The FCC must fix its audit program for the Universal Service Fund high-cost program, USTelecom and CTIA said Friday in a scathing letter to commissioners. The associations queried the accuracy of a November audit report from the FCC Office of Inspector General, which said the high-cost fund had an error payment rate of 23.3 percent. “The current audit program … results in misleading statistics generated as improper payments under the” 2002 Improper Payments Information Act, “which undermines the credibility of the audits and the USF,” they said.

FCC orders responded to a slew of requests by carriers seeking waivers of various Universal Service Fund filing deadlines. In one of the orders released Tuesday, the commission granted requests by Grande Communications, Hardy Telecommunications, iBroadband, Pattersonville Telephone, IT&E Overseas, Micronesian Telecom, PTI Pacifica, Westex Wireless and Thumb Cellular. In another, the commission granted a request by Northeast Iowa Telephone. In a third, the FCC partly granted a request by Xfone USA. In a fourth, the agency denied waiver requests by LBH, Knology and U.S. Cellular.

The FCC should allow rate-of-return carriers to allocate federal audit expenses completely to interstate jurisdiction, said small carriers supporting a petition by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. The change would make recovery of audit expenses more certain, and save small companies time and money, they said. However, Verizon condemned the petition as having “no basis,” and urged the FCC to do away with jurisdictional separations altogether.

The FCC approved $46 million in universal-service money for the development of six broadband telehealth networks, under the agency’s Rural Health Care pilot program. Five networks will link hundreds of hospitals in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and South Carolina, the commission said Thursday. Money was also approved for a network in Alaska, it said. Acting Chairman Michael Copps said he hopes to approve additional health-care network funding soon. “There is great potential to improve health care for those communities that currently have limited access to primary, specialty and preventive care; as well as to enhance public safety by connecting health care providers, public health officials and first responders to these networks so that they can share crucial data during emergencies,” he said. The program has $417 million to spend on health-care broadband. Of 67 eligible projects, 29 “have developed or posted requests for proposals to select vendors to build out their broadband networks, while the remaining projects are preparing their requests for proposals as part of the competitive bidding process,” the FCC said.

Calculations used to measure the erroneous payment rate for the universal service high-cost fund lacked “transparency,” the Rural Cellular Association told the House and Senate Commerce committees Thursday. The association took issue with a November report from the FCC’s Office of Inspector General, which said the high-cost fund had an error payment rate 23.3 percent. A 2002 law calls government programs with rates higher than 2.3 percent “at risk.” The association said the IG’s report created the impression that nearly $1 billion of the fund goes to waste, fraud and abuse yearly. “Indeed, we believe some decision makers have already reached such a conclusion,” the group said by letter. The report blamed insufficient documentation for most erroneous payments, the association said, but it didn’t explain the conclusion. To set the record straight, the Government Accountability Office should examine how many payments listed as erroneous “have in fact been lawfully invested,” the association said. It also suggested an information request to competitive eligible telecommunications carriers and to incumbents, so they can help policymakers find out whether high-cost money is spent properly.

The FCC approved $46 million in universal-service money for the development of six broadband telehealth networks, under the agency’s Rural Health Care pilot program. Five networks will link hundreds of hospitals in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and South Carolina, the commission said Thursday. Money was also approved for a network in Alaska, it said. Acting Chairman Michael Copps said he hopes to approve additional health-care network funding soon. “There is great potential to improve health care for those communities that currently have limited access to primary, specialty and preventive care; as well as to enhance public safety by connecting health care providers, public health officials and first responders to these networks so that they can share crucial data during emergencies,” he said. The program has $417 million to spend on health-care broadband. Of 67 eligible projects, 29 “have developed or posted requests for proposals to select vendors to build out their broadband networks, while the remaining projects are preparing their requests for proposals as part of the competitive bidding process,” the FCC said.

The FCC released form 499-Q for figuring a Universal Service Fund contribution. This year’s instructions include “nonsubstantive clarifications to ensure that all contributors are properly reporting revenues and are treating similar revenues uniformly,” the commission said.

Comparing the U.S. to other countries on broadband availability will be the FCC’s toughest task as the agency implements the Broadband Data Improvement Act, telecom executives and researchers said in comments at the commission Friday. Many international reports miss key variables needed to draw accurate conclusions, they said. Although most comments focused broadly on how to satisfy Congress’ goals in the act, some groups urged the FCC to focus on special interest areas where they said information is lacking.

Verizon challenged a ruling by the Universal Service Administrative Co. to collect almost $556,000 in Rural Health Care program money from the carrier. USAC made the ruling after finding that one of the carrier’s customers, the Texas Healthcare Network, broke the FCC’s competitive-bidding rules. In a request for review at the FCC, Verizon said the healthcare network should pay the fine. “Verizon essentially served as a conduit through which USAC awarded funding to the RHC applicant,” it said. “It is inequitable to seek recovery from Verizon.”

The NTIA and the RUS should auction the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus grants instead of using a conventional application process, a group of 70 economists told the agencies in comments filed Monday, the deadline for suggestions on giving out the money. The economists argued that procurement auctions are a more-efficient way of disbursing the funds than the usual grant process, which they said is “long, complicated and involves subjective and arbitrary decisions.”