Top phone and cable executives are to discuss Universal Service Fund legislation at Thursday’s House Communications Subcommittee hearing, the Commerce Committee said Monday. The committee also invited FCC Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey to testify on the comprehensive bill (HR-5828) by Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. Representing industry are: USTelecom President Walter McCormick, NCTA Executive Vice President James Assey, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield, Verizon Senior Vice President Kathleen Grillo, and Qwest Senior Vice President Steve Davis. The hearing is 10 a.m. in Room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building.

The poor economy has made more people eligible for discount telephone service under Universal Service Fund low-income programs, but awareness is low, said FCC Consumer Bureau Chief Joel Gurin at a lunchtime Capitol Hill briefing Monday. Gurin and other officials at the event urged Congress to spread the word about the program to constituents. The event was intended to kick off National Lifeline Awareness Week. The Lifeline and Link-Up programs “are being used now by only about a third of eligible Americans,” but enrollment did increase somewhat after last year’s Lifeline Week campaign, said Gurin. The FCC is reviewing comments on ways to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the assistance programs, including on a proposal to use a centralized database for online certification and verification, he said. The commission is also looking at ways to address consumer complaints about accessing the low-income services, and expanding the program to support broadband, he said. It’s “unacceptable” that “millions of people remain disconnected to the outside world,” said National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners President David Coen. Members of Congress can help raise awareness by issuing press releases and calling attention to the program in newsletters and other constituent communications, said Charlie Acquard, executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. Also, lawmakers should educate caseworkers about the low-income programs and ask carriers about ways to improve Lifeline and Link-Up when the companies’ lobbyists come in for meetings, Acquard said. The name “Lifeline” is “not hyperbole,” said Mark Andersen, social services director of We Are Family in Washington, D.C. “Your telephone is your lifeline.” Senior citizens that Andersen works with on average collect $800 monthly and, after other bills, have little left over for phone service, he said. In 2009, the low-income programs accounted for about $1 billion of the $7.3 billion USF, said Irene Flannery, deputy chief of the FCC Wireline Bureau’s Telecommunications Access Policy Division.

LAKE GRAPEVINE, Texas -- The FCC will consider whether it can support broadband directly through the Universal Service Fund without reclassification, Deputy Wireline Bureau Chief Don Stockdale told the CompTel convention Monday. He said some have filed comments mentioning that there’s already direct broadband support for schools and libraries. Others have pointed to a November 2008 rulemaking that required companies to agree to build-out requirements in exchange for high-cost subsidy. “This is an issue clearly the commission will be asking about,” Stockdale said. He spoke at two sessions at the CompTel conference. In the first, Stockdale discussed inter-carrier compensation and in the second, USF overhaul under the National Broadband Plan.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski faces a very different political playing field if, as many predict, Republicans take control of either house of Congress, or both, in the Nov. 2 elections. Genachowski has in effect pushed off decisions on net neutrality and broadband reclassification until after the election. History shows that the job of an FCC chairman whose party loses control of Congress changes considerably.

The Rural Cellular Association urged a Universal Service Fund overhaul that’s “competitively, technologically and revenue neutral,” in meetings with the Wireline and Wireless bureaus, the association said an ex parte filing. RCA President Steve Barry said in a written statement: “Time and again, the FCC has stressed the importance of competition in the wireless marketplace, and it is imperative that the FCC ensure efficient, success-based support to maintain competition and benefit consumers, especially in rural and high-cost areas. … This is all about the consumer, and funding must be targeted to areas where USF is most needed to ensure that consumers in rural and high-cost areas have access to services comparable to their urban counterparts."

Any broadband service provider who contributes to a Universal Service Fund should be eligible to compete for support from the fund, WildBlue said during a meeting with the FCC Wireline Bureau. Competition among the support recipients will effectively reduce the size of the fund, the company said. The satellite broadband market is competitive and at the “cusp of next generation service,” and subsidizing favored technologies would be “harmful to consumers,” said WildBlue. Satellite broadband provides the highest speed and most cost-effective solution for unserved and rural areas and provides competition to cable where DSL may not get upgraded soon, it said. USF contributions should be assessed only on monthly service to end users rather than wholesale services, it said.

The FCC’s Rural Health Care Support Mechanism should offer hospitals flexibility and not impose tough requirements on healthcare facilities to demonstrate that existing broadband resources are otherwise insufficient for healthcare delivery, the American Hospital Association (AHA) said in a filing on a July 15 FCC rulemaking proposal. The FCC approved the notice at its July meeting (CD July 16 p3), amidst concerns that many healthcare facilities have declined to participate. Commissioner Michael Copps noted that historically less than 20 percent of funds available are paid out each year. Healthcare was one of the key focuses of the National Broadband Plan, which the FCC submitted to Congress in March (CD March 17 p1).

A markup on Universal Service Fund legislation may still be a ways off, telecom industry officials said after the House Communications Subcommittee set plans for a USF hearing next Thursday. The subcommittee plans to discuss but not mark up HR-5828 by Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., the subcommittee said Thursday. “The hearing could make a potential markup in subcommittee an easier lift,” but “I'm not sure there’s enough days left on the calendar,” said Vice President Paul Raak of the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance. “The hearing will provide a good opportunity for members of Congress and the FCC to hear the broad industry support the legislation has.” Boucher wants a subcommittee markup and probably will try to get one before the mid-term elections recess starting Oct. 8, but it’s unclear if there’s enough time, said another telecom industry official. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building. It’s a hearing rather than a markup because the bill differs from a draft that got a hearing last December, a House staffer said. Getting the legislation to markup remains a priority for Boucher, but no date is set, the staffer said.

Wireline and wireless carriers said the FCC should back away from the controversial finding in its most recent Section 706 report that the commission couldn’t conclude broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a “reasonable and timely” way (CD July 21 p1). But Free Press said the commission was on the right track when it approved its sixth broadband deployment report during the summer and the seventh report should have the same finding. CTIA said the sixth report put too much emphasis on the speed of connections, to the detriment of wireless.

Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry said he’s disappointed in Friday’s FCC decision on Universal Service Fund payments to eligible telecommunications carriers (CD Aug 7 p1). “The FCC just doesn’t seem to understand that a few million dollars in the right places for the right reasons will help bring mobile broadband to the most difficult and most costly areas in the U.S.,” Berry said. “That is where USF can and is supposed to make a difference. Doing the right thing might not be as easy -- but that is why they are there.”