The FCC, states and cellular carriers should come to terms on early termination fees and remove that “distraction” for good, Nebraska Public Utility Commissioner Ann Boyle said on a panel Tuesday at NARUC’s winter meeting in Washington. The group seeks to draft consumer-protection standards for cellphone users.

Michael Copps wants to “cultivate predictability” by making “fact-based” decisions with information gathered “neutrally” by career FCC staffers, he said at his first news conference as acting chairman. He said the commissioners will be included by meeting more often with bureau staffers and by getting options memos, drafts of orders and other documents about the time he does. The changes have started with more-frequent meetings and with commissioners getting items ahead of time (CD Feb 11 p3), FCC officials said. But Copps said change will take time and he hasn’t finished culling lists of long-pending items that bureaus gave him at his request so he can decide what to dispose of.

YouTube isn’t the only popular Web site having trouble getting advertisers to consider running ads on user-generated content. College gossip site JuicyCampus.com shut down Thursday, the victim of a harsh advertising climate, according to its founder. But the site -- reviled by some students and university officials for letting anyone anonymously post mean-spirited and often sexually explicit comments about others -- was under investigation in at least two states on allegations of defrauding consumers.

Small incumbent local exchange carriers should be able to receive more local switching support when they lose a significant number of access lines, said a group of rural carrier associations in a letter to the FCC. The letter, which backed a petition by the Coalition for Equity in Switching Support, was signed by the National Exchange Carrier Association, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, the Western Telecommunications Alliance and the Organization for Promotion & Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. Under FCC rules, a small ILEC’s LSS support is reduced when its number of access lines climbs above a dial equipment minute weight threshold. However, the reverse is not true, they said: a small ILEC won’t get more support if its access line count falls below the threshold. Changing the rule will expand the universal service fund by about $11.7 million, the rural groups estimated. “This amount is less than 0.2 percent of the $6.95 billion USF, and therefore granting the request for clarification would not have a perceptible impact on the overall Fund.”

The FCC is expected to jump back into revamping the USF and intercarrier compensation regimes as early as summer, if as expected, Julius Genachowski is appointed and clears the Senate to become the chairman in the next few months, officials said. With the analog TV cutoff postponed, it’s unclear what the commission will deal with at its meetings from March to May.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., was nominated to become Secretary of Commerce, the White House announced Tuesday. Gregg, in his third Senate term, is the Budget Committee’s ranking member. Gregg oversaw the FCC’s budget for several years while on the Appropriations Committee. In 2004, he was instrumental in amending a bill that would have barred the FCC from imposing a primary-line restriction on universal service fund support. In late January, he introduced S-300 to give the government authority to continue to issue converter box coupons without regard to whether they were fully funded. Gregg’s nomination brought statements of support from members on both sides of the aisle and from business and technology groups.

REAL ID and similar identification cards still pose privacy problems, and so do border searches and seizures of digital information, the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security told Secretary Janet Napolitano and acting Chief Privacy Officer John Kropf in a letter completed Tuesday. The letter outlines recommendations on central privacy matters for the new administration to review.

Commissioner Robert McDowell’s “geeky FCC reform wish list” includes enhanced communication, administrative audits and agency restructuring, the Republican said at a lunch Monday hosted by the Federal Communications Bar Association. He gave more details on ideas pitched in a letter sent last week to Acting Chairman Michael Copps (CD Jan 28 p1). Copps and Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein also attended the event, but didn’t comment on their colleague’s suggestions. The three have agreed to boost FCC staff morale, promote transparency, encourage meaningful public comment and create “a more informed, collaborative and considerate decision- making process,” McDowell said.

The FCC should reverse two findings by the Universal Service Administrative Co. in an audit of Madison River Communications, said Level 3 and two other competitive local exchange carriers. In comments last week on a petition for review, no one took USAC’s side. USAC had determined that Madison River owes universal service fund and Telecommunications Relay Service fund contribution payments on intrastate T-1 revenue received from customers during 2005, because the company couldn’t prove the revenue was intrastate. But under FCC rules, Madison’s circuits are assumed to be intrastate unless the company certifies otherwise, said Level 3 and Paetec. “USAC’s view … represents an unprecedented ‘land grab’ of state regulatory authority that would have severe consequences for states, the industry, and consumers,” they said. Madison River also challenged a USAC determination that it should have reported the transmission portion of its Internet access services separately as assessable telecommunications service revenue. Madison River shouldn’t owe USF money for its transmission components in 2005 because at the time the FCC considered wireline broadband Internet access an information service not subject to USF assessment, Level 3 and Paetec said. Also, they said, “wireline broadband Internet services that are single, integrated service offerings -- as compared to bundled packages of stand-alone telecommunications and information services -- have never been subject to USF assessment.”

The U.K. government plans a detailed analysis of supply, demand and regulatory measures needed to spur next-generation broadband networks, said the “Digital Britain” report by Stephen Carter, the communications, technology and broadcasting minister. Action may include removing barriers to developing a wider wholesale market in access to ducts and other primary infrastructure, and determining whether public incentives could help deployment.