During the February 25, 2010 Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Related Homeland Security Functions (COAC) meeting, COAC's Air Cargo Security Subcommittee provided an update on its efforts to identify and resolve air cargo security redundancies.

LAS VEGAS -- Commissioners will next week get a calendar laying out basic timing of the rulemakings and other actions that follow up on the National Broadband Plan, FCC officials said at the spring CTIA meeting. Commissioners won’t vote on the schedule but it’s expected to be discussed at the April 22 meeting.

The National Broadband Plan offers recommendations for increasing broadband adoption without increasing the Universal Service Fund and without new legislation, an FCC official said during a webinar. “We didn’t want to throw everything back into the lap of Congress,” said Wireline Deputy Bureau Chief Carol Mattey. Congress is providing insight and holding oversight hearings, “but we started off with basic design principles for reform that we can take care of ourselves,” she said. Goals of the plan include leading the world in mobile innovation, providing 1 Gbps access to anchor institutions in every community and supplying first responders a nationwide wireless broadband network, said Jon Banks, USTelecom senior vice president of law and policy. The commission also recommends establishing competition policies and creating incentives for universal availability and adoption. “Telecom companies tend to pay the highest rate for pole attachments,” he said. “The FCC is looking to drive down the cost of that part of broadband infrastructure.” As part of a USF and intercarrier compensation overhaul, the FCC plans to transform the high-cost program into the Connect America Fund in a three phase process over the next 10 years, Mattey said (CD March 8 p1). The overhaul will involve dispensing with per-minute intercarrier-compensation charges, said Rebekah Goodheart, an FCC policy adviser.

FreeConference encouraged its customers to write Congress to oppose banning what big telcos call traffic pumping. Universal Service Fund legislation in the works by Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., of the House Communications Subcommittee and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., includes a section that would ban agreements by rural local exchange carriers to pay free conference-call companies for sending traffic to their networks. Meanwhile, an item on the subject is on circulation at the FCC, and several states are also looking at it. Proposed rules would kill free conference calling services, FreeConference said in an e-mail to customers Wednesday. “Your Congressman needs to understand that eliminating your ability to communicate with your business and non-profit colleagues through free teleconferencing services is unfair, unacceptable and anti-competitive,” it said. “Additionally, large telephone companies are alleging that customers of free teleconferencing services are using these services for pornographic and controversial activities. We need you to tell Congress that this is simply not true.” Other free conference call providers have taken a more direct approach to fighting the proposed rules. They recently sent a study they had commissioned to the FCC and every member of Congress (CD March 9 p5).

Services based on an all-IP network are where the traditional telco landline business is heading, carriers said in interviews. Rather than a stand-alone service, voice is becoming part of a converged communications offering, they said. Voice is becoming just an application running on an IP network, said John Broten, Verizon executive director, product management and development. The market is moving to a place where “there’s an aggregator that brings together a whole bunch of capabilities,” he said. More than 67 percent of AT&T’s new U-verse TV customers bundle in U-verse Voice and more than 75 percent of U-verse TV customers have triple- or quad-play, an AT&T spokeswoman said. Steve Coker, Sprint Nextel product manager for converged solutions, expects VoIP to increase its presence as part of landlines as the legacy business continues to diminish. Sprint’s IP-based services, including offerings like VoIP, now constitute 42 percent of its landline revenue, up from 25 percent in 2008. Unlike traditional voice and data revenues, which have declined, Sprint saw a 7 percent year-over-year increase in its IP-based services revenue in 2009. Meanwhile, any broadband policy changes would be critical for VoIP providers, carriers said. The National Broadband Plan recognizes the reality that the “traditional POTS business model is in decline” and the FCC appears intent on transforming its policies to achieve the common goal of 100 percent broadband, the AT&T spokeswoman said. Universal service fund revamp is also key for universal broadband and thus indirectly positive for VoIP, she said. It appears that carriers are shifting away from stand-alone VoIP to focus on managed services: Verizon and AT&T have discontinued their stand-alone VoIP services. The exit of Verizon VoiceWing VoIP was because the service wasn’t running on the carrier network so it’s hard to manage the end user experience, Broten said, saying the key focus is FiOS. AT&T, which exited its CallVantage service, is focusing on U-verse Voice, a spokeswoman said, saying innovative VoIP services that bundle with TV, broadband and wireless services are the trend. Mobile VoIP is also on the rise, carriers said. T-Mobile USA, which doesn’t have a landline business, has very few restrictions on consumers’ choice of applications, and VOIP applications (like Skype) are allowed to run, a spokeswoman said. Verizon Wireless also allows Skype on its network. AT&T had no objections to Skype’s attempt to bring its app to AT&T’s cellular network, but Apple had rejected the program for iPhone (WID Aug 25 p4).

The National Broadband Plan sets the stage for increased broadband adoption, but hasn’t quelled the debate over Universal Service Fund, spectrum use and Title II reclassification, telecom officials said on panels Tuesday. The spectrum portion of the plan “really does push the ball forward to try to get more flexible use for spectrum,” said Gregory Rosston, deputy director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Spectrum is the “mother’s milk” of wireless, said Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke. The recommendations get the ball moving “in the development of additional spectrum resources for wireless. That’s a big positive for investment and innovation,” he said the event, held at the National Press Club.

LAS VEGAS -- While lead off speakers at the CTIA convention praised the FCC for proposing in the National Broadband Plan that 500 MHz of additional spectrum be allocated to wireless broadband over the next 10 years, the prospect that wireless carriers will face new net neutrality requirements also loomed large as the conference began Tuesday. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said imposing new regulation on carriers could chill investment at what otherwise is a time of record growth for the industry.

A Universal Service Fund revamp passed by Congress would do more than an FCC overhaul of the fund, and would leapfrog possible limits to the commission’s legal authority, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., at a National Journal event Tuesday on Capitol Hill. A USF bill may be passable on a bipartisan basis, said Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. Both legislators reaffirmed support for the FCC broadband plan, but Stearns said he has concerns about how the FCC sees its role in spurring the marketplace. The House Communications Subcommittee may postpone their broadband plan hearing Thursday because several members are “weary” from the health care debate and are pushing leadership to give them an early recess Wednesday night, said Boucher. If that happens, the hearing will be postponed until April when Congress returns, he said. In the “very near future,” the chairman hopes to mark up a bill by himself and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., which is backed by rural and urban broadband providers, Boucher said. He hasn’t introduced the legislation yet. The Boucher-Terry bill “goes beyond” what the commission is proposing, he said. The broadband plan only suggests transitioning USF to broadband, a concept that’s consistent with what Boucher is proposing, he said. The plan’s similarities to legislation are not coincidence, he added. “We've been coordinating with the commission over the course of the last year … and the core recommendation that we made is that we have this transition of the high-cost fund from supporting basic telephone service to supporting broadband.” Stearns believes bipartisan legislation is possible on USF, privacy and spectrum, he said. “It’s just a question … of finding the time to do it,” because legislators are “in campaign mode now,” he said. Stearns reaffirmed general support for the broadband plan, saying he was particularly glad it didn’t recommend making network neutrality rules. But the Republican doesn’t plan to give the FCC a free pass at his subcommittee’s hearing: “I'm just going to caution the commissioners to think in terms of allowing the market as much as possible to work.” The Senate Commerce Committee canceled its broadband plan hearing Tuesday. The committee didn’t comment on the reasons by our deadline, or announce a new time for the hearing. Hill sources said there was a dispute between parties on an unrelated matter that ended all Senate committee hearings that afternoon. Under Senate rules, the majority must get the minority’s consent before any hearing can be held. Genachowski believes the plan “will deliver extremely significant benefits over time, as broadband is harnessed for job creation and new investment,” he said in testimony prepared for the hearing. The plan is “non-ideological and nonpartisan,” he said. It’s also “fiscally prudent,” because it recognizes “the overwhelming primacy of private investment in achieving our national broadband goals,” and suggests spectrum auctions “that could generate billions in revenue, exceeding any funding or investments that the plan suggests for Congressional consideration,” he said.

Services based on an all-IP network are where the traditional telco landline business is heading, carriers said in interviews. Rather than a stand-alone service, voice is becoming part of a converged communications offering, they said.

A Universal Service Fund revamp passed by Congress would do more than an FCC overhaul of the fund, and would leapfrog possible limits to the commission’s legal authority, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., at a National Journal event Tuesday on Capitol Hill. The National Broadband Plan suggests an overhaul that wouldn’t require legislation. A USF bill may be passable on a bipartisan basis, said Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. Both legislators reaffirmed support for the FCC plan, but Stearns said he has concerns about how the FCC sees its role in spurring the marketplace.