The Coalition to Keep America Connected will intensify efforts to get the FCC to impose a temporary cap on universal service funding for competitive eligible telecommunications carriers, it said. With Congress back in session, the group will press members to back the proposed temporary cap, it said. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., is the most recent member to join 21 colleagues who have written asking the Commission to adopt the ban out of concern that consumers will see rising phone bills if no corrective steps are taken. One letter writer, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, will resign Sept. 30 as a result of a furor over his pleading guilty to soliciting sex in a public restroom.

The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association said an FCC order released Wednesday reforming administration of the Universal Service Fund seems to be a step in the right direction. “While we are still reviewing the details of the order -- and remain cautious about the administrative burdens that may accompany these new requirement -- we appreciate this important step toward ensuring the sustainability of the fund and subsequently the vitality of our nation’s communications network, NTCA said.

The FCC Wednesday released an order allowing the agency to come down hard on those trying to defraud the Universal Service Fund program. Under previous rules, the FCC could “debar” from participation in the program only those found to have defrauded the schools and libraries program. The rule change expands enforcement throughout the program. “Debarment of applicants, service providers, consultants, or others who have defrauded the USF is necessary to protect the integrity of the universal service program,” the order said. “We do not find any reason to exclude the high-cost, rural health care, or low-income programs from our debarment rules.”

If policymakers want to retain jobs and improve the quality of life in rural areas, they must focus on broadband technologies, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on broadband issues Tuesday in Little Rock, Ark. “Efforts to draw attention to the importance of high speed Internet access are critical,” Adelstein said at the hearing sponsored by Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). Public-private partnerships such as Connect Arkansas can plan an important role, he said. “It worked well in Kentucky, and it can work well in Arkansas,” he said, referring to the Connect Kentucky project to expand broadband availability and adoption in remote areas. “We need to make broadband the dial tone of the 21st century,” he said, repeating a call for a “national broadband strategy” with benchmarks and timetables. “Spectrum-based services” using wireless and satellite technologies offer “one of the best opportunities for promoting broadband, particularly in rural areas,” he said. Universal service subsidies should be used to extend broadband and wireless services into rural America, said Alltel CEO Scott Ford at the hearing. Though wireless subsidies have increased, “less than 25 percent of universal service high-cost funds go to support the deployment of wireless service, even though there are now more wireless subscribers,” Ford said. Criticizing a proposal at the FCC to cap universal service subsidies to wireless carriers, he said it’s “shortsighted” to not “recognize the importance of wireless universal service” in rural areas. Universal service “support for rural wireless is not a problem -- and an anti-competitive proposal to reduce universal service funding for wireless consumers is not the answer.”

If policymakers want to retain jobs and improve the quality of life in rural areas, they must focus on broadband technologies, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on broadband issues Tuesday in Little Rock, Ark. “Efforts to draw attention to the importance of high speed Internet access are critical,” Adelstein said at the hearing sponsored by Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). Public-private partnerships such as Connect Arkansas can plan an important role, he said. “It worked well in Kentucky, and it can work well in Arkansas,” he said, referring to the Connect Kentucky project to expand broadband availability and adoption in remote areas. “We need to make broadband the dial tone of the 21st century,” he said, repeating a call for a “national broadband strategy” with benchmarks and timetables. “Spectrum-based services” using wireless and satellite technologies offer “one of the best opportunities for promoting broadband, particularly in rural areas,” he said. “Those who get access to high-speed broadband will win; those who don’t will lose,” said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps: “It’s as simple as that. I want to help make sure we all get there and that America’s rural communities get there as soon as everyone else.” The “digital gap” will grow “if high-speed broadband is permitted to be primarily an urban phenomenon,” he said. There’s no “one-size-fits-all broadband solution” but, for one thing, the country needs “a Universal Service Fund that has broadband as its core mission,” Copps said. Another solution: “Encouraging communities to develop innovative solutions to getting broadband out.” Universal service subsidies should be used to extend broadband and wireless services into rural America, said Alltel CEO Scott Ford at the hearing. Though wireless subsidies have increased, “less than 25 percent of universal service high-cost funds go to support the deployment of wireless service, even though there are now more wireless subscribers,” Ford said. Criticizing a proposal at the FCC to cap universal service subsidies to wireless carriers, he said it’s “shortsighted” to not “recognize the importance of wireless universal service” in rural areas. Universal service “support for rural wireless is not a problem -- and an anti-competitive proposal to reduce universal service funding for wireless consumers is not the answer.”

The FCC should raise the income ceiling for LifeLine and Link-Up program eligibility so the programs are in line with a similar one subsidizing heating costs, the Iowa Utilities Board said in comments filed late Friday. The FCC voted in 2004 to raise the Lifeline and Link-Up eligibility ceiling to 135 percent of federal poverty guidelines, seeking comments on whether to raise it to 150 percent. The agency recently asked for comments to “refresh” that issue, which had lain dormant.

Sprint Nextel has done nothing to deserve being deprived of its eligibility for universal service support in Virginia, despite a petition by rural phone companies asking the FCC to revoke it, the company said in reply comments filed Thursday. TDS Telecom, FairPoint and Burke’s Garden Telephone said in a June 4 petition that Sprint Nextel’s NPCR subsidiary should lose its “eligible telecom carrier” (ETC) designation in Virginia because it operates in only a fraction of the study areas for which it is designated. Sprint Nextel said the rural telecom companies are using NPCR’s ETC designation “as an opportunity to once again oppose competitive wireless carriers’ participation in the high-cost universal service fund program.” CTIA agreed, accusing the rural phone companies of trying to replace the existing rules “with a burdensome system that encourages competitors to overrule consumer choice through regulation.” Better places to voice “dissatisfaction with the current rules” are “the broader rulemakings current before the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service and the FCC,” CTIA said. The three telecom companies said Sprint Nextel’s view “misses the mark.” There is “clear evidence” that although Sprint Nextel promised to build out its system “throughout its designated areas in Virginia, it instead built out almost exclusively in existing areas of coverage, along highways and in population centers,” they said.

Trans World Entertainment will test its in-store “Mix & Burn” music download service this year at 25 outlets, not 100 to 200 (CED Jan 4 p3), as it gauges consumer demand and return on investment, Chief Financial Officer John Sullivan told us. A 10-store test Trans World ran in 2006 of Mix & Burn in the F.Y.E. chain widened earlier this year to 25 outlets, including 10 in Providence, R.I.

State regulators need data in four FCC reports that AT&T no longer wants to fill out, two agencies told the FCC in comments filed Monday. States use the data to monitor service quality and competition, and the FCC reports are the only source for some information, they said.

Wireless carriers and equipment makers told the FCC it should defer any decision on tougher E-911 location standards until an industry-public safety group can gather and meet to study the changes’ technological feasibility. The companies hope that the FCC will set up a working group modeled on the Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee, which is looking at emergency alerts sent to cellphones. Comments were due this week in a second comment round on how to increase the accuracy of wireless E-911 (CD July 9 p5).