A Fla. state lawmaker whose Miami-Dade district includes a substantial proportion of low-income households urged the PSC to adopt a pending proposal for automatic Lifeline enrollment. Lifeline participation among eligible Fla. households is “profoundly disappointing,” State Rep. Juan Zapata (R), member of the House Business Regulation Committee, said. The state loses $30 million annually in payments to the federal universal service fund “because the Lifeline and LinkUp programs have essentially been permitted to fail,” he said. Automatic enrollment would cut that deficit and provide “deserving and eligible Floridians [with] the services for which more fortunate Floridians have paid,” he said. The proposal by the Office of Public Counsel and AARP would require local exchange providers to work with the PSC and Dept. of Children & Families, automatically enrolling all Fla. households that qualify for public assistance. In a related action, the PSC granted Attorney Gen. Charles Crist’s (R) request to become a formal party to the Lifeline enrollment case. Crist said he supports automatic Lifeline enrollment.

E. LANSING, Mich. -- The once-sharp distinctions between telecom and media are blurring as digital telecom devices and services develop into a delivery vehicle for radio, movies, TV channels and games, FCC Comr. Tate told a Michigan State U. audience Tues. She said every day sees some new development in wireless and Internet video, in technology or market concepts, that blurs the line a bit more.

Having largely failed at selling products through mass retailers, InFocus is returning to its roots in the educational and corporate markets while keeping ties to the custom installation business, CEO Kyle Ranson said Tues. in an earnings conference call with analysts.

Four Republican House Commerce Committee members are in close races, with Rep. Wilson (N.M.) Hardest pressed. Wilson, active on telecom matters, is running several points behind N.M. Attorney Gen. Patricia Madrid (D). Rep. Cubin (R-Wyo.), a leader on some Universal Service Fund matters, enjoys a stronger position coming from a staunchly red state, but still faces a strong challenge from Democrat Gary Trauner. Most polls have Cubin, Reps. Ferguson (R-N.J.) and Bass (R-N.H.) leading, but the races could go either way.

More than a third of the country’s state regulators want the FCC to alter or kill the Missoula Plan for intercarrier compensation reform, according to comments filed late Wed. Most concerned voices speak for one of 2 types of states: (1) “Early adopters” that already implemented access charge reforms, resulting in higher consumer costs -- and don’t want to do so again. (2) “Payer” states where carriers put more into the universal service fund than they get back. They tend to be urban states with fewer rural LECs and see more payouts as unfair.

The Missoula Plan -- industry’s latest proposal to reform intercarrier compensation -- has gained the backing of midsized phone companies Embarq and Windstream. The announcement, made as comments on the plan were being filed Wed. at the FCC, matters because it signals broader support. Critics have derided the Missoula plan as backed mainly by 2 Bells, AT&T and BellSouth, and rural ILECs. The plan has a sprinkling of support from other segments, but most CLECs, wireless and cable companies don’t support it.

Among directions for ICANN to expand its mission, only one is legitimate, a spokesman for Internet companies said Wed.: Creating a multilingual Internet. In a conference call ahead of next week’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Athens, NetChoice Coalition Exec. Dir. Steve DelBianco said the group wants a “firewall” to keep inappropriate tasks from being forced on ICANN by dictatorial regimes, economic- justice activists and companies. NetChoice includes AOL, VeriSign, Yahoo, Oracle and eBay. The IGF grew out of international ire at the leading U.S. role in ICANN and congressional support of that role, he said. Govts. have legitimate reasons to want to build Internet “capacity” -- give developing nations their own ccTLDs, enact consumer protection measures to stop spam and protect intellectual property and ensure Internet integrity by fighting phishing and ensuring sites are authentic, DelBianco said. But those goals aren’t ICANN’s business; it should be focusing on DNS security and stability, he added. According to DelBianco, especially bad ideas for new ICANN jurisdiction include: (1) Subsidizing infrastructure in poor countries via a version of the Universal Service Fund, based on DNS fees, emerging from the voluntary Digital Solidarity Fund (WID Feb 28/05 p1). The South Centre and Assn. for Progressive Communications urge a “parallel” agenda at IGF to focus on funding for developing nations. (2) Foisting open-source software and the Open Document Format on registries, registrars and others touching core Internet functions, a Sun proposal that is “transparently self serving” and would “corrupt” the IGF. (3) Closing the Whois database, pushed by the Internet Governance Project, to guard registrant privacy. The FTC has said that would cut off a primary investigative tool for agency consumer-protection cases, DelBianco said. (4) The least justifiable goal for ICANN is thinly veiled censorship, pushed by China, Iran and Zimbabwe, whose Pres. Robert Mugabe has said an open Internet promotes “nihilistic” viewpoints, DelBianco said. Those countries would ask a newly empowered ICANN to revoke domain names for websites considered offensive, he said. Groups pushing for those additions to ICANN’s jurisdiction are “putting their own agendas at risk” by “wasting time” and scarce resources lobbying a forum that surely will spurn them, he said. “Even if ICANN means to say no, it takes several years” due to its decision-making means, DelBianco said. The firewall NetChoice wants isn’t a “brick wall,” he added. UNESCO and the Native Language Internet Consortium seek internationalized domain names (IDNs), which have their own program at ICANN that “needs to move faster,” he said. Generic TLDs must use ASCII characters to work, a “significant inconvenience” for many foreign users. NetChoice belongs to the ICANN Business Constituency, which gives IDNs higher priority than new gTLDs (WID Aug 22 p2). ICANN “will never satisfy many of the groups” meeting in Athens, but its jurisdiction must remain limited to preserve the IGF’s goals of freedom of expression, consumer protection and interoperability, he said.

Debate over net neutrality keeps Congress from addressing 2 issues with more impact on expanding broadband access, ex-FCC Chmn. William Kennard said Sat. in a N.Y. Times op-ed. Instead of focusing on net neutrality, Kennard said, Congress should: (1) Reform the Universal Service Fund (USF) by finding “a new source of revenue” to better support expanded broadband access. The USF should start supporting broadband access, but “the fund in its current form is not an effective way” to do so, he said: “We must find a new source of revenue that does not exclusively tax users of the phone network.” One possibility is a reverse auction, an idea raised by FCC Chmn. Martin, he said. (2) Pass a national franchising law to speed services to consumers. Cable and phone providers are hurrying to offer bundled services but “the legacy of historic regulation puts the telephone companies at a serious disadvantage in quickly deploying video services,” Kennard wrote: “Congress punted on both of these issues this year in large part because of the polarizing net neutrality debate. Now the combatants are set to throw millions more dollars into [the net neutrality debate] when Congress revisits new telecommunications legislation. Policymakers should rise above the net neutrality debate and focus on what America truly requires from the Internet: getting affordable broadband access to those who need it.”

Debate over net neutrality keeps Congress from addressing 2 issues with more impact on expanding broadband access, ex-FCC Chmn. William Kennard said Sat. in a N.Y. Times op-ed. Instead of focusing on net neutrality, Kennard said, Congress should: (1) Reform the Universal Service Fund (USF) by finding “a new source of revenue” to better support expanded broadband access. The USF should start supporting broadband access, but “the fund in its current form is not an effective way” to do so, he said: “We must find a new source of revenue that does not exclusively tax users of the phone network.” One possibility is a reverse auction, an idea raised by FCC Chmn. Martin, he said. (2) Pass a national franchising law to speed services to consumers. Cable and phone providers are hurrying to offer bundled services but “the legacy of historic regulation puts the telephone companies at a serious disadvantage in quickly deploying video services,” Kennard wrote: “Congress punted on both of these issues this year in large part because of the polarizing net neutrality debate. Now the combatants are set to throw millions more dollars into [the net neutrality debate] when Congress revisits new telecommunications legislation. Policymakers should rise above the net neutrality debate and focus on what America truly requires from the Internet: getting affordable broadband access to those who need it.”

Public broadcasting stations are “very concerned” about the FCC’s indecency policies because the huge fines can put them out of business, said CPB Pres. Patricia Harrison. “No one really understands what the [indecency] guidelines are,” she said on C-SPAN. Public broadcasters face the FCC targeting documentaries, she said. As an example of how the policies chill freedom of expression, she cited several stations recently deciding not to air a PBS historical documentary on Marie Antoinette after realizing that touchy scenes and language could air before the 10 p.m. safe harbor (CD Sept 27 p12).