The FCC is looking at ways to spur more research and development as it develops its National Broadband Plan, commission officials said at a workshop Monday. The effort may include outreach and more emphasis on rules on enabling research, they said. Industry executives warned that the U.S. is falling behind in doing basic research, and that this could hurt U.S. competitiveness.

Liberty Media shareholders Thursday approved the split- off of Liberty Entertainment. The action sets the stage for a possible sale of DirecTV to a telco, analysts said. DirecTV shareholders approved the deal in a separate special meeting.

A Universal Service Fund revamp should be part of the National Broadband Plan, U.S. Cellular officials said in a meeting with FCC officials. “We discussed reform options including more accurately targeting support, developing more efficient distribution mechanisms, ensuring competitive neutrality, and portability, as well as options for reforming contributions to provide more flexibility going forward,” an ex parte letter said. “We also discussed the Commission’s statutory authority to use federal high-cost support for investment in broadband networks.”

Liberty Media shareholders Thursday approved the split- off of Liberty Entertainment. The action sets the stage for a possible sale of DirecTV to a telco, analysts said. DirecTV shareholders approved the deal in a separate special meeting.

Alaska’s Regulatory Commission said it made many decisions related to telecom in its fiscal year through June. The commission proposed regulations on access charge and state universal service policies, including whether to provide state universal service funding to local exchange carriers of last resort. In addition to handling several local rate cases, the commission denied a request by the Alaska Exchange Carriers Association for a retroactive increase in access rates to make up for a calculation error of about $678,000. In its annual Universal Service Fund certification to the FCC, the state commission reported that in 2008 Alaska carriers received roughly $160 million from the federal USF. Noting a surplus in the Telecommunications Relay Service fund, the commission cut the universal access surcharge to users in half to $0.05 a line monthly. The commission also opened a docket to figure out how to keep the 907 area code from running out of numbers. Consumer complaints led the commission to investigate a proposal to collect a $2 fee for each collect local call from a state inmate. The proposal was withdrawn, the commission said. Commissioners granted requests by GCI for designation as a wireless eligible telecommunications carrier in the study areas of Copper Valley Telephone, Interior Telephone, Ketchikan Public Utilities and Mukluk Telephone.

Any action the FCC takes on the Universal Service Fund “will be very cognizant of consumers and will be focused on looking at ways to break savings out of the system, so the impact on consumers can be lessened if at all possible,” Chairman Julius Genachowski told reporters after an FCC meeting Wednesday. A Wall Street Journal article that morning said the FCC was thinking about hiking consumer USF fees and imposing open-access policies. Also, Genachowski said a controversial Harvard University study on broadband should have equal weight with other information in the record.

The government should provide Universal Service Fund support for second- and middle-mile transport to carriers for a limited time period, Verizon said. Such support should only be in areas with limited broadband availability, low population density and places that are “more than a threshold distance from the closest long-haul network point of presence,” it said. The carrier met with the FCC’s broadband team on Monday, an ex parte filing said.

A draft Universal Service Fund reform bill won general praise from both sides of the aisle at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Tuesday. Nearly all applauded its plan to expand the fund to cover broadband, but there were differing opinions on how to pay for it. Rural lawmakers raised concerns about the proposal’s impact on support in hard-to-reach areas that could benefit from increased broadband deployment. Key Democrats support a separate bill that would create a “universal broadband fund.”

The FCC asked how long-pending overhauls for the Universal Service Fund (USF) and intercarrier compensation should fit into the agency’s National Broadband Plan. In its 19th public notice on the plan, released Friday, the commission sought comment on the USF’s size and contribution method, shifting USF money to broadband, the impact of any changes to revenue flows and the competitive landscape, and appropriate oversight of the high-cost fund. The agency also wants comment on establishing broadband Lifeline and Link-Up programs for low-income consumers, an idea discussed at a meeting last week (CD Nov 16 p1). Comments are due Dec. 7. The nine-page public notice shows the regulator recognizes that national broadband goals won’t be realized absent federal support, said Joshua Seidemann, regulatory affairs vice president of the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance. Some of the FCC’s questions could be interpreted as leaning to one side, but they're generally balanced by other questions tilting the other way, he said.

The Arkansas Telehealth Network asked the FCC for a one- year extension of the June 30, 2010, deadline for funding under the commission’s Rural Health Care Pilot Program. In a letter to the Wireline Bureau, the network also sought a waiver of a rule limiting the pilot program to three funding years. The Arkansas network received preliminary approval in the first request for proposals, but a long review at the Universal Service Administrative Co. and “staggered adoption and implementation” of rules and details related to participant sustainability plans “have pushed the timeframe for completion well behind schedule,” it said. “While ATN and the Commission are working together to identify solutions … the fact is that despite ATN’s concerted good-faith efforts a majority of the steps necessary for ATN to obtain funding commitments by the current June 30, 2010 deadline have not been completed, and the timely completion of such steps by the deadline is in serious jeopardy.”