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).

Given the enormous challenge of bringing robust broadband to rural, high-cost areas, USTelecom supports combining the remaining funding from the first round of the Connect America Fund into funding for a second round in 2013, representatives told aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bn73dy). A “longer term solution” to the rural broadband challenge “depends on implementing Phase II” to distribute funding based on a cost model, USTelecom said. Funding should only be distributed in areas where there is no unsubsidized broadband service provider, it said. USTelecom also “stressed the importance of beginning a public dialogue on the benefits of reclassifying” ILECs as non-dominant.

AT&T and USTelecom said in an amicus brief filed at the Supreme Court that the high court should let stand a decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the commission’s 2009 wireless zoning shot-clock order. The court is slated to hear the case, Arlington, Texas v. FCC Jan. 16 (CD Dec 21 p1). “AT&T and USTelecom support the position of respondent Verizon: this Court should hold that Chevron deference does not apply to an agency’s interpretation of its own statutory jurisdiction, but should nevertheless affirm the judgment of the court of appeals on the alternative ground that the [FCC] had clear, unambiguous jurisdiction to issue the order under review based on the text of the Communications Act … and on this Court’s decision interpreting that Act in AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Board,” they told the court. “In telecommunications law specifically, this Court has frequently distinguished questions that relate to the scope of the Commission’s jurisdiction under the Communications Act from those that relate to how the Commission exercises that jurisdiction,” the brief said. “Further, the Commission itself has maintained the distinction between jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional issues in its own decisionmaking, showing that this distinction is useful analytically even apart from its significance for judicial review.”

USTelecom asked the FCC Wednesday to declare that ILECs are no longer presumptively dominant in providing switched access services. The switched access rules were designed for a monopoly era, and are no longer needed in a world where consumers have myriad ways to communicate, the association said. If granted, the petition would relieve ILECs of certain tariffing requirements, and USTelecom President Walter McCormick said it would move ILECs “somewhat closer to regulatory equivalence with their closest competitors.” CLECs and others worried that eliminating the rules could limit consumer choice.

Multichannel video programming distributors remain divided on whether the FCC should adopt a standard of rebuttable presumptions against withholding from other MVPDs channels that are affiliated with cable operators, comments on a rulemaking show. NCTA and programmers and operators that own channels opposed the presumptions that program access rules are violated by exclusive contracts for cable-affiliated regional sports networks (RSN) and national sports networks. Vertically-integrated operator/programmers also opposed the notion that once a channel affiliated with an operator is found to have one unfair exclusive contact, it can’t get more. The presumptions would be rebuttable by defendants.