The FCC should reject USTelecom’s request that ILECs be relieved of the requirement to spend a third of their frozen legacy high-cost support on broadband facilities in areas not served by an unsubsidized provider, NCTA told the commission Tuesday (http://bit.ly/148cGZf). While the new frozen support rule imposes a spending obligation, it’s “fully compensated (and more)” by the amount of support being provided to the carriers, NCTA said. “There is no requirement that the shareholders of these companies spend any money that will not be recovered through high-cost support.” USTelecom asserts that price cap carriers will experience an “Unrecovered Reduction in Legacy Access Replacement,” but that is a “newly invented phrase” that means “nothing more than the fact that these companies will be collecting less high-cost universal service support from inefficient legacy mechanisms than they did” before the reforms in the USF/intercarrier compensation order, NCTA said. “The essence of the USTelecom argument is that its member companies are concerned about being required to spend their high-cost subsidies in ways that advance the Commission’s broadband agenda,” NCTA said. “While it is certainly understandable that they would prefer the legacy regime, in which they received millions of dollars in funding each year without any obligation to spend it in a particular way, the Commission should take this opportunity to make clear that those days are over."

Commissioner Robert McDowell announced Wednesday he will leave the FCC in a matter of weeks, after seven years on the commission. Attention immediately focused on who will replace the Republican, with House Commerce Committee aide Ray Baum, a former chairman of the Oregon Public Utility Commission, and longtime congressional aide Michael O'Rielly, who now works for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, early front runners in the view of government and industry officials. Also getting some mentions by lobbyists are Neil Fried, chief counsel to the House Communications Subcommittee, and former State Department official David Gross, now at Wiley Rein. One unknown is whether Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member John Thune, R-S.D., will have a candidate of his own.

In the next round of Connect America Fund Phase I funding, the FCC should adopt the proposal filed jointly by several ILECs that would expand eligibility criteria for funding, CenturyLink told Chairman Julius Genachowski and other commission officials Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/YgD4ZW). “Putting this funding to work now would help the transition to CAF II by maintaining the momentum of broadband deployment in rural America.” The proposal by USTelecom, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance and the ABC Coalition (http://xrl.us/bodeec) would let carriers build “second mile” fiber to neighborhoods to increase broadband speeds.

Industry forces battered the tentative principles put forth by the NARUC Telecom Task Force, saying they're out of touch and potentially harmful, while consumer and rural advocates praised the way they elevate the state role. The association of state regulators assembled the task force at its fall meeting (CD Nov 14 p5) and offered up an initial statement of principles for comment, which were due March 8. The comments were posted Friday. The principles outline states’ roles in overseeing consumer protection, public safety and reliability concerns, competition, broadband access, affordability and adoption, interconnection, universal service and regulatory diversity, all in a way that preserves evidence-based decision-making (http://bit.ly/VFfk6k). NARUC President Philip Jones has said the task force’s end goal will be a new version of the association’s 2005 white paper on federalism, to be issued later this year.

The government plans to rely on the private sector to help foster information sharing and civil liberties protection standards as it works to implement the Obama administration’s cybersecurity executive order, said Ari Schwartz, senior Internet policy adviser at the Commerce Department. The order, introduced last month during the State of the Union speech, will focus on expanding information sharing, protecting privacy and civil liberties, and the development of a framework to reduce cyber risks to critical infrastructure, he said Thursday at a USTelecom event in Washington.

Submitting Form 477 broadband subscription data on the basis of census blocks would be “substantially more burdensome” than the current requirement of submitting such data on the basis of census tracks, the American Cable Association, NCTA, NTCA and USTelecom told FCC Wireline and Wireless bureau officials Friday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/ZFsKye). Any “app” being developed could affect companies’ ability to certify the accuracy of the data, and must be tested before the FCC adopts any new rules, they said. Transitioning from the current voluntary regime to a mandatory system operated by the commission “would require a significant transition for the thousands of broadband providers that would be required to submit data,” the groups said. They encouraged a notice and comment period before the commission decides which data would be required. The groups generally supported “revising and simplifying” the speed tiers used on Form 477.

The publishing, telecom and other sectors oppose new top-level domains (TLDs) that are generic but not brands, they said in comments that were still being filed Tuesday in an Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers consultation that ended March 7 (http://xrl.us/bon3i4). Requests by Amazon and Google for generic names such as .book, .music and .cloud generated significant opposition. Other comments said ICANN should stay out of determining what a “closed generic” TLD is, and let antitrust regulators resolve any competition problems that might arise and refrain from stymieing innovation.

Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., asked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to “quickly distribute incremental support from the first phase of the Connect America Fund (CAF) while it debates the next phase” of the program. In his March 7 letter, Rockefeller said releasing the support as soon as possible “will further our shared goals of promoting broadband deployment and bringing the benefits of broadband to the millions of Americans who currently do not have service.” Also this week, CenturyLink encouraged the FCC to adopt the “modest and easily-implemented” CAF Phase I proposal filed jointly by the ABC Coalition, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and USTelecom, in meetings with aides to several commissioners Tuesday (http://bit.ly/ZxsfEf). That proposal (http://bit.ly/ZxsyPj) broadens the areas that would be eligible for Phase I support, making it available to all census blocks that lack 4 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream service. It also proposes a specific challenge process the groups said would ensure that funding goes only to areas where it is needed. “Moving quickly to distribute the available funds with the revised rules would produce significant broadband deployment in unserved areas, starting this year,” CenturyLink said. Using the funding now “would facilitate rather than distract from the transition to [CAF] Phase II support by maintaining the momentum of broadband deployment in rural America,” it said.

USTelecom, Verizon and the Fiber-to-the-Home Council (FTTH) criticized CLEC proposals (CD March 6 p6) to make it harder for ILECs to retire copper loops, and make it easier for CLECs to get access to last-mile copper facilities. The dramatic changes to FCC policies would require “virtually all copper network plant to be left in place indefinitely,” said USTelecom, urging the commission to “summarily reject this request as fundamentally at odds with long-standing Commission policy favoring the deployment of robust, facilities-based broadband service to all Americans” (http://bit.ly/YYTFCN). Telcos need flexibility to choose the technology they will use to serve customers, and although copper is still often used, “it ultimately will not make economic sense for a given provider to retain redundant parallel network facilities in some areas,” Verizon and Verizon Wireless said (http://bit.ly/YYTY0C). The commission should encourage TelePacific and other companies that need access to ILEC copper loops “to engage constructively with wireline carriers to develop feasible wholesale solutions” or “take this opportunity to invest in their own network facilities,” Verizon said. FTTH said the proposal would unnecessarily slow the process ILECs use to retire copper plant (http://bit.ly/YYUNq9). Chairman Julius Genachowski’s vision for gigabit networks in each community (CD Jan 22 p1) will be harder to achieve if ILECs face the financial difficulty of maintaining their existing copper plant, FTTH said. “Any request to amend the current rules to impose greater burdens on retiring copper facilities would be contrary to the public interest and should be rejected,” it said. But CLECs and communications equipment makers supported the proposal. Trade association TexAlTel argued copper continues to be an important piece of the “ever evolving” national telecom infrastructure (http://bit.ly/YYVDmA). Protecting copper from premature retirement will actually promote affordable broadband, said the Midwest Association of Competitive Communications, as it would lead to more providers and would promote competition in the telecom market (http://bit.ly/YYW3JM). Ethernet over copper is a “significant, widely deployed and growing next generation technology that is critical to the Commission’s National Broadband Plan and the migration from legacy to Ethernet/IP services,” said Ethernet manufacturer Overture Networks (http://bit.ly/YYXisr). Ethernet over copper “is a means to deliver IP, and not a legacy TDM technology,” it said. Copper loop technology has “advanced greatly since the initial implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,” said communications equipment manufacturer Adtran (http://bit.ly/YYWxzB). “Copper is far from obsolete."

AT&T opposed a proposal at the FCC by several CLECs to adopt rules making it harder for ILECs to retire copper loops, and making it easier for CLECs to get access to last-mile copper facilities. The telco said granting the petition by TelePacific, Mpower, Level 3 and others could delay the transition to all-Internet Protocol networks and drain ILEC bank accounts. CLECs and state regulators supported the petition, saying ILEC opposition is driven not by a desire to further the public interest but to maintain their own dominance.