STANFORD, Calif. -- The Verizon Wireless new open-mobile business unit’s head sees himself as an internal “insurgent, a competitor against the rest of the business.” But Anthony Lewis, vice president of open development, said late Wednesday that he’s in the catbird seat as the rest of the company scrambles to align with industry’s new openness. “I'm the lead dog,” he said at the AlwaysOn and STVP Summit at Stanford University. “They're chasing me.”

STANFORD, Calif. -- The Verizon Wireless new open-mobile business unit’s head sees himself as an internal “insurgent, a competitor against the rest of the business.” But Anthony Lewis, vice president of open development, said late Wednesday that he’s in the catbird seat as the rest of the company scrambles to align with industry’s new openness. “I'm the lead dog,” he said at the AlwaysOn and STVP Summit at Stanford University. “They're chasing me.”

PORTLAND, Ore. State regulators Wednesday called for a joint federal-state task force to develop national wireless consumer protection standards enforced by a partnership of federal and state authorities. The resolution, adopted by the board of the National Association of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners, marks a major change in NARUC policy.

SES Americom agreed to continue serving the Navajo Nation until Aug. 1, an SES spokesman told us Tuesday. SES had planned to cut off service to the Navajo Nation on Tuesday (CD July 22 p14), but was persuaded by the FCC to continue serving the tribe, the spokesman said. “The FCC suggested we could be flexible once again,” he said, noting that SES extended service past the end of its contract with OnSat.

PORTLAND, Ore. State telecom regulators at their summer meeting adopted a controversial resolution urging policymakers to continue states’ active role in overseeing interconnection and resolving interconnection disputes, no matter what new telecom technologies for voice service see use. But at our deadline they had not decided on another touchy resolution that would call for state-enforced national wireless consumer protection standards.

Broadband prices may be too high, two FCC members said at the start late Monday of a commission hearing in Pittsburgh on the technology. “The cost of broadband is still too high for some consumers,” said Chairman Kevin Martin, citing Free Press research. Still, he said, the commission has made “significant progress” removing barriers to broadband and other telecom competition. The FCC must “promote and preserve” the Internet’s “open character,” Martin said, noting that the agency has before it a complaint against Comcast involving BitTorrent (CD July 16 p2).

Broadband prices may be too high, two FCC members said at the start late Monday of a commission hearing in Pittsburgh on the technology. “The cost of broadband is still too high for some consumers,” said Chairman Kevin Martin, citing Free Press research. Still, he said, the commission has made “significant progress” removing barriers to broadband and other telecom competition. The FCC must “promote and preserve” the Internet’s “open character,” Martin said, noting that the agency has before it a complaint against Comcast involving BitTorrent.

The Navajo Nation risks losing its communications services provided by SES Americom on Tuesday due to bureaucratic discord, it said. “It is totally unfair to the Navajo people to have these vital communications services withdrawn because of some differences of opinion in Washington over issues that they have not yet even specified,” said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley. To fend off a shutoff, Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin late last week urging he order the U.S. Administrative Corp. to explain why it is holding back universal service E-rate funds from 2006. USAC told the Navajo Nation in March that it was placing a hold on $2.1 million, the senators wrote. OnSat and subcontractors shut off service to Navajo Nation Chapter Houses in April and SES Americom will cease service Tuesday, the senators said. “Satellite service is the primary means of communication among the [Navajo] Nation’s police, fire and emergency medical responders. Even though the public safety communications component is not part of E-rate funding and is paid for separately, the termination of the satellite transmission service affects all communications for the Nation,” the senators wrote. The FCC has received and is reviewing the letter, an FCC spokesman said. SES Americom didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Audio-bridging providers have until Aug. 1 to begin filing FCC Form 499-Q to contribute to the Universal Service Fund, the FCC said last week in a public notice. The Universal Administrative Co. will collect contributions in October. The FCC last month ordered audio-bridging providers to contribute to the USF (CD July 1 p6).

Today’s intercarrier compensation regime discourages broadband deployment and promotes access charge arbitrage, AT&T said Thursday. The Bell wants comprehensive intercarrier compensation reform, and filed a proposal for that with the FCC. Agency rules focus “on a rapidly obsolescing POTS network architecture and business model,” said Bob Quinn, AT&T federal regulatory senior vice president, in a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. These controls “retard the inevitable transition from a narrow-band, voice-centric infrastructure to the broadband, any-application infrastructure of the 21st century,” he added. The FCC should harmonize termination rates for all carriers, AT&T said, also endorsing FCC use of a comparability benchmark to facilitate nationwide comparable end-user rates. Using a benchmark would protect states that have lowered intrastate access rates and created state high- cost universal service funds, AT&T said. The FCC should act fast to overhaul intercarrier compensation, AT&T said. The compensation issue is fragmented into multiple proceedings -- including ISP-bound traffic, traffic pumping and phantom traffic, among others -- unsettling the marketplace, it said. If the FCC ignores comprehensive reform this year, “it will have no choice but to keep applying regulatory band-aids as each new intercarrier compensation problem arises or, more realistically, long after each problem has arisen and has caused significant damage,” Quinn said. If the FCC rejects comprehensive reform, AT&T said, it should grant an AT&T petition for declaratory ruling and waiver related to VoIP compensation, also filed Thursday. AT&T wants the FCC to declare, on an “interim” basis, that carriers may collect access charges from telecom companies serving VoIP providers, “as long as the calls appear to be ‘interexchange,'” and “the charges are not higher than the terminating carrier’s tariffed interstate switched access rates, it said. AT&T also wants the FCC to allow AT&T and “similarly situated carriers to offset the reductions they make in intrastate terminating rates to achieve parity with interstate rate levels by waiving certain price cap rules to allow increases in federal subscriber line charges,” it said. The petition offers “middleground” between two conflicting forbearance petitions filed by Embarq and Feature Group IP (CD Feb 20 p14), an AT&T spokesman said.