Mobile satellite broadband provides a more cost-effective solution than terrestrial options for remote areas and reforms of the Universal Service Fund and Rural Health Care programs should encourage satellite solutions, said Inmarsat in meetings with the FCC. CEO Andy Sukawaty met with the Wireless, Wireline and International bureau officials and FCC Chief Technologist Doug Sicker, an ex parte filings said. The company also said authorization of in-flight passenger connectivity with satellite backhaul would help the U.S. catch up with the rest of the world. Globally consistent spectrum allocations and less burdensome regulatory fees would also help mobile satellite interests, the company said in a presentation during the meetings.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Changes to the E-rate program expected to be adopted at Thursday’s FCC meeting (WID Sept 21 p4) will boost economic opportunity in the U.S. and help schools access faster broadband speeds at potentially lower prices, Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “Faster networks that are more affordable -- that’s what these changes will mean for schools, libraries and communities,” he told a Common Sense Media education technology showcase at the Computer History Museum Tuesday. The order is the “most significant step yet toward implementing the [National] Broadband Plan’s recommendations … to improve education,” he said.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Changes to the E-rate program expected to be adopted at Thursday’s FCC meeting (CD Sept 21 p9) will boost economic opportunity in the U.S. and help schools access faster broadband speeds at potentially lower prices, Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “Faster networks that are more affordable -- that’s what these changes will mean for schools, libraries and communities,” he told a Common Sense Media education technology showcase at the Computer History Museum Tuesday. The order is the “most significant step yet toward implementing the [National] Broadband Plan’s recommendations … to improve education,” he said.

Regulators in Kansas and Nebraska amended a request to make retroactive their powers to assess nomadic voice over Internet providers for state universal service funds. This all but clears the way for a declaratory FCC ruling that states can make their own USF assessments, and an order could be coming within weeks, agency officials said.

Lobbyists from Internet companies met with FCC staff to urge the commission to move away from a revenue-based formula for the Universal Service Fund. Stacie Pies of Skype, Rick Whitt of Google, Brendan Kasper of Vonage and the Voice of the Net Coalition’s Glenn Richards said a method “based on network connections might provide more certainty and stability for the fund,” according to an ex parte notice filed by the coalition Thursday.

Lobbyists from Internet companies met with FCC staff to urge the commission to move away from a revenue-based formula for the Universal Service Fund. Stacie Pies of Skype, Rick Whitt of Google, Brendan Kasper of Vonage and the Voice of the Net Coalition’s Glenn Richards said a method “based on network connections might provide more certainty and stability for the fund,” according to an ex parte notice filed by the coalition Thursday.

The House Commerce Committee’s hearing Thursday on Universal Service Fund reform should have had a witness representing rural and regional wireless carriers, Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry said in a statement. “Numerous studies have shown that consumers are continuing to choose wireless over wireline services,” Berry said. “Neglecting to include wireless has been part of the problem in reforming USF in the past. RCA will not allow it to become a problem in the future. To date, the Wireline Competition Bureau has been given almost exclusive responsibility in the development of USF rules and policies, and that trend must be arrested. I strongly encourage Congress and the FCC to include wireless as it works to reform USF."

A House bill that would overhaul the Universal Service Fund was supposed to have been marked up Thursday, but instead was slated for another round of hearings after Republicans raised concerns to some of the cost containment measures, Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., told us. Terry said House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, asked for another round of hearings because “there had been some major changes."

Chairman Julius Genachowski is shifting the FCC’s emphasis from net neutrality and broadband reclassification to issues including Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation overhaul, special access, telecom/video competition policy, consumer protection and spectrum, Stifel Nicolaus said Wednesday in a research note. But net neutrality and reclassification aren’t “dead” and the firm expects “more wrangling on these interrelated issues,” the note said. The “elephant in the room” is the Nov. 2 elections, the note said. “Republicans are likely to score gains in midterm election and could retake the House and even the Senate, which we believe would be positive for the Bells and cable. The partisan dynamics complicate legislation before the election, while the November results will shape a Lame Duck session and produce fallout for FCC."

The telephone and cable industries “endorse” Universal Service Fund legislation by Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., USTelecom and NCTA executives said in written testimony for a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. HR-5828 “balances many competing interests to modernize universal service and to bring robust broadband to areas of rural America where today’s business case would not support such deployment,” said USTelecom President Walter McCormick.