Cellular South isn’t the only CTIA member frustrated with what the carrier claimed is the group’s favoritism towards its biggest members, said Eric Graham, the company’s vice president of strategic and government relations. “We won’t be the last to leave CTIA,” he told us. There have been conversations from carriers of all sizes about the lack of input that carriers other than AT&T and Verizon Wireless have in CTIA’s policy directions, he said. Companies make membership decisions based on numerous factors and then act in what they believe is their best interest, said John Walls, CTIA vice president of public affairs. “Our membership roster includes carriers of all sizes, and our primary goal is to represent all of them as best we can.” CTIA appeared to favor its largest members on issues like the Universal Service Fund, handset exclusivity, special access and spectrum allocation, Graham said. On issues like tower siting or tax matters, CTIA does represent the broader industry, Graham acknowledged: “But those aren’t the type of issues that keep our doors open.” Cellular South had been on CTIA’s board of directors since 1993, he said. CEO Hu Meena had been on the CTIA executive committee but gave up his seat last year out of frustration, Graham said. The carrier remains a member of the Rural Cellular Association. RCA does a much better job of representing a broader interest of carriers that aren’t the biggest two U.S. carriers, Graham said.

The $100 million that RUS set aside to pay for satellite broadband projects in the second round of broadband stimulus funding is a significant recognition that the technology can play a role in U.S. broadband extension efforts, said satellite broadband executives. Still, many first-round applicants are underwhelmed over the amount RUS allotted to satellite broadband in the second round, they said.

Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America, is concerned with the current state of broadband in the U.S., he said during the taping of an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators, first telecast Jan. 16. Various research data found that average U.S. broadband speeds were far below those in nations such as Japan and South Korea, he said. Upstream speeds matter as much as downstream, he said. Also on speeds, he said “we need to aim higher.” Broadband mapping should be the first step, he said, in proposing tax and loan incentives. “We see voice going forward as an application,” he said. Cohen praised the Universal Service Fund, saying the money could be used to stimulate providing incentives for private sector investment in low-density and underserved areas. He urged using the fund for new purposes. It’s critical that open Internet rules don’t discourage private investment needed to build broadband networks that will bring the U.S. broadband capability up to global standards and create and maintain jobs, he said. Only significant investment in broadband buildout will enable the country to catch up to the rest of the world regarding speed and accessibility, he said. Providers would be able to manage their networks and supply specialized service as long as they offer specialized services to all who want to purchase them without unjust or unreasonable discrimination, he said. Meanwhile, the vertical integration of Comcast and NBC Universal -- one currently controlling distribution and another controlling content -- would give the merged company leverage over both in broadcast and network TV and the market power to control pricing of content on the Internet, he said. It clearly would threaten competition in the distribution of content and programming, he said: Content and the pipe shouldn’t be linked together.

To more efficiently respond to technology convergence, the FCC needs written policies on inter-bureau coordination, GAO said in a report released Tuesday. GAO also urged improvements to the commission’s public notice and ex parte processes, and said the FCC must polish its strategy for recruiting experts to the agency. The FCC mostly concurred with GAO’s recommendations, saying it “had begun action in each of these areas even before the GAO prepared its draft report.” In statements, House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton of Texas renewed his call for legislation, while Democratic members praised initial reform efforts by Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Sprint Nextel asked the FCC to boost broadband wireless. The company asked the commission to: “(1) encourage the availability of cost-effective backhaul; (2) reform the Universal Service Fund to recognize broadband deployment; (3) eliminate an inter-carrier compensation system designed to subsidize old technology; (4) unleash spectrum for commercial mobile broadband use; (5) timely and vigorously enforce relocation and technical rules; and (6) continue flexible and efficient licensing of mobile broadband spectrum.” In a meeting last week with Blair Levin, executive director of the FCC Broadband Team, “the Sprint Nextel representatives discussed the company’s proposals to expedite and advance wireless broadband deployment, innovation and investment in the FCC’s broadband policy proceedings,” an ex parte filing said.

Tennessee should keep separate state funding to speed broadband deployment and any state universal service fund, the Tennessee Regulatory Authority said Friday in a report on legislation proposed to remedy problems caused by diminishing revenue from intrastate switched access. The Tennessee Rural Affordability Fund (TRAF), authorized but not yet mandated into existence, would be funded much as the federal universal service fund is, the report said. The proposed legislation covers phone companies serving the most remote areas -- rural incumbent local exchange carriers and rural phone cooperatives with fewer than a million lines. The bill would require such carriers to reduce their intrastate switched access rates to their interstate switched rate levels. “The revenue loss resulting from these reductions will be recovered from funds paid into the TRAF,” the report said. The authority urged legislators to focus on “keeping local phone rates affordable” and to make sure that “any funding to support rural broadband deployment should be established as a separate portable fund.” Legislators should not set a statewide benchmark rate for local phone service “as a litmus test to determine support from TRAF,” the authority said. The bill should include a sunset provision requiring a report and recommendation from the authority before legislators consider extending the fund’s life, it said. The fund should be capped as determined by the state regulator, the report said. Recipients of money from the new universal service fund should be designated “carriers of last resort” and should have to provide Lifeline, Link-up and other “social and safety services,” it said. Companies electing market regulation should not be allowed to draw from the fund, the authority said. “Because a carrier operating pursuant to market regulation can adjust its rates to respond to competition, the need for specific subsidies such as that from the TRAF would become unnecessary,” it said. “Therefore it is appropriate to cease such TRAF assistance if the carrier elects Market Regulation.” Carriers paying into the federal USF also should pay into the TRAF, the authority said, asking that the Legislature empower the regulator “to assess and collect fees” and “establish criteria and procedures for assessing, collecting and dispensing fees, and for monitoring the operation of the TRAF.” If the bill is enacted, it should include a provision delaying implementation for a year to give the authority time to write procedures and criteria for running the fund, the report said.

NTIA will focus on middle-mile broadband projects, and RUS will target last-mile projects in the second round of broadband stimulus funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the agencies said late Friday. NTIA and RUS said $4.8 billion will be available in the second round, and revealed new rules based on comments collected in December (CD Dec 2 p2). The agencies released separate notices of funding availability so applicants may apply directly for either program, and they killed the two-step process for applicants to RUS’s Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP). The agencies will accept applications from Feb. 16 to March 15, and announce all awards by Sept. 30, they said. NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said the changes make the application process “more user-friendly,” maximize the impact of investment, and streamline the review process. NTIA’s notice of funding availability provides $2.6 billion, including $2.35 billion for infrastructure projects. NTIA is adopting a “comprehensive communities” approach that prioritizes middle-mile projects that connect anchor institutions like libraries, hospitals and universities. NTIA plans to award at least $150 million for public computer center projects, and at least $100 million for adoption projects. RUS’s NOFA provides $2.2 billion for infrastructure projects. It will focus on last-mile projects, but will also fund middle-mile projects involving current RUS program participants. A “second funding window” at RUS “will open later which will provide grants for satellite service for premises that remain unserved after all other Recovery Act broadband funding is awarded, make Technical Assistance grants for developing plans using broadband for regional economic development, and grants to provide broadband service to rural libraries funded by USDA under the Recovery Act.” In the second round, RUS will not differentiate between remote and non-remote rural areas, and has adopted a base 75/25 mix of grants and loans for all projects. RUS may seek a waiver if additional grants are needed for hard-to-serve areas, and prioritize for applicants seeking lower grant levels. The RUS NOFA also provides a chance to reconsider BIP applications, and a “second application review process during which RUS would allow an applicant to adjust its application to better meet program objectives and for the Administrator to provide discretionary points or to increase a grant component to meet rural economic objectives.” The agencies will hold a series of public workshops around the country to review the new application process and answer questions. The Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition praised NTIA for its focus on anchor institutions. “Libraries, schools, health care providers, colleges and universities provide essential services to millions of people every day, and this funding will help build infrastructure that will create jobs, kick-start economic growth, and ultimately benefit residential and business consumers all across America.”

With a deadline next week on the latest inquiry on special access prices, a Sprint Nextel executive said Tuesday the FCC appears ready to address the company’s long standing complaints. Sprint is also asking the FCC to act quickly to reallocate spectrum bands totaling 100 MHz, which the company believes could be addressed well ahead of eventual decisions about broadcast spectrum or spectrum in federal government hands.

The FCC should refrain from implementing short-term, stop-gap measures that aren’t conducive to the long-term goal of greater broadband availability, said the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies and the Western Telecommunications Alliance. The groups said in a press release that they would like the commission to ensure that high-cost support mechanisms match the public’s need for broadband access and speed. They also said the commission should reform “the Universal Service Fund contribution mechanism to adequately support current rural networks and enable the necessary new investment to expand and upgrade rural broadband infrastructure.”

Financing broadband projects in rural America is a major challenge and lenders need a stable cost-recovery mechanism and help from the government to see that loans get repaid and networks are expanded, financial companies and organizations said in comments at the FCC. The comments were in response to the 28th public notice for the National Broadband Plan, on deployment financing. They were the last comments due at the commission on a notice for the plan.