Companies large and small, public interest groups and trade associations offered a divided FCC very different takes on whether proposed net neutrality rules would stifle or spur competition, in replies in the net neutrality proceeding. The biggest change from the first comment round, in January, is that many filers focused on the Comcast decision and the complicated question of whether the FCC has authority to proceed with new net neutrality rules or first would have to change the way broadband is classified to gain clear authority.

A Universal Service Fund revamp and additional public funding are needed to bring broadband to small businesses and encourage adoption, top government and broadband industry officials said Tuesday. At a hearing of the Senate Small Business Committee, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said high prices, sparse availability and low digital literacy are the largest barriers keeping broadband from small businesses. And NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling called continued funding in fiscal 2011 critical to ensuring a successful broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Companies large and small, public interest groups and trade associations offered a divided FCC very different takes on whether proposed net neutrality rules would stifle or spur competition, in replies in the net neutrality proceeding. The biggest change from the first comment round, in January, is that many filers focused on the Comcast decision and the complicated question of whether the FCC has authority to proceed with new net neutrality rules or first would have to change the way broadband is classified to gain clear authority.

A Universal Service Fund revamp and additional public funding is needed to bring broadband to small businesses and encourage adoption, top government and broadband industry officials said Tuesday. At a hearing of the Senate Small Business Committee, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said high prices, sparse availability and low digital literacy are the largest barriers keeping broadband from small businesses. And NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling called continued funding in fiscal 2011 critical to ensuring a successful broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., is “making progress” on introducing his universal service fund bill and marking it up in the subcommittee, he said. The bill still has “a ways to go,” the House Communications Subcommittee chairman told us Monday. “We're looking for ways to control” the cost and size of the USF, while maintaining sufficient funding for rural carriers that depend on fund payments, he said. The bill is to be co-sponsored by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.

A recent lobbying push by free conference call providers is set on getting “the truth out” to Washington policymakers about how consumers benefit from a business practice that long-distance carriers decry as “traffic pumping,” Free Conferencing Corp. CEO Dave Erickson said in an interview. But House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., who’s working on a bill banning such arrangements, told us his views have changed “not at all.” Congress and the FCC are both mulling curbs on the practice, which involves revenue-sharing agreements under which rural local exchange carriers pay conferencing companies to send traffic to their exchanges.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn hasn’t decided whether broadband should be reclassified under Title II, she said in an interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. She said she’s passionate about open networks, making sure consumers know what they are getting and other goals listed in the National Broadband Plan, but how the commission will accomplish them hasn’t been decided. “We are still in negotiations with the American public and companies we regulate” on how to move forward, Clyburn said. Public-safety network interoperability and a Universal Service Fund overhaul are among her major goals as the commission tries to carry out the plan, she said. On USF, the commission will work within the “existing financial framework” and won’t “cause the contribution factor to go up,” Clyburn said. “There is a probability of shifting in terms of the factors, especially as it relates to rural carriers, and those are the types of conversations we must have. Rural carriers, in particular, are concerned about the migration from land line support to this new kind of infrastructure or this new system we're putting forth. Those are the types of details we are going to have to work out.” Moving from the Public Service Commission of South Carolina was a culture shock because at the FCC there’s less interaction with the people involved, she said. The FCC filing process is exact and it’s a little “cold” compared to the evidentiary hearings at the state commission, Clyburn said. At first, she said, she sometimes felt like she was on a “big eighth floor island.”

In a surprise, CenturyLink agreed to buy Qwest in a $22.4 billion deal, including a $10.6 billion all-stock transaction and $11.8 billion debt, the companies said Thursday. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2011. It’s likely to be approved by regulators within a year with attached conditions, such as an obligation to expand broadband access or to provide it at certain prices, analysts said.

The FCC issued a notice of inquiry and a notice of proposed rulemaking for a Universal Service Fund overhaul. The action at the commission meeting Wednesday jump starts the switch from the high-cost fund to the Connect America fund, said Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey. The commission will seek comment on an analytical framework and cost model aimed at containing the cost of USF and identifying the places with the greatest need, said Amy Bender, a Wireline Bureau deputy division chief. “A model that identifies efficient levels of support could be an important tool even if the commission ultimately adopts market-based mechanisms to identify supported entities and support levels,” she said.

It’s “somewhat optimistic” to say 95 percent of the U.S. is served by broadband, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va. Boucher said at a hearing Wednesday he had “serious concerns about the accuracy of that number” in the National Broadband Plan “and the methodology that was employed in order to derive it.” Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said the figure may show the U.S. can get ubiquitous broadband without government intervention. FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett cautioned that availability estimates in the plan may paint a rosier-than-reality portrait of broadband access.