People with disabilities could gain easier access to communications technologies under the discussion draft of a bill released Friday by House Commerce Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass. The bill would extend a federal law that requires hearing aid compatibility on newly manufactured and imported telephones used to provide Internet-enabled communication service. It also would ensure that telecommunications relay services would enable people with hearing or speech disabilities to communicate with anyone, not just those with speech or hearing disabilities. Another section of the draft would allow consumers with disabilities to be eligible for Universal Service Fund support. The draft would raise the number of devices required to display closed caption information. Another section of the draft would ensure continued accessibility of video programming on the Internet to people with disabilities. Multichannel video program distributors would be required to make navigational programming accessible to people who can’t read visual displays so they can make program selections. And devices that receive or display video programming would have to be accessible by people with disabilities for all functions, such as turning devices on and off, volume control and selection of programming. Buttons must be provided on remote controls providing access to these features, the draft says.

People with disabilities could gain easier access to communications technologies under the discussion draft of a bill released Friday by House Commerce Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass. The bill would extend a federal law that requires hearing aid compatibility on newly manufactured and imported telephones used to provide Internet-enabled communication service. It also would ensure that telecommunications relay services would enable people with hearing or speech disabilities to communicate with anyone, not just those with speech or hearing disabilities. Another section of the draft would allow consumers with disabilities to be eligible for Universal Service Fund support. The draft would raise the number of devices required to display closed caption information. Another section of the draft would ensure continued accessibility of video programming on the Internet to people with disabilities. Multichannel video program distributors would be required to make navigational programming accessible to people who can’t read visual displays so they can make program selections. And devices that receive or display video programming would have to be accessible by people with disabilities for all functions, such as turning devices on and off, volume control and selection of programming. Buttons must be provided on remote controls providing access to these features, the draft says.

The Benton Foundation blasted the Bush administration for failing to achieve universal broadband access by 2007. Mostly completed in September, the report was held until now so it could include material on a November Joint Board on Universal Service decision to include broadband as a supported service, said Charles Benton, foundation CEO and founder. The board ordered the FCC to create a specific broadband fund under the program, a “critical first step,” but not enough unless the “FCC acts immediately,” the report said. And the $300 million proposed annual broadband fund is “woefully inadequate for tackling the challenge at hand,” the report said. With broadband deployment costing $1,000 a line, a $300 million yearly fund at most would add 300,000 broadband connections, boosting penetration “only about 1 percent,” the report said. The National Exchange Carrier Association pegs annual costs at closer to $3 billion. The Bush administration should have drafted a strategy for universal broadband deployment, the report said. Nearly 60 percent of households with incomes above $150,000 have broadband, compared with less than 10 percent of households with incomes below $25,000. Broadband deployment should be covered under the Universal Service Fund, especially for rural areas, the report said. “Making the transition to broadband can, over the long run, save consumers tremendously,” the report said. Broadband service costs could be lowered through a “modernized” USF program and policies allowing municipalities to offer the service, it said.

The Benton Foundation blasted the Bush administration for failing to achieve universal broadband access by 2007. Mostly completed in September, the report was held until now so it could include material on a November Joint Board on Universal Service decision to include broadband as a supported service, said Charles Benton, foundation CEO and founder. The board ordered the FCC to create a specific broadband fund under the program, a “critical first step,” but not enough unless the “FCC acts immediately,” the report said. And the $300 million proposed annual broadband fund is “woefully inadequate for tackling the challenge at hand,” the report said. With broadband deployment costing $1,000 a line, a $300 million yearly fund at most would add 300,000 broadband connections, boosting penetration “only about 1 percent,” the report said. The National Exchange Carrier Association pegs annual costs at closer to $3 billion. The Bush administration should have drafted a strategy for universal broadband deployment, the report said. Nearly 60 percent of households with incomes above $150,000 have broadband, compared with less than 10 percent of households with incomes below $25,000. Broadband deployment should be covered under the Universal Service Fund, especially for rural areas, the report said. “Making the transition to broadband can, over the long run, save consumers tremendously,” the report said. Broadband service costs could be lowered through a “modernized” USF program and policies allowing municipalities to offer the service, it said.

President Bush said Thursday he is “disappointed” that Congress failed to pass bills immunizing telecom providers for their alleged roles in a post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program. “The first priority of Congress when it returns in the new year must be to pass a good bill and get it to my desk promptly,” Bush told a press briefing. “They have a duty to give our professionals the tools necessary to protect the American people.”

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell on Thursday questioned the need to vote for a proposal to put an interim cap on Universal Service Fund subsidies for competitive telecom companies. The commission already may have acted by default on the interim measure in setting caps as a condition to its approvals this year of several acquisitions, McDowell told reporters at a press event. “The same goal may already have been accomplished,” he said. It might make more sense to move directly to long- term USF reform, he told reporters. Asked if his comments indicate he would vote no on the interim cap, McDowell said, “the question is have we already voted?”

President Bush said Thursday he is “disappointed” that Congress failed to pass bills immunizing telecom providers for their alleged roles in a post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program. “The first priority of Congress when it returns in the new year must be to pass a good bill and get it to my desk promptly,” Bush told a press briefing. “They have a duty to give our professionals the tools necessary to protect the American people.”

The FCC should move quickly to approve an interim cap on universal service support to competitive rural carriers, so it can address longer-term reform, TracFone Wireless said in an ex parte letter filed Tuesday at the FCC. The company wants an interim cap on both incumbent and competitive carriers, but “time is of the essence” and a cap on competitive carriers might be approved faster, it said. It’s been seven months since the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service recommended capping competitive carriers to halt Universal Service Fund growth, TracFone said. By acting now on that proposal, the FCC could stabilize the fund and advance wider reform, it said. TracFone isn’t a facilities- based provider, so it doesn’t get USF support. But it seeks status as an “eligible telecom provider” so it can get universal service money for providing Lifeline service.

The proportion of long distance revenue carriers must contribute to the Universal Service Fund in first quarter 2008 fell 10.2 percent from 11 percent this quarter, the FCC said Friday. To get the “contribution factor,” the agency divides projected carrier revenue by expected USF subsidies for the quarter. Of an estimated $1.9 billion in first 2008 quarter subsidies, $1.14 billion is for the rural high-cost program, with $535.6 million for the E-rate program, $209 million for low-income support and $25 million for the rural health-care program.

Sixteen wireless companies warned Senate leaders that an FCC-proposed temporary cap on universal service funding for competitive rural companies, such as wireless, easily could become permanent. “The FCC suggests that the interim cap would only last until long term reforms are adopted, yet it has neither a deadline nor an incentive to complete long-term universal service reform,” the companies said in a letter sent Tuesday. A competitors-only cap “would slow momentum toward appropriate reform of the universal service system that is needed to more effectively promote both broadband and mobile services across the country,” they told Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Ranking Member Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. A Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service reform plan is no better, the letter said. “The board’s idea that regulators are going to select a single provider in each area to receive support for wireline, broadband and mobility, respectively, turns the 1996 [Telecommunications] Act on its head,” the carriers wrote. “Further, the proposal to delegate to state commissions the ability to select a favored recipient of funding for each service in each area… is fraught with opportunities for jurisdictional and regulatory conflict.”