FCC commissioners approved a “cramming” notice of proposed rulemaking 4-0 Tuesday. FCC officials confirmed that the notice asks questions about both wireless and wireline billing abuses (CD April 5 p1). As part of the NPRM, the FCC is pondering going so far as to require consumer bills to be sent by carriers in a particular format and using a specific font. Cramming is the practice of billing customers -- often on behalf of third parties -- for products or services they either didn’t order or don’t want.

The FCC is in the “home stretch” of its Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime overhaul, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday. Speaking after the commission’s monthly meeting, Genachowski said he didn’t “think it’s news” that the relevant orders won’t be ready in August, given his aides have said the same (CD June 16 p2). Genachowski said he’s confident that orders are coming soon. “The staff is working very hard,” he said at a news conference. “The stakeholders are working very hard.” It’s “very important” that USF is retooled for Internet service “in a way that tackles inefficiency” and “waste,” as well as closes “the rural-urban divide” and meets U.S. broadband goals, Genachowski said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he welcomes a new executive order by President Barrack Obama, issued Monday, asking every independent regulatory agency to take a close look at its regulations within 120 days and develop a plan for streamlining its bureaucracy. In a February email to FCC staff, Genachowski said he supported anti-regulation moves by the administration and asked staff to follow an earlier executive order (CD Feb 7 p1). “Since my first day as Chairman, I have made regulatory reform a top priority, improving FCC processes and decisions to support innovation, economic growth, and America’s global competitiveness,” Genachowski said Monday in a written statement. “Shortly after the President’s initial Executive Order, I directed FCC staff to follow the spirit of the Order. We had already conducted retrospective reviews, and incorporated cost-benefit analysis into our decision-making.” Genachowski said that on his watch the commission has already “repealed more than 50 outdated regulations and identified 25 sets of outdated data collections for elimination” and also “removed regulatory restrictions on spectrum use.” The agency is in the process of “reforming universal service funding to remove waste and inefficiency and incorporate market-based funding mechanisms,” he said. “We'll continue to work with all stakeholders on these important matters, consistent with our obligations as an independent agency."

USTelecom, its member companies, and CenturyLink and Frontier believe they have come up with a “potential” set of intercarrier compensation regime reforms that will achieve “broad consensus” among industry, they said in an ex parte meeting with FCC officials last week (http://xrl.us/bkzp8c). “In the intercarrier reform area, we also discussed how shifts in intercarrier access revenues could be measured and potentially recovered in ways other than through per minute charges that may distort incentives to use communications services and whether reciprocal compensations revenues should be included in any circumstances,” said USTelecom Vice President Jonathan Banks in an ex parte notice released Monday in docket 10-90. “On reform of universal service, our discussion centered on identifying whether and where it is appropriate to establish a limited right-of-first-refusal for potential recipients of explicit support for the construction and operation of broadband networks,” Banks said. “We also discussed the potential role of satellite broadband in providing broadband service to the very highest cost to serve locations and the interplay between reliance on satellite broadband in these locations and the overall size of an explicit support fund for broadband.” A day after USTelecom’s meeting, Dish Network made its own case for giving satellite a slice of the Universal Service Fund. “Satellite broadband is the most-effective technology for providing true broadband to many currently unserved households,” Dish Corporate Counsel Alison Minea said in her ex parte notice (http://xrl.us/bkzp8n). “Its direct and full inclusion in Universal Service Fund reform will maximize efficiency, reduce the size of the fund, and ensure that rural America has access to high-quality broadband.” Also last week, leaders from NTCA, OPASTCO and the Western Telecommunications Alliance met with FCC officials (http://xrl.us/bkzp8x). “The Rural parties discussed the need to ensure sufficient cost recovery to promote and sustain broadband availability and affordability in rural areas in a manner that recognizes the varied characteristics among carrier serving those areas,” the groups said in an ex parte notice. “While contemplating reform of existing high cost recovery mechanisms, the Rural parties discussed: the need for adequate transition periods and reasonable transition paths; management of fund growth without impairing reasonable cost recovery; the role of rate benchmarks; and through identification and recognition of consumer impacts.”

The FCC turned aside NTCA’s request for a clarification or waiver that would have allowed rate-of-return carriers to pass on the costs of federal Universal Service Fund audits to the interstate jurisdiction. “We find that the rule does not need clarification and that NTCA has not demonstrated that good cause warrants waiver of this rule to allow rate-of-return incumbent LECs to directly assign the costs associated with these audits to the interstate jurisdiction,” Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett said in Thursday’s order, posted to docket 80-286.

The FCC should “not jeopardize the ongoing viability” of rural broadband in its Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime overhauls, a Louisiana regulator said in an ex parte letter posted to docket 10-90 and released Thursday. “Any reforms to the existing USF High-Cost and ICC mechanisms adopted by the FCC should not compromise the Rural Telephone Companies’ ability to continue to deploy the capital necessary to offer broadband telecommunications and information services,” said Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Jimmy Field in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Under all circumstances, the FCC should ensure that any reduction or elimination of funding does not affect the ability of the rural incumbent carriers to recover existing investments made under current rules.” Rural telcos have promised to “pull out all the stops” in an effort to ward off what they consider threats to their survival in the pending reforms (CD July 5 p6). Field said: “Many of the proposals outlined in the FCC’s USF and ICC NPRM, if adopted, could jeopardize universal service in the rural areas of Louisiana. In particular, the short-term reforms to the current USF rules proposed in the NPRM, together with the potential direction of ICC reform, risk substantial rate increases for rural consumers in Louisiana, and may cause the quality of broadband service in rural areas of Louisiana to fall behind the rest of the nation.”

Delegates at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners will debate whether the FCC should defer to state regulators on Universal Service Fund reforms, establish pilot programs that allow Lifeline customers to obtain broadband service and require telcos and cable companies to live up to merger commitments before receiving broadband subsidies. The discussions will be held at NARUC’s convention later this month, the group said. NARUC will also debate at the group’s convention in Los Angeles July 17-20 a resolution calling on the commission to reaffirm its decision in its Call Blocking Declaratory Order that no carriers may block, choke, reduce or restrict traffic, the group said.

The FCC should focus on anchor institutions as it retools the Universal Service Fund to expand broadband, the Benton Foundation said in an ex parte letter released Wednesday in docket 10-90. The reform effort “provides an important opportunity for the FCC to ensure that anchor institutions are able to serve the needs of their rural populations,” foundation Chairman Charles Benton wrote (http://xrl.us/bky8uc). “We understand and agree with the desire to build broadband networks to residential consumers in rural areas; however, we respectfully suggest that the needs of community anchor institutions are just as important."

Cox Communications’ “chief concern” with the pending Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms “is the adoption of clear rules for a stable and quick transition ... without creating new opportunities for arbitrage,” the company said in meetings with FCC staff last week. That’s according to an ex parte notice posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. The company also has concerns with carrier of last resort obligations, it said (http://xrl.us/bky4mi). “COLRS may no longer be necessary where multiple providers compete in an area, and COLR obligations may also need to be limited in instances where such obligations significantly exceed business realities."

A revamped Universal Service Fund should prioritize areas “without any broadband or where no provider offers service at a baseline level of transmission speed” determined by the FCC, said Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. In a Tuesday letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the senators also urged that USF support broadband on a technology-neutral basis and include strong accountability and oversight. The fund should support “areas that are least likely to be built out over the next three-to-five years because their geographic and/or demographic profile make them insufficiently profitable based on commercial business models,” Kerry and Warner wrote. The FCC should annually update what constitutes a baseline level of service and “set goals for minimum target speeds for broadband that would be required to qualify for funding,” they said. To better target broadband funding, the FCC should require states to disaggregate study areas, the senators said. And the agency should cap spending “to provide an incentive for service providers to devise lower cost solutions that meet nationwide needs for both fixed and mobile broadband,” they said. “Funding should require a match from service providers and should be conditioned on reasonable access and interconnection requirements.