC act arbitrarily in simultaneously imposing the broadband requirement and reducing USF support? 3. Does the FCC’s use of auctions to distribute USF violate § 214(e)? 4. Was the FCC’s decision to reduce USF support in areas with “artificially low” end user rates unlawful or arbitrary? 5. Does the Order unlawfully deprive rural carriers of a reasonable opportunity to recover their prudently-incurred costs? 6. Do the FCC’s regression and SNA rules have unlawful retroactive effects? 7. Did the FCC disregard evidence that allocating USF to rural price cap carriers by competitive bidding would reduce service quality? 8. Does eliminating USF support for the highest-cost areas defeat the very purpose of universal service? 9. Is the FCC’s decision to eliminate high-cost support to RLECs, where an unsubsidized competitor offers voice and broadband to 20 all of the RLECs’ customers in the same study area, unlawful and unsupported by substantial evidence? 10. Did the FCC arbitrarily fail to explain how its new definition of supported telecommunications services took into account the four factors it was required to consider under § 254(c)(1)? 11. Did the FCC arbitrarily disregard comments that the Order’s incremental USF support provisions would duplicate or undermine state-initiated plans for broadband deployment? 12. Did the Order unlawfully make changes not contained in the FCC’s proposed rule that could not reasonably have been anticipated by commenters? B. Additional Universal Service Fund Issues Principal Brief 1. The FCC’s decision to limit USF support for broadband deployment to price-cap ILECs 2. Did the FCC violate the mandatory referral duty imposed by 47 U.S.C. § 410(c)? 3. Did the FCC irrationally refuse to modify service obligations for carriers to whom it denied USF support? 4. Is the Order, as applied to Allband and similarly-situated small rural carriers, unconstitutional under due process principles and as a bill of attainder, and/or does it violate the Act, principles of estoppel and contract law? C. Wireless Carrier Universal Service Fund Principal Brief 1. Does the FCC lack authority to redirect USF support to broadband or to regulate broadband? 2. Must the USF portions of the Order be vacated? 3. Did the FCC act arbitrarily and capriciously in reserving CAF II support for ILECs? 4. Did the FCC act arbitrarily and capriciously in repealing the identical support rule and adopting a single-winner reverse auction? 5. Did the FCC act arbitrarily and capriciously in setting the Mobility II budget at $500 million? 6. Did the FCC fail to respond to comments calling for a separate mobility fund for insular areas? D. Tribal Carriers Principal Brief 1. Did the FCC act arbitrarily and capriciously in prescribing funding cuts for tribal carriers?