Four Missouri Republicans joined rural telcos’ campaign to ward off what they see as the worst of the pending Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms. Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer, Sam Graves, Jo Ann Emerson and Vicky Hartzler said a letter dated Tuesday and released the next day. “We believe that in order to achieve the goals of this [1996 Telecom] Act, changes to the USF and ICC system must be made carefully and in a way that would enable carriers serving rural areas to sustain and improve upon affordable broadband where it already exists, to encourage deployment to unserved customers and not to harm rural customers who already have broadband service,” the letter said.

New Zealand’s version of a national broadband plan, which calls for a government investment equivalent to as much as $132 billion of spending in the U.S., given the relative population of the two countries, would be a non-starter here, said Blair Levin, architect of the FCC’s plan, Tuesday during a New America Foundation symposium. Levin spoke following a presentation on “Kiwi Connected” by Graham Mitchell, CEO of state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings, the company established by the New Zealand government to build out a broadband network. Mitchell said the plan calls for 100 Mbps connections for 75 percent of the population, while an associated program will bring high-speed access to rural areas and schools. Mitchell explained that much of the investment is expected to be recovered, so the total government expenditure should end up being closer to what would be a $27 billion program in the U.S. “If we had come to [the administration] and said our plans calls for $100 billion … I think we would have been laughed out of the White House, or that would be the polite thing that they would have done to us,” Levin said. The U.S. hit comparable targets without similar government investments, he said, noting that competition in the U.S. market helps. “One size doesn’t fit all. You have to start with where you are,” Levin said. “We have two wires going into more than 90 percent of homes. I think only Canada is kind of equivalent.” Levin said the U.S. spends $4.5 billion a year on the high-cost portion of the Universal Service Fund. If that money is redirected to broadband, the U.S. could effectively dedicate $27 billion to rural build out over a period of years. he said. “We put out a plan, without raising the high cost fund, to do something similar [to New Zealand] though not at the same speeds,” he said. Ben Lennett, senior policy analyst with the foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, questioned whether cable-telecom competition in the U.S. will mean wide broadband roll out. “Whether that’s worked out well for us is pretty highly debatable,” he said. “We have a structure right now where cable is virtually the speed monopoly in a lot of communities. [Verizon’s fiber-based] FiOS has not been deployed all over the country.” Wireless is viewed as a “third pipe” but is “owned by the same companies that own the telephone company,” Lennett said. “We sort of see an increase in speeds, but you're actually seeing an effort by the cable companies, and even AT&T now, of instituting not just [usage] caps on their mobile service but caps on their DSL service.”

Satellite broadband providers should be able to compete for government broadband funding both “directly by themselves and through partnerships with other providers,” said Dish Network, Hughes Network Systems, ViaSat and WildBlue, during a meeting at the FCC. The FCC is considering changing the universal service fund to pay for the expansion of broadband availability. One proposal would allow satellite broadband providers to participate only through partnerships with terrestrial providers. The satellite broadband providers met with representatives from the Office of the General Counsel and Wireless, Wireline and International bureaus, said the ex parte filing in docket 10-90 (http://xrl.us/bk2jf9). The public interest benefits that would come from satellite broadband services in unserved areas “will be realized fully only if satellite providers are permitted to participate on an equal footing with all other providers,” they said in the filing. The funding should be given out on the basis of small geographic units, such as census blocks, and the group asked “that the criteria for defining which households are eligible for support enable immediate and unambiguous determination of such eligibility based on available data,” they said. Policy decisions should be based on “forward-looking projections of the lowest price of service to end users” rather than on sunk costs, the providers said.

New Zealand’s version of a national broadband plan, which calls for a government investment equivalent to as much as $132 billion of spending in the U.S., given the relative population of the two countries, would be a non-starter here, said Blair Levin, architect of the FCC’s plan, Tuesday during a New America Foundation symposium. Levin spoke following a presentation on “Kiwi Connected” by Graham Mitchell, CEO of state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings, the company established by the New Zealand government to build out a broadband network. Mitchell said the plan calls for 100 Mbps connections for 75 percent of the population, while an associated program will bring high-speed access to rural areas and schools. Mitchell explained that much of the investment is expected to be recovered, so the total government expenditure should end up being closer to what would be a $27 billion program in the U.S. “If we had come to [the administration] and said our plans calls for $100 billion … I think we would have been laughed out of the White House, or that would be the polite thing that they would have done to us,” Levin said. The U.S. hit comparable targets without similar government investments, he said, noting that competition in the U.S. market helps. “One size doesn’t fit all. You have to start with where you are,” Levin said. “We have two wires going into more than 90 percent of homes. I think only Canada is kind of equivalent.” Levin said the U.S. spends $4.5 billion a year on the high-cost portion of the Universal Service Fund. If that money is redirected to broadband, the U.S. could effectively dedicate $27 billion to rural build out over a period of years. he said. “We put out a plan, without raising the high cost fund, to do something similar [to New Zealand] though not at the same speeds,” he said. Ben Lennett, senior policy analyst with the foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, questioned whether cable-telecom competition in the U.S. will mean wide broadband roll out. “Whether that’s worked out well for us is pretty highly debatable,” he said. “We have a structure right now where cable is virtually the speed monopoly in a lot of communities. [Verizon’s fiber-based] FiOS has not been deployed all over the country.” Wireless is viewed as a “third pipe” but is “owned by the same companies that own the telephone company,” Lennett said. “We sort of see an increase in speeds, but you're actually seeing an effort by the cable companies, and even AT&T now, of instituting not just [usage] caps on their mobile service but caps on their DSL service.”

LOS ANGELES -- The FCC needs to recommit to the principles of Universal Service and revamp the system in a manner that won’t weaken the system that has helped connect rural America for decades, former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said during NARUC’s summer meeting Tuesday. Meanwhile, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson emphasized wireless is essential for universal broadband. The AT&T/T-Mobile merger, which is getting a closer look from the California Attorney General, is a private party solution to achieve universal broadband, Stephenson said.

The controversy over the GOP’s efforts to use the Universal Service Fund to pay down the nation’s deficit ought to remind the telecom industry that the money is “finite,” AT&T Vice President Hulk Hultquist said Tuesday. Last week, the industry went into uproar when it emerged that House Republicans were considering using $1 billion from the fund to help close the budget gap (CD July 14 p1). Telcos small and large, which had disagreed over how to fix universal service, united in their condemnation. “There are definitely legal issues with that … that aren’t well understood,” Hultquist said at a Broadband Breakfast in Washington: “You know, there are limited means to do what we want to accomplish.”

LOS ANGELES - Regulators need to fix video content price discrimination, tiering and tying practices, panelists said at the National Association of Rural Utility Commissioners summer meeting. Small Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPD) are the victims

NARUC’s staff subcommittee on telecom approved resolutions (CD July 8, p11) on Universal Service Fund, call termination issues, the FCC’s enforcement of merger public interest commitments to deploy broadband infrastructure and adoption programs and resolution supporting low income broadband adoption programs. A full committee vote is expected Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES -- Panelists at NARUC’s summer meeting urged the FCC to address the missing pieces in the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation revamp. Those are contribution, speed and roles for small and rural phone companies, speakers said Sunday. Meanwhile, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was expected to meet with the NARUC Telecom Committee and the Federal/State Joint Board at NARUC’s summer meeting late Monday.

Rural telcos opened their Washington blitz this week and pressed their case to protect Universal Service Fund revenue, ex parte notices filed in FCC docket 10-90 showed. In a meeting Thursday with Chairman Julius Genachowski’s aide Zac Katz, rural executives and leaders from their associations promoted their own reform proposals, said an ex parte notice. In a separate meeting with Christine Kurth, aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell, rural executives said their companies need “predictable and sufficient high-cost support and [intercarrier compensation] revenue streams” to “repay their outstanding Rural Utilities Service and private sector loans,” rural telco executives and members of the Western Telecommunications Alliance said. Rural carriers have promised to blitz the Capitol to protect their USF revenue.