House Commerce Committee Republicans criticized the high cost of subsidies under the Universal Service Fund, saying the FCC needs to forget about net neutrality and concentrate on fixing “antiquated voice service subsidies.” That came after the release of information provided to the committee by the commission in response to a June 15 request from Chairman Henry Waxman of California, Ranking Member Joe Barton of Texas, Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher of Virginia and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Cliff Stearns of Florida.

Comcast made new diversity commitments relating to the NBC Universal deal, including a promise to put $20 million into a venture capital fund. In a letter to Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and statements Thursday at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing in Chicago, Comcast executives emphasized increasing the presence of blacks and other minorities in employment and programs. The concessions came after criticisms by Rush and other members of Congress, as well as civil rights groups, of a lack of diversity at the two companies. Meanwhile, a new coalition, mostly of long-time foes of the deal, has formed.

CenturyLink said opposition to its request for a deadline extension on one-day porting misses the point. If CenturyLink must move forward with one-day porting while it’s integrating systems from its merger with Embarq, the possibility of porting errors increases and resources will be wasted on a system set for replacement, it said in reply comments to the FCC. Its waiver request was opposed by CTIA, NCTA and Sprint Nextel (CD July 2 p8). CenturyLink said that although the provisioning component of its operational support systems will be complete by Oct. 1, the deadline set in the order approving its takeover of Embarq, additional work will be needed before number porting can occur. “It will not be possible to port numbers within one business day using the automated systems until most of the customer accounts are also migrated to the new platform’s billing systems,” CenturyLink said. This “highly sensitive” process should be substantially complete by May 1, it said. CenturyLink said it never agreed to complete the OSS integration in 15 months, as NCTA asserts. CenturyLink said CTIA’s arguments seeking to distinguish wholesale and retail OSS “misses the essential point that number ports are themselves wholesale services, so that the OSS integration directly implicates one-day porting.” Further, the cost that CenturyLink is concerned about isn’t the expense of number porting but of upgrading a system that will no longer be used. NCTA “casts aspersions” on CenturyLink for receiving significant Universal Service Fund support and seeking to merge with Qwest, in arguments that aren’t pertinent, CenturyLink said. It said Sprint Nextel’s arguments that it faced a similar challenge during its merger is off the mark. “Sprint did not face the difficulty of implementing new LNP processes during the course of merger integration,” it said. Further, CenturyLink said, it couldn’t have worked on integration before the FCC merger order, as Sprint says it did, because that would have violated antitrust laws.

Underlying carriers shouldn’t be required to restate prior-year revenue or make additional Universal Service Fund contributions when a reselling carrier makes a mistake in completing its reseller certification, Qwest said in comments to the FCC Wireline Bureau. The carrier was supporting a petition for clarification and reconsideration of the TelePacific order (CD June 3 p9). The instructions on Form 499-A don’t give notice that an underlying carrier “that fully complies with the procedures will nevertheless be responsible for additional universal service assessments whenever its customers must be reclassified as end users,” Qwest said. It said the bureau should clarify that a carrier which follows the instructions isn’t required to restate revenue.

The Georgia Public Service Commission suspended a surcharge to landline customers that funded telecom services for phone users with hearing and sight impairment. The surcharge, which the unanimous June 17 vote suspended for three years, was halved in 2006 to 5 cents per month. The state has enough money to fund the relay service, a telecom equipment distribution program and programs providing audible universal information access and help to hearing aid users, the commission said.

Nebraska and Kansas regulators discussed with an FCC aide a petition by the state regulators asking the commission to require nomadic VoIP providers contribute to federal and state universal service funds on all their revenues, as circuit-switched, wireless and fixed VoIP providers do. Representatives of the Nebraska Public Service Commission and the Kansas Corporation Commission met Monday with Priya Aiyar, aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, lawyers for the state bodies said in an ex parte filing. Nebraska commission counsel Shana Knutson participated by phone, as did Patrice Petersen-Klein, advisory counsel to the Kansas commission, Nebraska commission executive director and chief counsel Mike Hybl and Sue Vanicek, director of the Nebraska Universal Service Fund Department.

President Barack Obama unveiled $795 million in broadband grants and loans the morning after the House appropriators passed an amendment to take back $602 million in available broadband money. The latest batch of awards was matched by $200 million in outside investment, and will benefit 685,000 businesses, 900 healthcare facilities, 2,400 schools and “tens of millions of Americans,” the White House said.

President Barack Obama unveiled $795 million in broadband grants and loans the morning after the House appropriators passed an amendment to take back $602 million in available broadband money. The latest batch of awards was matched by $200 million in outside investment, and will benefit 685,000 businesses, 900 healthcare facilities, 2,400 schools and “tens of millions of Americans,” the White House said.

The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau refused to reconsider a request to review the actions of the Universal Service Administrative Co. The request came from Integrity Communications, which argued that the USAC should not have sent copies of an audit letter to its clients before it had a chance to respond. The audit letter said Integrity issued invoices to Texas’s San Benito Independent School District before completion of a project, violating terms of the procurement. The letter also said that Integrity would have to file a compliance plan and that the USAC wouldn’t take any action on funding requests with which Integrity was involved until the matter was resolved. In its initial review of the situation, the bureau decided USAC acted reasonably in sending the letter to other school districts. Integrity, however, said it should have had a chance to respond before the letter was sent out. In the reconsideration, Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey concluded that USAC correctly followed its procedures. Although the bureau misphrased an explanation of the procedures in its initial order, it still correctly concluded that USAC had acted properly, Mattey said.

There are $900 million in unused funds from funding years 2002 and 2005 through 2008 that can carry forward in the Universal Service Fund, the Universal Service Administrative Co. reported to the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau. That money will be used to increase disbursements beyond the annual spending cap to schools and libraries.