Cutting special access rates in half would raise wages as much as $4.8 billion, create up to 101,000 jobs and add $11.8 billion to $12.4 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product, a study commissioned by Sprint Nextel reported Tuesday. Revenue from special access charges brought AT&T, Qwest and Verizon $18 billion in 2007, nearly double the 2000 figure, the study said. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff is drafting a public notice seeking comprehensive data on the special access market and hopes to move to rulemaking or even orders this year, a commission official said.

The FCC is working on a pole attachments order for the April 7 meeting that would lower rates for attachers, commission officials told us. No order is circulating -- but Chairman Julius Genachowski has said he would like to finish work on pole attachments by early April, and staff is nearing the end of its work, the officials said. Power companies have lobbied furiously in recent weeks to preserve rates but apparently haven’t swayed the commission, said FCC officials and utility lobbyists.

House Republican leaders held a closed-door meeting with industry lobbyists Wednesday to press them to get involved in helping the GOP repeal net neutrality rules, House aides and lobbyists said. The meeting was held after an effort by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., to repeal the rules collapsed Wednesday morning.

Cable, DBS and telcos’ desire for changes to a draft retransmission consent rulemaking may not be fulfilled entirely when the notice is voted on at Thursday’s FCC meeting. Agency officials said wholesale or substantive changes to the notice are unlikely. Commissioners hadn’t formally proposed any changes by midday Monday, FCC officials said. Some pay-TV executives had said they would like the forthcoming notice not to tentatively conclude that the agency can’t force carriage or require arbitration when a TV station is blacked out on a subscription-video system. The draft before commissioners reaches the tentative conclusion that the commission can’t (CD Feb 22 p5).

The FCC appears to be leaning toward Title II-style regulation of broadband through its Universal Service Fund revamp, industry officials told us after examining the commission’s rulemaking notice on USF. “It’s clear to me that when you look at the questions they're asking around support, that seems where they're heading,” Voice of the Net Coalition Executive Director Glenn Richards said. “It’s a way to get broadband providers to agree to Title II-like obligations.” FCC officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Seven telco groups asked the FCC to rethink its orders on eliminating duplicative Lifeline service. Last month, the commission directed the Universal Service Administrative Co. to have carriers contact Lifeline recipients whenever recipients are found to have broken the one-per-household rule. The customer will be asked to choose which eligible telecommunications carriers is wanted and the other carrier will be dropped, under the FCC’s directive. CTIA, USTelecom, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, Rural Cellular Association and Western Telecommunications Alliance filed a petition to challenge the directive. They said the FCC may violate the Administrative Procedure Act, because the Jan. 21 directive “purported to promulgate new rules without notice and comment.” The directive also exceeded the authority of the Wireline Bureau, the groups said. “Had the commission sought public comment on these directives before they were imposed, it would have learned that they are incomplete and that even setting aside the substantial burden they impose on ETCs and low income consumers, if implemented, they would be ineffective at preventing the recurrence of duplicate Lifeline subscriptions."

Many organizations expressed support for a privacy-by-design principle, in their comments to the FTC on its privacy framework. The framework’s potential for heavy privacy restrictions was a point of contention. Comments were due Friday. The commission posted some last-minute submissions this week.

A broad state role is critical to modernize and streamline Universal Service and Intercarrier Compensation policies, state members of the Federal-State USF Joint Board told an FCC workshop Thursday. Speakers debated proposed changes in fund size.

President Barack Obama’s broadband stimulus program was “vindicated” by new NTIA findings that up to two-thirds of America’s schools can’t get broadband at speeds they need, NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling. Thursday, the agency unveiled its new broadband map. The map indicated that up to 10 percent of Americans can’t get broadband. The map is based on more than 125 million searchable records in the new mapping database, with information from some 1,600 broadband companies. “All of these records can be analyzed in countless ways,” Strickling said. “But the data continues to show that a digital divide continues to exist."

The FCC should fix the problems of extra Lifeline payments through a separate rulemaking, several associations said in an ex parte notice made public on Wednesday. In January, the Wireline Bureau ordered the Universal Service Administrative Co. to give Lifeline customers who violate the “one per household” rule 30 days to select a single carrier or be dropped from the program. “The bureau, which lacks authority to promulgate substantive Lifeline rules, developed these rules without public input,” Wednesday’s letter said. It was signed by USTelecom, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, AT&T, Qwest, Windstream Communications, CTIA, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, Rural Cellular Association, Western Telecommunications Alliance, CenturyLink, TracFone Wireless and Verizon. “At a minimum, implementation of the new bureau rules must be suspended pending a rulemaking,” they said: “In addition to suffering from significant legal infirmities, these rules raise a number of operational issues of significant concern to the undersigned parties, which represent many of the state- or commission-designated” eligible telecommunications carriers.