The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and USTelecom support the petition of FairPoint’s ILECs to be permitted to convert the company’s special access services from rate-of-return regulation to price cap regulation, the associations said in FCC filings posted Wednesday in docket 12-71. “FairPoint is in a unique situation” because it’s the only price cap ILEC in the country with rate-of-return affiliates that settle on a cost basis, ITTA said (http://xrl.us/bm55aa). “The request to be permitted to convert the FairPoint Petitioning LECs’ special access services to price cap regulation would ease a significant resource and financial burden on FairPoint and streamline its regulatory obligations.” They should also remain subject to rate-of-return carriers’ schedule for transitioning their intercarrier compensation rates to bill-and-keep, because this would give the smaller, predominantly rural telcos time to adjust their operations to respond to marketplace changes, ITTA said. USTelecom said granting the petition would reduce costs, increase incentives for efficiency, and provide other ratepayer benefits (http://xrl.us/bm55ce). “FairPoint has thoughtfully developed a proposal that benefits consumers, meets several disparate Commission policy goals, and is applicable to FairPoint’s unique regulatory situation,” USTelecom said.

Communications and electronic groups increased campaign contributions to GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney in Q1, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. But industry groups vastly favored President Barack Obama, giving his reelection campaign $4.75 million in the 2012 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data current as of April 21.

The FCC seeks expedited comments on USTelecom’s petition for waiver of several rules in the Lifeline order, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm5z6y). USTelecom seeks a temporary waiver from the obligation to obtain a signed customer certification and a notice of customer eligibility from certain states prior to seeking reimbursement. It also requested the waiver apply to eligible telecom carriers in those states which make initial determinations of customer eligibility and are unable to modify their procedures in time for the ETCs to comply with certain sections by June 1. USTelecom asked that the waiver last until a state is able to provide ETCs with the required notices of eligibility and customer certifications. Comments are due May 15 in docket 12-23.

The House’s successful passage of four cybersecurity bills last week turned the spotlight to the Senate, which has failed to reach a compromise between two of its leading cybersecurity bills. Nevertheless, telco groups said they're optimistic that the House’s movement on non-regulatory cybersecurity bills will help break the Senate cybersecurity stalemate.

USTelecom filed a petition for waiver of some of the Lifeline rules Wednesday, arguing that eligible telecom carriers have no control over whether states will meet their obligation to provide ETCs with notice of a subscriber’s eligibility, a prerequisite to an ETC’s ability to enroll new customers in compliance with three sections of the Commission’s rules (http://xrl.us/bm5ajm). USTelecom requested a waiver of those rules, to apply in a state where eligibility determinations reside with state officials, and where the state is unable to modify its Lifeline enrollment procedures to meet the June 1 deadline. Without the waiver, “some or all new low-income consumers will not receive Lifeline benefits to which they otherwise are entitled,” USTelecom said. In California, Florida, New York and Texas, more than 50,000 low-income subscribers would see their benefits denied -- “a draconian result that the Commission should make every effort to avoid,” the association said.

Incumbent LECs roundly condemned several legacy telecom regulations in reply comments posted Wednesday in docket 12-61 in support of USTelecom’s petition for forbearance, breaking out the thesaurus to describe the rules they say unfairly shackle ILECs while allowing other carriers to thrive. State commissions opposed the petition, arguing the elimination of several reporting requirements would harm consumers and make it harder for commissions to do their jobs.

The Rural Utilities Service telecom and broadband loan programs remain essential to a healthy and growing rural economy, and contribute to the provision of universal communications services comparable to those found in urban areas, USTelecom President Walter McCormick told the chairman and ranking member of the House Rural Development Subcommittee in a letter Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm4y2u). Detractors’ claims that a 2009 Department of Agriculture review provided justification for termination of the Broadband Loan program are unjustified because that report reviewed the program before congressionally mandated changes in the 2008 Farm Bill, McCormick said. Other critics “have deliberately conflated” separate RUS programs, such as the Broadband Initiatives Program created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with the Broadband Loan program required by Congress in the Farm Bill, he said. The Broadband Loan program complements the High-Cost Universal Service program, McCormick said, and each one is “an important element in deploying cutting edge communications services to rural America.” The subcommittee is scheduled to mark up the 2012 Farm Bill Wednesday.

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) set to be considered by the House this week “Big Brother writ large.” That’s as 18 Democratic lawmakers wrote the sponsors of the bill, asking them to “address real and serious privacy concerns voiced by Americans, privacy advocacy groups, and colleagues in Congress.” HR-3523 will put “the resources of the private industry to work for the nefarious purpose of spying on the American people,” Paul said (http://xrl.us/bm4xu3). Calling CISPA the “new SOPA,” the Stop Online Piracy Act that was derailed in the face of strong opposition, Paul said CISPA is the “latest assault” on Internet freedom, “an Internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight -- provided of course if they do so in the name ‘cybersecurity.'” He said people should call their lawmakers and “urge them to oppose CISPA and similar bills that attack Internet freedom.” Meanwhile, House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and 17 of his party colleagues wrote House Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., saying the manager’s amendment that they were developing should address the “real and serious” privacy concerns raised by lawmakers, privacy groups and others. Saying the bill lacks “necessary safeguards,” they said the “broad and ambiguous” language of CISPA raises “serious concerns” about what information relating to Internet activity would be shared, who in the federal government, including the intelligence community, would have access to the information, and the “purpose and manner in which that information will be used.” Without specific limitations, the measure would, for the first time, provide non-civilian federal agencies such as the National Security Agency “unfettered access to information about Americans’ Internet activities and allow those agencies to use that information for virtually any purpose,” the 18 lawmakers said (http://xrl.us/bm4xvh). Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., separately said he'd offer an amendment to CISPA that would add privacy language minimizing the “collection of publicly identifiable information.” Information sharing procedures would have to be reviewed and approved by the U.S. attorney general. The language also would limit the purposes for which a federal agency could use cybersecurity information. However, three industry groups urged passage of CISPA and three other bills, saying “cybersecurity policy needs to be flexible and adaptable, given the difficulty of predicting the manner and means by which network providers will have to respond to cybersecurity threats.” The NCTA, CTIA and USTelecom in a joint letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the government should rely on industry “best practices to establish appropriate cybersecurity measures rather than impose prescriptive rules.” The groups also urged passage of HR-3834, the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act; HR-2096, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act; and HR-4257, the Federal Information Security Amendments Act.

AT&T wants to include all the new mandatory consumer certifications on a single Lifeline application form, but needs to know what mandatory language to include, the company and USTelecom told an FCC Wireline Bureau official Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm4vgh). “The longer it takes for Lifeline providers to obtain this mandatory language from USAC or the FCC, the less likely it is that these providers will be able to use a single Lifeline application form on June 1,” they wrote. The company and association expressed concern that some states that currently perform Lifeline eligibility determination on behalf of providers in their states might not meet the June 1 deadline to bring their processes into compliance with the FCC’s new eligibility rules.

Google and Facebook more than doubled their lobbying spending in the first quarter of 2012 compared to a year earlier quarter, according to federal reports filed Friday. AT&T nearly doubled its lobbying spending from the fourth quarter of 2011 when its bid to purchase T-Mobile collapsed. Meanwhile, USTelecom, NCTA and CEA trimmed their Q1 lobbying spending by more than 20 percent compared to the previous quarter.