The FCC banned Douglas Benit of Birmingham, Mich., from the Universal Service Fund E-Rate program for three years. Benit pleaded guilty in court to mail fraud in connection with the program and was sentenced to 46 months in prison, the commission said.

The highest priority in the FCC’s national broadband plan must center on strengthening and preserving universal service policies, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association said in a commission filing. The $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package and Universal Service Fund support are “woefully insufficient,” it said. The group urged the commission to increase the “high-cost USF support” substantially and include all broadband Internet service providers in the pool of USF contributors. The pool should also include content providers like Google, which impose “tremendous costs” on the broadband providers that make up the public Internet. The group also urged the FCC to define broadband based on high-speed Internet access capabilities during peak-hour or busy-hour load that are generally available in a significant sample of service offerings in urban areas to establish a standard of comparability and affordability in urban and rural areas; include “broadband Internet access service” in the definition of “universal service;” open a proceeding to define and identify “Market Failure Areas” throughout the U.S. and target these areas for future high-cost broadband USF; define a “Market Failure Area” as an area that doesn’t have the population base or economic foundation for any provider to justify broadband facilities build-out and ongoing maintenance without external monetary support. The commission must require interconnected VoIP service to pay intercarrier compensation during comprehensive USF, IC and broadband reform. State commissions should be allowed to voluntarily move intrastate originating and terminating access rates and rate structures. The FCC should adopt an alternative high-cost USF cost recovery mechanism prior to the implementation of USF and IC reform, regulate broadband access service providers under Title II common carrier regulation and apply a Title II earnings review to all broadband providers who voluntarily receive federal high-cost broadband USF support. The regulator should require all vertically integrated Internet backbone and special access transport provider rates to be cost-based and non-discriminatory. The broadband plan should eliminate the identical support rule and base support on competitive eligible telecommunications companies’ actual costs within five years. Meanwhile, enhancing rural health care and offering broadband to low-income consumers should be part of the plan. NCTA also urged the FCC to strive to apply Regulatory Flexibility Act and establish alternative rules to reduce the economic impact on small broadband providers.

The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association wants Google to pay into the Universal Service Fund. It told the FCC that the highest priority in the commission’s national broadband plan must center on strengthening and preserving universal service policies. The $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package and Universal Service Fund support are “woefully insufficient,” it said. The group urged the commission to increase the “high-cost USF support” substantially and include all broadband Internet service providers in the pool of USF contributors. The pool should also include content providers like Google, which impose “tremendous costs” on the broadband providers that make up the public Internet. The group also urged the FCC to define broadband based on high-speed Internet access capabilities during peak-hour or busy-hour load that are generally available in a significant sample of service offerings in urban areas to establish a standard of comparability and affordability in urban and rural areas; include “broadband Internet access service” in the definition of “universal service;” open a proceeding to define and identify “Market Failure Areas” throughout the U.S. and target these areas for future high-cost broadband USF; define a “Market Failure Area” as an area that doesn’t have the population base or economic foundation for any provider to justify broadband facilities build-out and ongoing maintenance without external monetary support. The commission must require interconnected VoIP service to pay intercarrier compensation during comprehensive USF, IC and broadband reform. The FCC should regulate broadband access service providers under Title II common carrier regulation and apply a Title II earnings review to all broadband providers who voluntarily receive federal high-cost broadband USF support. The regulator should require all vertically integrated Internet backbone and special access transport provider rates to be cost-based and non-discriminatory. Meanwhile, enhancing rural health care and offering broadband to low-income consumers should be part of the plan.

Many factors affect what actual impact broadband availability has on economic growth, economists cautioned the FCC in a broadband workshop Wednesday. Historically, broadband deployment has spurred economic growth in some -- but not all -- areas, they said. “If all we did is provide broadband to underserved communities, it would probably not provide any benefits at all,” said University of Maryland Prof. Brent Goldfarb.

During the August 5, 2009 Departmental Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Related Homeland Security Functions (COAC) meeting, CBP, other government officials, and COAC members provided an update on the Automated Commercial Environment.

The FCC should without delay require interconnected VoIP providers to contribute to state universal service based on intrastate traffic revenue, said the National Association of State Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Brad Ramsay, the association’s general counsel, met last week with an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski, said an ex parte filing late Monday. Not even Vonage has disagreed with the view that nomadic VoIP providers should contribute to state funds, the association said. Vonage contends that the FCC’s 2004 preemption order concerning the company said the commission was preempting states charging, but this month said the commission is “free to revisit its decision” by opening a rulemaking (CD Aug 18 p4). But the association said there’s “no legal or policy reason to delay issuing the requested declaration.” Without further proceedings, the FCC could clarify that a June 2006 order provided a method for assessing a state USF charge, it said. In that order, the commission created a “safe harbor” for setting federal USF contributions, because of the difficulty of separating intrastate and interstate revenue with VoIP. The FCC said 64.9 percent of VoIP revenue is subject to federal USF contribution. The association asked the FCC to clarify that the order “necessarily assumes a complementary State safe harbor of 35.1 percent without any additional proceedings.”

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated a Universal Service Fund item Friday about the E-rate program. It’s a notice of proposed rulemaking on updating the program to comply with last year’s Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, an FCC official told us.

Schools, libraries and hospitals told a Senate hearing Monday that they should be allowed to apply for broadband grants in the second round of funding. The hearing, held in Hawaii and chaired by Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, looked at progress under the stimulus law overall. The meeting included reports from federal and state officials and testimony from the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated three Universal Service Fund items Friday. They concerned the E- rate program, a petition by the Coalition for Equity in Switching Support about the high-cost program, and a petition by U.S. Cellular regarding Lifeline verification rules. The chairman also circulated an order Thursday closing a 1995 investigation into GTE tariffs. The E-rate item is a notice of proposed rulemaking on updating the program to comply with last year’s Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, an FCC official told us. The item on switching support includes an order and a notice of proposed rulemaking that would deny the coalition’s petition but open a new proceeding to look into the matter, the official said. The switching support coalition protested an FCC rule that reduces a small incumbent carrier’s LSS support when its number of access lines climbs above a specified threshold but doesn’t increase support if its access-line count falls below the threshold (April 22 p9).

Schools, libraries and hospitals told a Senate hearing Monday they should be allowed to apply for broadband grants in the second round of funding. The hearing, held in Hawaii and chaired by Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, looked at progress under the stimulus law overall. The meeting included reports from federal and state officials and testimony from the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition.