NARUC will tackle spectrum sharing, emergency communications coordination and the FCC’s “repeated abuses of informal rulemaking,” according to draft resolutions released this week (http://xrl.us/bob6pm). State regulators will consider the resolutions at their winter meeting in Washington in February. The proposed resolutions delve into past controversial territory, such as addressing FCC referral to the Federal-State Joint Boards on Separations and Universal Service. USTelecom objected to joint board referral provisions at the past two NARUC meetings, in Baltimore in November (CD Nov 14 p5) and Portland, Ore., last July (CD July 25 p8), although both of the resolutions passed.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer wants the FCC to release money for broadband deployment quickly and with flexibility. “These [Connect America Fund Phase I] rules are so restrictive that it is difficult for carriers to utilize them to deploy broadband in my home state of New York; but the problem is not localized to our region,” the New York Democrat told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in a Wednesday letter. “There is clear evidence that more flexibility is needed because the rules have left and will continue to leave significant portions of the money on the table -- and therefore not working on the ground to get broadband to the consumers and businesses who need it.” Frontier Communications has struggled with investing federal money in the Hudson valley but can’t due to “restrictions,” Schumer said in a release (http://xrl.us/boa8xg), referring to how the FCC currently will only “unlock this funding for companies that can provide broadband for less than $775 per household, and only in specific types of areas.” “We agree with Senator Schumer regarding the need for additional funding for providers to deploy more broadband to unserved and underserved Americans,” a Frontier spokeswoman told us. These rules, affecting $185 million of unclaimed Phase I money and $300 million for this year, need to be “restructured,” he told Genachowski. Frontier would bring broadband to Orange and Sullivan counties if it had more flexibility, he said. Schumer cited support from Orange County Executive Ed Diana, Focus Media CEO Josh Sommers, Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp. President Mike Oates, Sullivan County Legislators Kitty Vetter and Cora Edwards, and Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency Chairman Ira Steingart. He applauded the FCC’s recent notice of proposed rulemaking (http://xrl.us/boa9bv) and its sentiment: “The CAF rules should be refined to enable price cap carriers to bring service to unserved and underserved households as quickly as possible,” the letter said. Comments are due to the FCC Jan. 28 and replies Feb. 11. These comments will be used to further the FCC’s “overarching goal to use available funds to rapidly and efficiently deploy broadband networks throughout America,” the Dec. 28 Federal Register summary said (http://xrl.us/boa9cd). USTelecom is “encouraged” to see Schumer’s support in refining these rules and speeding deployment, President Walter McCormick wrote in a Thursday blog post (http://bit.ly/V8CNIK) that focused on how Schumer’s suggestions reflect Genachowski’s recommendations. McCormick praised the benefits of the FCC potentially “putting these CAF funds to work this spring.” The FCC declined comment.

Before the FCC can implement its Connect America Cost Model, it must settle a more fundamental question than what capabilities should be added to the model, said commenters on a December rulemaking notice on the features. The real question, they said in filings and interviews, is whether to use a greenfield or a brownfield approach to estimating costs. “Of any changes that could be made to the model, this is by far the biggest,” said Ross Lieberman, American Cable Association vice president-government affairs. The ACA has been a primary proponent of the brownfield model, one option offered in the latest version of the CACM.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller won’t run for reelection after his term expires in 2014. The announcement came during his speech Friday in the Democrat’s home state of West Virginia. The departure of the five-term, 75-year-old senator will leave a significant leadership void on the Commerce Committee following the recent death of its most senior majority member, Hawaii’s Dan Inouye, and the likely departure of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who has been nominated as secretary of state. Though it’s too early to tell who will succeed Rockefeller as chairman of the committee, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., appears to be the most likely candidate if Democrats keep the Senate after the 2014 elections, media and telecom lobbyists said.

Thousands of census blocks are incorrectly identified as “unserved” by the National Broadband Map (NBM), said cable companies and wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) in comments in FCC docket 10-90 (http://xrl.us/bn99cn). But USTelecom, the Independent Telecommunications and Telephone Alliance (ITTA) and individual ILECs said the map incorrectly overstates the areas listed as served. The map is used to determine where Connect America Fund Phase I money can be distributed. Price-cap carriers get access to the money to help fund broadband buildout in areas the map lists as unserved.

The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on USTelecom’s petition for declaratory ruling that ILECs are non-dominant in the provision of interstate mass market and enterprise switched access service (http://xrl.us/bn94d9). The association filed a petition in December urging the commission to alter several policies in response to the ongoing transition of voice networks to Internet Protocol technologies (CD Dec 20 p3). Comments in WC docket 13-3 are due Feb. 25, replies March 12.

Carriers asked the FCC to allocate more money to Phase II of the Mobility Fund, arguing in reply comments this week that $500 million annual support for wireless eligible telecom carriers to accelerate mobile deployment is not nearly enough, and pales in comparison to the support offered to ILECs. But Verizon Wireless cautioned that consumers and business could suffer if the fund gets too large.

LAS VEGAS -- USTelecom President Walter McCormick said a quick tour of the massive floor at the Consumer Electronics Show will demonstrate to anyone who pays attention why the FCC should act on the group’s December petition for declaratory ruling asking the agency to determine that ILECs should no longer be considered dominant in providing switched access services. Others on a panel chaired by McCormick expressed hope that the FCC’s Technology Transitions Policy Task Force will mean the FCC becomes better able to keep up with the speed of technological change.

USTelecom filed a Paperwork Reduction Act challenge to the FCC’s “Study Area Boundary Order” Thursday, arguing the Wireline Bureau didn’t sufficiently justify the data collection order, and “severely underestimates the burden” to price-cap ILECs (http://xrl.us/bn9epe). The Wireline Bureau in November passed an order requiring ILECs to submit certified study area boundary data in “esri shapefile” format (CD Nov 9 p17). The commission had said the exchange boundary data would help it implement universal service reforms: the high-cost loop support benchmarking rule, which limits the capital costs and operating expenses a rate-of-return carrier can recover for HCLS; and the unsubsidized competitive overlap rule, which phases out a rate-of-return carrier’s universal service support where unsubsidized competitors offer voice and broadband services in the entire study area. But those rules “only apply to rate-of-return ILECs,” USTelecom said. “Even the Bureau acknowledges as much. Exchange area boundary data of price cap ILECs are not needed to enforce rules directed to rate-of-return ILECs, and the Bureau does not claim otherwise.” Because the information collection has no “practical utility,” it cannot pass muster under the PRA, USTelecom said. The bureau’s PRA analysis also underestimates the “substantial burdens” of the proposed information collection, given that such data are not available at the level of accuracy the commission seeks, USTelecom said. It would take an ILEC far more than the agency’s estimated 26 hours and $489 to comply, the association said. “Nobody maintains data at that level of accuracy,” a USTelecom spokeswoman said. “It would be practically hard to comply with, and particularly hard for small companies."

Two years after the FCC approved net neutrality rules by a 3-2 vote after a protracted debate, much uncertainty and controversy remains. Next year should prove a key year, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears combined appeals by Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS challenging the FCC’s authority to impose the regulations (CD Dec 22/10 p1).