FCC Comr. Martin told reporters Tues. he wasn’t sure FCC should a...

based on connections, he said. Asked whether contributions proceeding was moving forward, he said agency hoped to act on proposal at last agenda meeting but wasn’t ready on time and there still was no draft proposal circulating among commissioners’ offices. FCC is trying to develop new method of determining how much carriers pay to support universal service program because current revenue- based program has developed problems. For example, many say current system doesn’t accurately take into account growth of wireless services and penalizes carriers whose revenue is declining. Martin said at press breakfast that he thought current system could be tweaked easily to solve those problems. For example, contribution from wireless carriers could be increased by raising current wireless cap, which wireless industry has said it would accept, he said. Best course, he said, is to address wireless cap and declining revenue problem now and continue to seek comment on broader issues. Although several carriers have suggested using system that would base contributions on how many connections carrier made to telephone network, Martin said he thought telephone number-based system would make more sense. Among other things, it would offer way to migrate assessment of universal service contributions to Internet telephony, he said. Number-based system would work well when carriers moved to IP telephony because telephone numbers still would be needed to make calls, he said. Martin said one of his objections to connections-based system was that it might be used to assess broadband connections. “I'm opposed to extending universal service contributions to broadband,” he said. “It acts as an Internet access tax.” On another topic, Martin demurred when asked whether he had position on whether agency should take geographically-based “granular” approach to making unbundled network elements (UNEs) available or whether all UNEs should continue to be available nationally. Martin said he still was developing his position but it seemed to him that U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., remand required agency to consider market-by-market approach. If that’s case, state regulators would be well positioned to make such decisions, he said. On broadcast issues, he said proposal on cable ownership cap hadn’t reached 8th floor yet, although agency had hoped to complete it by end of year. Asked whether year-end still was feasible, he said it was possible. On whether FCC can meet spring target for media ownership proceeding, he said if there were delay, agency should at least act on newspaper-broadcast rule. That issue was teed up before broader proceeding started and record is complete, he said.