The FCC should establish a “duplicates database” for Lifeline subscribers rather than capping the Low Income fund, Sprint Nextel officials said in a meeting with Christine Kurth, aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell. A cap would be “contrary to the goal of ensuring universal service to the most economically vulnerable Americans” and “enforced rationing of this benefit would present serious implementation problems,” Sprint said (http://xrl.us/bmo6dj). Sprint also opposes any change requiring Lifeline subscribers to pay some amount each month for service “since such a requirement could constitute a substantial burden on this market segment.”

Wireless carrier NTCH said the FCC should consolidate the phase I and phase II Mobility Funds into a single support process. The suggestion came in comments filed at the FCC in reaction to a further rulemaking notice on the Universal Service Fund (http://xrl.us/bmo6cc). The carrier previously raised the issue in a petition for reconsideration of the USF reform order. “It is unclear why the Commission opted to split the funding for mobility operations and support into two distinct phases,” NTCH said. “Looked at holistically, any service provider assessing the viability of constructing a telecommunications system in an underserved area and providing service there for the long term would need to know both how much USF support is available at the outset and how much will be available for operating expenses.”

The FCC should “take all necessary regulatory and policy measures” to “bring parity of broadband technology and service to Native communities,” the National Tribal Telecommunications Association (NTTA) said in comments responding to a rulemaking notice on Universal Service Fund high-cost loop support. NTTA said tribal communities “have high unemployment, high poverty, and large numbers of low income customers.” Among its members, 86 percent of the Gila River Tribe’s subscribers are Low Income Program customers, as are 72 percent of Hopi subscribers and 60 percent of San Carlos Apache’s subscribers, the group said (http://xrl.us/bmo5xq). NTTA understands the growing pressures on the USF, but native areas present problems the FCC must address, the filing said. “Native peoples reside in the worst connected communities in America for both broadband and for basic voice dial tone,” it said. “The Commission needs to honor both its Communications Act and its trust responsibility to provide parity of technology and service to Native communities."

The FCC’s Universal Service Fund reform order falls short of providing “sufficient and predictable support” for carriers to meet the broadband needs of rural America, GVNW Consulting said in a filing. “When the Commission signaled its original intent to pursue a National Broadband Plan, many areas of rural America expected that a comprehensive strategy that was focused to the needs of all Americans would follow,” the consultant to rural telcos said (http://xrl.us/bmo45v). “Sadly, that has not been the case. The Commission has focused instead in its Transformation Order on how to restrict funds for the highest cost to serve areas via exclusions, phase-outs and caps. We respectfully submit that a Connect America Fund mechanism will not be successful unless residents in the highest cost to serve areas have the ability to access reasonably comparable broadband services at a reasonably comparable price."

Best Buy is weighing consumer behavior and moods in developing promotions that reach beyond their base in holidays and special events, Best Buy Research Director Mark Herzog said Tuesday at the National Retail Federal (NRF) convention in New York.

CenturyLink tried to distance itself from services offered by MeetingOne. MeetingOne has asked the FCC to review a Wireline Bureau order that found MeetingOne’s audio bridging is a telecommunications service that ought to be subject to Universal Service Fund reporting and contribution rules. “CenturyLink takes no position here as to whether the Bureau’s conclusions regarding MeetingOne’s service are correct,” the company said. But CenturyLink takes issue with MeetingOne’s claim that MeetingOne’s offering is less similar to a telecom service than that offered by Qwest’s IPTF and IPLD services, which support MeetingOne’s audio bridges, CenturyLink said in comments published at docket 06-122 (http://xrl.us/bmon8c). MeetingOne made its claims “without any legal analysis or supporting authority” and its statements are not only “incorrect” but also “irrelevant,” CenturyLink said. “The Commission therefore is precluded from going beyond the Bureau’s findings to consider contribution obligations pertaining to Qwest’s services,” CenturyLink said. The FCC could help things out if it weighed contribution questions “for complex IP technologies ... prospectively” and in broader, rulemaking proceedings rather than in a “piecemeal manner,” CenturyLink added. “Given the checkerboard of determinations regarding the regulatory treatment of IP-enabled services, the USF contribution obligations of new and complex IP-based services seldom are clear,” CenturyLink said. CenturyLink owns the former Qwest operation.

Rural telcos have asked the White House to help save them from newly passed Universal Service Fund reforms. NARUC, meanwhile, decided to join the court challenge against October’s FCC USF reforms (CD Oct 28 p1), a state official told us.

The FCC should focus on revenue as it overhauls the Universal Service Fund’s contribution regime, NTCA told an eighth-floor adviser. The group met with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The rural advocates said “a revenues-based contributions mechanism is technologically neutral and best captures the value that consumers place on competing services that use underlying networks without regard to the specific technology used to deliver the service,” according to the ex parte notice, which was published Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bmofgk). Revenue-based reform also helps consumers balance the “different service offerings” with their evolving needs and is “the most equitable means of sharing responsibility across network users,” the association said. “NTCA noted that a revenues-based contributions mechanism can be implemented quickly with little burden to providers or the industry (since billing systems are already designed for revenues-based assessments), and that an expanded revenues-based mechanism would stabilize the contributions system."

The FCC denied Integrity Solutions’ application for review of the Wireline Bureau’s decision that the Universal Service Administration Company acted reasonably in denying funding to Integrity and sending an audit letter to Integrity’s e-rate applicant schools, according to an FCC order released Tuesday. The FCC dismissed Integrity’s argument that USAC’s actions violated established USAC procedures and Integrity’s right to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. According to FCC’s order, USAC had acted reasonably and there was no error in the bureau’s decision.

Native Americans became the first parties to oppose petitions to reconsider last fall’s universal service reforms, the record on docket 10-90 showed. The National Congress of American Indians and Navajo telecom regulators filed separate, but similarly worded, briefs to oppose RLEC’s request for exemption of some of the new rules’ guidelines for deploying broadband in tribal areas (CD Oct 28 p1).