Companies from across the telecom industry urged the FCC last week to reform its rules for assessing regulatory fees. Commenters said change is necessary to ensure no provider is at a competitive disadvantage. An NPRM last month sought comment on several reforms, including changes to the Interstate Telecommunications Service Providers fee category, reallocation of full-time equivalent (FTE) employee fees, and limitations on regulatory fee increases (http://bit.ly/13YxqAR).

The FCC needs to work more with the states, recommended the NARUC Telecom Task Force in a preliminary document. It also clarified that “states” refers not only to public utility commissions but also as shorthand for governors, legislatures and state agencies in general. The task force released its latest draft paper (http://bit.ly/164BVdG) Monday, opening it for comments through June 20. It outlined the principles that state commissioners may codify as well as issued tentative recommendations. The Internet Protocol transition is under way and states’ regulatory roles are changing, often for the lesser, but state input remains vital for many reasons, the group said.

"The Commission should put an end to USTelecom’s continual stream of complaints about the very reasonable and necessary Tribal Engagement rules,” said the National Tribal Telecommunications Association (NTTA), urging the FCC to quickly deny a USTelecom request to scale back the tribal engagement rules (http://bit.ly/ZrCi0d). USTelecom asked the commission to clarify that tribal engagement requirements only apply to Mobility Fund recipients, and not to eligible telecom carriers that don’t receive support specifically targeted to fund development on tribal lands, or whose support is being eliminated (http://bit.ly/ZrC35o). But NTTA thinks the rules should apply to all carriers receiving support for serving tribal areas. “Besides being unreasonable in its initial narrowing of the list of ETCs required to comply, USTelecom has now effectively excluded all price cap carriers,” NTTA said.

HTC promotes Amy Wolverton to vice president-government affairs … Time Warner hires Chris Wilson, ex-TechAmerica, as vice president-public policy … Syniverse mobile services company for carriers and ISPs hires Ed Lewis, ex-Belden Partners, as chief strategy officer … Discovery Communications promotes Matthew Kelly to vice president-development and production, Discovery Channel … Lobbying registrations: TechAmerica, Rubin Strategies, effective May 20 … Telecom engineering company MarCel Partners, Turner Pollard Strategies, effective April 17 … Members of 2013 Advisory Council for Free Speech Week include: Chris Dodd, MPAA, chairman; Gordon Smith, NAB; Michael Powell, NCTA; Caroline Little, Newspaper Association of America; Bob Pittman, Clear Channel; Cary Sherman, RIAA; Gary Shapiro, CEA; Walter McCormick, USTelecom.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) second workshop to develop the Cybersecurity Framework, set to begin Wednesday, will delve deeper into actually creating the framework, industry officials said. NIST and the Department of Homeland Security are working with industries considered to be components of the U.S.’s critical infrastructure to draft the voluntary framework as directed by President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order (CD Feb 14 p1). Participants are expected to begin creating the initial set of standards, best practices and procedures that will be included in the draft version of the Framework that’s expected to go public in October (http://1.usa.gov/Z5zzJD).

In the first major move under acting FCC Chair Mignon Clyburn, another $485 million in Connect America Fund Phase I money will be made available for fixed broadband expansion in unserved areas. Wednesday’s order, which leverages private investment and universal service funding, “will potentially connect hundreds of thousands of unserved consumers to robust broadband networks,” Clyburn said in a statement. The commission expects this to be the final round of Phase I funding, said the order approved 3-0 (http://fcc.us/10QCTsG). It said price-cap carriers will be allocated support “using the same allocations as in the first round of Phase I.” As expected (CD April 25 p1), carriers will get access to $300 million allocated for the second round of Phase I.

Japanese-owned SoftBank should not be permitted to buy Sprint due to national security concerns, said former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell during the first of two House cybersecurity hearings Tuesday. SoftBank’s $20.1 billion bid to buy 70 percent of Sprint Nextel has recently been criticized because of allegations that SoftBank uses equipment from Chinese telecom manufacturers Huawei and ZTE (CD May 21 p12). “If you are in the intelligence business ... the one thing you would love to do is run the telecommunications infrastructure in another country ... so having a foreign country own and control a communications company inside the United States ... I would not be in favor of,” said McConnell, who was in George W. Bush’s administration and is now the vice chairman at Booz Allen Hamilton.

The FCC killed more than 120 regulatory requirements on telcos, it said Friday (http://fcc.us/13Bv8YF). The order grants forbearance for 126 of about 141 rules and requirements that USTelecom sought in its petition. Companies will no longer have to retain certain records made redundant by digital databases, property record filings and calling cards record reporting, the FCC said. “In so doing, we further our commitment to eliminate burdens on industry and promote innovation while ensuring our statutory objectives are met,” the order said. “We grant forbearance to the full extent supported by the record. Where we cannot forbear from a requirement completely, we in several instances reduce burdens by granting partial or conditional forbearance.” The ruling is not intended to preempt any state rules, it added. The FCC also issued a further NPRM in which “we examine whether to retain, modify, or eliminate the comparably efficient interconnection (CEI) and open network architecture (ONA) requirements as well as the ‘All Carrier Rule,'” according to the order. It’s also adopting a second further NPRM on “whether we should modify or eliminate the separate affiliate requirement for independent incumbent LECs that are subject to rate-of-return regulation,” it said. “With 126 regulations removed, we're talking about millions of dollars in savings, which will ultimately result in a more dynamic, competitive market and lower prices for consumers,” outgoing Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. The order also preserves “consumers’ right to notice when services are being eliminated, a vital protection as we move forward on trials of wireline to wireless, TDM to IP, and copper to fiber technology transitions,” Genachowski added. Commissioner Ajit Pai called the order “bipartisan compromise, an important first step,” but wished the FCC had “gone further, faster” with eliminating legacy obligations. USTelecom expressed some pleasure with the order, but the FCC “missed the opportunity for the thorough spring cleaning that has long been needed,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick said in a statement. “Given the fact that we have already gone through 15 months of study, we would expect that this further review could be completed by the end of the year.” In a Friday blog post (http://bit.ly/10KunZ7), McCormick slammed the FCC for leaving in place “Part 32 accounting rules, CEI/ONA rules and streamlining Section 214 notification requirements” and called the step “timid.” The order was adopted May 10.

There’s a “tension” between language in the USF/intercarrier compensation order and the FCC’s Part 69 rules, representatives from several ILECs told Wireline Bureau officials Monday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/10v15AK). The rules “on one hand, appear to direct companies to allocate certain legacy high-cost support (IAS, ICLS and LSS) to the calculation of interstate access charges but, on the other hand, also appear to direct companies to spend increasingly larger amounts of this same legacy high-cost support on building and operating broadband networks in certain areas,” said the USTelecom filing. That tension could have “potential fiscal effects” on support, access and subscriber charges, said the association and members AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon and Windstream.

Commenters on the FCC’s proposed call completion data collection (CD Feb 8 p8) agreed that call completion to rural areas is crucial, but differed on where the obligations of monitoring and reporting most properly fall. Several groups suggested that the originating long distance provider is the best positioned to capture meaningful data. Commenters also differed on the details of which data should be collected.