To save jobs, the FCC should quickly revise its Universal Service Fund local switching support (LSS) rules, the Coalition for Equity in Switching Support said in an ex-parte letter late Friday. The coalition wants the agency to codify a tentative conclusion that incumbent local carriers should get additional universal-service support under the LSS mechanism if they lose a significant number of access line customers (CD Nov 27 p1). “The companies affected by this irrational rule have been forced to lay off significant portions of their workforce, institute hiring freezes and eliminate employee positions,” the coalition said. “In light of these circumstances, continued delay in adopting the Notice’s tentative conclusions would not only be irrational, but also would lead to additional lay offs and unemployment in geographic markets that have been particularly hard hit by the economic recession.” Revised rules should apply retroactively to 2008 and 2009 reporting periods, because LSS payments for 2008 won’t be finalized until the first quarter of 2010, it said.

Consumer advocates for the deaf urged action to fix fraud and other problems with the Video Relay Services fund, in a workshop Thursday at the FCC. They called for better and more transparent oversight to promote functional equivalency required by the Americans With Disabilities Act. Thursday’s forum was a chance to “reevaluate and review video relay service and the program as a way to build on its strengths and weed out its deficiencies,” said Greg Hlibok, an attorney in the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau.

Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday $182 million in broadband grants for 18 projects, in the first round of NTIA and RUS funding under the stimulus law. The grants benefit projects in 17 states and are matched by more than $46 million in private capital, Biden’s office said. A report by the president’s National Economic Council highlighted some of the winning projects, which aim to build last- and middle-mile infrastructure, connect community institutions and promote digital literacy and economic development. Two awards for middle-mile projects will go to public private-partnerships, the council said. One is a $39.7 million grant for a project in rural upstate New York by the ION company and the Development Authority of the North Country that will connect more than 100 anchor institutions and support connections to 250,000 households and 38,000 businesses, it said. Meanwhile, a partnership among service providers and the University of Maine got a $25.4 million grant to build three fiber rings across rural Maine. Middle-mile awards weren’t limited to partnerships. The administration gave a $33.5 million grant to the North Georgia Network Cooperative to build a 260-mile fiber ring in eight poor counties in the Appalachian region of North Carolina and northern Georgia. Meanwhile, The Consolidated Electric Cooperative will receive $2.4 million to build a 166-mile network in North Central Ohio, connecting 16 electric substations to support a smart grid effort, and allowing CEC to sell fiber to customers and last-mile providers. A last-mile grant for Rivada Sea Lion will bring low-cost broadband to 30,000 residents in 53 unserved, tribal communities in southwestern Alaska for the first time, the council said. The administration also gave a last-mile grant to Bretton Woods Telephone in New Hampshire for a fiber-to-the-home project that will connect 386 households, 19 businesses and six institutions with two-way, 20 Mbps broadband. The council highlighted a public computer center grant to the Arizona State Library Archives and Public Records, which will provide additional public computers to 84 libraries.

An FCC clarification that subcontractors providing government telecom services have a Universal Service Fund contribution exemption would reduce expenses for government end-users and taxpayers, Stratos Government Services told the Wireline Bureau in a presentation about its petition for the ruling. Northrop Grumman, Artel, CapRock, and Globecomm support the petition, and Verizon is the only opponent, it said in an ex parte filing. The petition promotes competitive neutrality, Stratos said: Subcontractors that don’t rely on the exemption are competing with subcontractors that assume they're exempt.

Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday $182 million in broadband grants for 18 projects, in the first round of NTIA and RUS funding under the stimulus law. The grants benefit projects in 17 states and are matched by more than $46 million in private capital, Biden’s office said. A report by the president’s National Economic Council highlighted some of the winning projects, which aim to build last- and middle-mile infrastructure, connect community institutions and promote digital literacy and economic development.

The FCC broadband team believes private investment is essential and competition drives innovation and better choices, said Blair Levin, the plan coordinator, at the commission’s meeting Wednesday. The U.S. must make better use of “existing assets” such as the Universal Service Fund, spectrum and rights of way, he said. Chairman Julius Genachowski agreed that USF and spectrum are critical areas and said the government can’t afford to put off a thorough USF overhaul much longer.

The FCC tentatively concluded that the timing of the National Broadband Plan makes it impossible to overhaul the Universal Service Fund high-cost support mechanism for non-rural carriers like Qwest “at this time.” The commission had committed to answer a remand by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the subject by April 16. In a further notice of proposed rulemaking released late Tuesday, the commission sought comment on specific “interim changes” to address the court’s concerns and marketplace changes. While voting for the order, Commissioners Meredith Baker and Robert McDowell expressed some disappointment that the notice didn’t say more.

The National Broadband Plan must create a new competition policy to break from past mistakes and trigger new market forces, Free Press said. The plan should judge whether the economics of next-generation networks will put much of the country under natural monopolies, it said. The group asked the FCC to rewrite the rules for Universal Service Fund support for rural phone companies to structure subsidies in recognition of the possibilities of a converged broadband network. And the Commission should fix the middle- mile problem by keeping rates fair in places where monopoly pricing is running up the cost of network capacity. It should then impose a system to collect data to map all U.S. middle-mile infrastructure. One way to reduce middle-mile transport costs might be to create a national fiber network to link public institutions, Free Press said. The broadband plan should also take into account whether reassigning the public airwaves will reduce wireless competition and should recommend programs to bring equipment, training and low-cost connectivity to disadvantaged communities, the group said. It may be too late to gather much new information to help the FCC complete the national plan by the February deadline, it said, but the commission should set out a plan of action for collecting data to help carry out the recommendations over the next several years.

CompTel said its competitive-carrier members face “significant market barriers” in China, Egypt, India, Germany, Argentina and South Africa. The countries aren’t complying with World Trade Organization obligations or U.S. telecom trade agreements, CompTel said in comments filed Monday with the U.S. Trade Representative. The association said Argentina unfairly discriminates regarding universal service funding. China has “burdensome” capitalization requirements and it hasn’t carried out its duties under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), CompTel said. Egypt has failed to provide under GATS full market access and national treatment for fixed line voice and data service providers, including international services, it said. Germany also has failed to fulfill all its GATS promises, it lacks “transparency and objectivity,” and it has failed to live up to its access and interconnection duties, CompTel said. India has “discriminatory universal service and regulatory fees, excessive pricing of leased lines, burdensome and unnecessary regulation relating to encryption and network monitoring, and excessive annual regulatory fees,” it said. South Africa provides no access to submarine cable landing stations and it may impose foreign-ownership limits on service providers, CompTel said.

Idaho’s Public Utilities Commission told eight rural phone companies to adjust their rates closer to the statewide average if they want to keep receiving state universal service funds. The commission’s announcement Friday listed annual USF subsidies to Fremont Telecom ($66,636), ATC Communications ($63,850), Cambridge Telephone ($29,218), Midvale Telephone ($28,875), Direct Communications Rockland ($19,446), Inland Telephone ($15,557), Rural Telephone ($13,907) and Silver Star Telecom ($7,424). Idaho supports its fund by charging phone customers 10 cents monthly per residential line, 17 cents a business line and one-third of a cent a long-distance minute. To get USF money, a rural telco’s average residential and business local exchange rates must exceed 125 percent of the weighted statewide average rates for the services. Since 2005, when Idaho started allowing carriers to remove themselves from price regulation, the weighted average rates for customers of the two largest