The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on three Rural Health Care Program participants’ appeals of Universal Service Administrative Co. decisions denying funding. Illinois Rural HealthNet, Colorado Telehealth Network and Oregon Health Network argue their non-rural clinics should count as “eligible health care providers” and therefore be eligible for support, said a public notice Friday (http://bit.ly/1bNGKxC). Comments are due Dec. 20 in WC docket 02-60, replies Jan. 3.

Congress faces an ambitious agenda and several communication policy transitions, said officials and congressional committee aides on different panels this week. One big item on the table is a review of the Communications Act in the House next year, with potential legislation to change it coming in 2015. Former top communications officials, however, pointed to a Congress mired in partisan politics, making the climate of today far more contentious than when the 1996 Telecommunications Act passed.

Congress faces an ambitious agenda and several communication policy transitions, said officials and congressional committee aides on different panels this week. One big item on the table is a review of the Communications Act in the House next year, with potential legislation to change it coming in 2015. Former top communications officials, however, pointed to a Congress mired in partisan politics, making the climate of today far more contentious than when the 1996 Telecommunications Act passed.

Panelists at a Practising Law Institute wireline panel cited continued difficulties with application of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund revamp in rural areas. An FCC official said the agency is willing to make changes where it can. Telco officials said the intercarrier compensation (ICC) revamp has been working more smoothly. Panelists debated the necessity of FCC regulation of IP services as carriers and customers switch from legacy technologies to packet-based technologies.

A Republican Senate bill would change how the FCC’s USF doles money out to rural states. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., introduced the USF Equitable Distribution Act of 2013, S-1766, on Nov. 21, and the text of the bill appeared online last week. Ayotte has on multiple occasions in the past year criticized the USF, in particular the amount of money New Hampshire receives relative to its contributions to the fund. The bill’s purpose, according to its text, is “to provide for the equitable distribution of Universal Service funds to rural States.” The short piece of legislation provides for changes to the Communications Act of 1934, proposing the following language be added: “Not less than 75 percent of all amounts collected by providers of interstate telecommunications from consumers in a rural State for the purpose of making contributions … shall be allocated to the provision of universal service to consumers in that rural State.” An aide to Ayotte told us Friday that New Hampshire is a huge net-donor to the USF, receiving fewer than 40 cents for every dollar it contributes, whereas most other rural states are big net-recipients of the USF. The Ayotte bill won’t increase the size of the USF, the aide added. A rural state is defined as one in which “the total population density is not more than 200 people per square mile,” according to the bill. The FCC declined comment on the legislation. FairPoint applauds Ayotte’s efforts “to raise awareness” of areas that don’t see a good return on their USF contributions as well as the bill’s efforts to “remedy the situation” and help create “a fair distribution of USF-based funds,” a spokeswoman for the telco told us. FairPoint offers service in many rural markets across 17 states and serves New Hampshire. S-1766 lists no co-sponsors and is referred to the Commerce Committee.

Several industry voices backed changes to the wholesale reseller certification form of the FCC Wireline Bureau. AT&T, BT, CenturyLink, Orange, Sprint, Verizon and XO Communications filed joint comments with the FCC last week outlining several proposed edits to the Draft 499-A Instructions, which the Wireline Bureau had released as a redline document open for comments. “If a wholesale provider’s customer (or another entity in the downstream chain of resellers) actually contributed to the Universal Service Fund ('USF') on revenues from offerings incorporating particular services, there should be no double collection of USF contributions from the wholesale provider, even if the wholesale provider cannot demonstrate that it had a reasonable expectation that the customer would contribute when it filed its Form 499-A for the relevant calendar year,” the industry filing said (http://bit.ly/1c1dIW6). The joint comments ask for a footnote added to the form to clarify this point. It also asked for language “explaining how providers should account for services purchased after the date that the annual certificate is signed,” among other changes.

Connect America Fund Phase I incremental support should go only to areas where a price cap LEC demonstrates that a competitive provider is not providing broadband service, said NCTA, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable in an ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1aZ4trQ). The CAF Phase 1 incremental support challenge process is a burden “imposed on cable operators that have nothing to gain from the process other than protecting their service areas from universal service fund-subsidized competition,” said the filing. When conflicting evidence is submitted by both an LEC seeking funding from USF and a provider, CAF Phase I incremental support shouldn’t be awarded, said the filing. “The [Wireline] Bureau should focus on the availability of service, not the provision of service.” LEC evidence that shows only that a portion of a census block is not served by a provider shouldn’t be given weight, said the filing. “The Commission has denied price cap carriers’ attempts to receive CAF Phase I incremental support in partially served census blocks based on evidence that some locations are unserved."

The deadline is Dec. 11 to file oppositions in WC docket 08-71 on the SureWest high-cost waiver order, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1aZbfxH). The order denied a request by SureWest Telephone for a waiver of the filing deadline for the annual high-cost universal service certification. Oppositions are also due Dec. 11 in WC docket 10-90 on the Alaska Communications Systems application for review of paragraph 41 of the Connect America Fund Phase II service obligations order, the bureau said in another notice (http://bit.ly/1aZcihe). ACS asked the commission to “entertain challenges” from any competitive eligible telecom carriers “that otherwise meets or exceeds the performance obligations established by that order and whose high-cost support is scheduled to be eliminated during the five-year term of Phase II,” the notice said.

Pennsylvania residents could see major changes to their wireline services in the state if the Legislature votes for a bill that would eliminate carrier of last resort obligations (COLR) for local exchange carriers in competitive areas and limit the USF, said industry, two Pennsylvania Public Utility commissioners, the state’s consumer advocate and other interested parties at a House Consumer Affairs Committee hearing Thursday. House Bill 1608, sponsored by Rep. Warren Kampf (R), would remove the PUC’s oversight of ILECs, and it would allows ILECs to self-declare whole exchanges as competitive. The bill would end the state’s USF on Jan. 1, 2019, and prevent the PUC from raising the amount of money contributed to the fund each year.

DENVER -- The three-judge panel that heard an FCC USF case left attorneys impressed with its preparation for the oral argument, the attorneys said in interviews afterward. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday heard a challenge of the FCC 2011 Connect America Fund order, which revamped the rules of the $4.5 billion-a-year fund and set intercarrier compensation on a path toward bill-and-keep (CD Nov 20 p2). “They were engaged,” said Stinson Morrison attorney Harvey Reiter, who argued that the revamp of the USF and intercarrier compensation rules unlawfully hurt his rural CLEC clients. “They followed everything. I was amazed that they could jump from one issue to another. I think the court was pretty active.” But another attorney predicted a possible Supreme Court challenge if the 10th Circuit follows an irrelevant “tangent” in upholding the intercarrier compensation rules.