Don’t dip into the Universal Service Fund, rural telecom associations wrote the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The super committee is mandated to seek $1.5 trillion in savings. USF is federally mandated, but privately funded and maintained outside the U.S. Treasury, OPASTCO, the NTCA and the Western Telecom Alliance wrote Monday. “Legal precedents and guidance definitively confirm that the USF monies do not constitute ‘public monies’ that are received for the use of the United States, but rather are private funds that are merely derived and distributed at the discretion of federal statute,” they said. “Any taking of money from the Universal Service Fund would not result in an actual cut in the federal deficit,” said OPASTCO Vice President Randy Tyree. “This sort of taking would only result in job loss and inadequate communications services."

House Democrats urged a focus on broadband adoption as the FCC considers an overhaul to the Universal Service Fund. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., circulated the letter last week and got signatures from 34 Democrats, including House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. Matsui sent the letter Tuesday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. The letter “makes the crucial point that in reforming USF, the FCC must give a greater priority to adoption efforts than it has in the past,” Aspen Institute fellow Blair Levin, author of the National Broadband Plan, said in a statement. “Some at the FCC have said that dealing with adoption now is ‘putting the cart before the horse,’ but if the current USF Reform effort results in excessive spending in high cost areas, as some have urged, we will have a lavish cart but no money for a horse, and end up stuck on the side of the road."

Executives from major cable operators met with FCC officials on the Universal Service Fund last week, docket 10-90 shows (http://xrl.us/bmeh8a). The industry was at the commission and on Capitol Hill to make its case against some aspects of the ILEC-backed USF and intercarrier compensation reform plan (CD Sept 22 p2). Comcast/NBCU Washington President Kyle McSlarrow told Commissioner Robert McDowell that reforming ICC should include eliminating “the disputes and controversies between voice service providers that have plagued the current regime,” said a filing posted in the docket Monday. “The Commission can accomplish this principal objective by making clear that terminating exchange access and termination under section 251(b)(5) includes the termination of voice calls to an end user or to an affiliated or unaffiliated voice provider that in turn delivers the call to a retail end user and by adopting conforming changes to the Commission’s rules.” Rules on transport and termination of voice traffic should have no effect on current deals on tandem transit services, Comcast said. Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable were among the other cable operators to lobby agency officials, filings posted to the docket late last week show.

The FCC delayed the October meeting until Oct. 27 largely at the urging of staff working on universal service/intercarrier compensation, so they'd have more time to work out the details on a final order, agency officials said. Officials said they would prefer not to let a vote slip until Nov. 30, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, state members of the Federal/State USF Joint Board are not expected to make any additional recommendations before the October meeting date and have many continuing concerns about proposals now before the agency, especially the America’s Broadband Connectivity Plan.

House Agriculture Committee lawmakers seek broadband “equality” between rural and urban areas, they said a Rural Development Subcommittee field hearing Saturday in Springfield, Ill. The lawmakers said they may take up the issue when they reauthorize the farm bill next year. Among other things, Subcommittee Ranking Member Jim Costa, D-Calif., urged revision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition of rural. Witnesses at the hearing testified about the importance of broadband to education, healthcare and business.

House Agriculture Committee lawmakers seek broadband “equality” between rural and urban areas, they said a Rural Development Subcommittee field hearing Saturday in Springfield, Ill. The lawmakers said they may take up the issue when they reauthorize the farm bill next year. Among other things, Subcommittee Ranking Member Jim Costa, D-Calif., urged revision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition of rural. Witnesses at the hearing testified about the importance of broadband to education, healthcare and business.

Google said there’s enough consensus on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation system reform that the FCC should move forward quickly. “There is broad support in the record for targeted accountability measures on USF support, including build-out and reporting obligations,” the company said in an ex parte notice (http://xrl.us/bmd6yd). “Requiring accountability will help ensure that subsidies are well spent and assist in preventing waste, as well as fraud and abuse.” The FCC must also take care, as it reforms intercarrier compensation, that “the enormous capabilities of IP networks” are “not shoehorned into the limited functionality of TDM,” Google said in the letter posted to docket 10-90. “Although many of the parties diverge on the specifics, there is widespread agreement on many key points,” it said. “Google respectfully urges that the extensive base of record support provides a solid foundation for the FCC to move forward with an orderly transition of USF and ICC to create the next generation of networks and services for all Americans."

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Customer subsidies for universal access to telephone and broadband must provide results at a reasonable cost and more accountability for “the companies that stand to gain,” wrote Simon Ffitch, consumer advocate member of the Federal/State USF Joint Board, in a Seattle Times op-ed. The ABC Plan is contrary to a major goal of the Universal Service Fund revamp -- to ease the burden that customers pay to support the system, he said. The plan would eliminate the states’ authority over consumer protection and to act as watchdogs over the use of funds, he said. The FCC doesn’t have the resources to effectively take over these functions for all the states, he said. The ABC Plan also made no real commitment to make broadband available to unserved and underserved communities, he said.

Making wireless broadband “ubiquitous” in the U.S. will cost $7.8 billion to $21 billion “in initial investment alone,” underscoring the need for a “robust and ongoing” Mobility Fund as the FCC reforms the Universal Service Fund, CTIA said in a letter to the FCC. The report comes at a critical time, with the FCC expected to take up a USF revamp plan at its Oct. 27 meeting, though Chairman Julius Genachowski indicated Thursday that vote may not come off as expected. America’s Broadband Connectivity (ABC) plan, submitted by major carriers, would allocate only $300 million a year to the Mobility Fund for wireless build-out. CTIA is not expected to release a more detailed estimate of the optimum size of a Mobility Fund, an industry official said.