Pole attachment rules approved by the FCC in April (CD April 8 p3) could take effect as early as the beginning of July, lawyer Robert Primosch of Wilkinson Barker said Wednesday on a webinar sponsored by USTelecom. Under the order, the rules take effect, but only for new agreements, 30 days after it’s published in the Federal Register. “It’s not always easy to predict when something will be in the Federal Register,” Primosch said. “If I had to hazard a guess, I would think it would be in … by the end of this month.” It remains possible the order could be stayed by the FCC or a court, so timing is hard to predict, he said. Some carriers with ongoing agreements may be able to get revised rates, but only if their agreement contains a “change of law” provision that kicks in when rules change, Primosch said. Most others will get new rates only when their current contracts expire, he said. Primosch noted that the order addresses a discrepancy in attachment rates paid by phone companies versus cable operators. The commission said phone companies were paying an average of 11.2 percent of the cost of a pole in urban areas, going up to nearly 17 percent elsewhere, versus 7.4 percent for cable attachers, he said: “When you break those out into bigger numbers it turns out to be quite a lot of money.” Kevin Rupy, director of public policy at USTelecom, said the order will have no “direct effect” in the 20 states and District of Columbia, which regulate pole attachments.

Public safety spending on 700 MHz D-block lobbying more than quadrupled in Q1 2011 compared to the same quarter last year, according to Q1 lobbying reports. The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials spent $80,563, 303 percent more than what the group spent in Q1 2010 and 66 percent more than Q4 2010. Meanwhile, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association spent nearly five times what it did last year, and NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said she expects the association of small rural telcos to continue spending at that level.

With less than four months to go before an FCC-promised deadline for Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, industry appears to be divided on how to fix the system. The American Cable Association, for instance, said its “diverse and interested membership” meant the association “has had to navigate and balance strongly competing interests, while ensuring any policy proposals are in the public interest.” The FCC’s proposed rewrites at least “provide a good starting point to bring broadband to unserved areas, and, through refinements and targeted rebalancing, there is the potential to adopt reforms this year to reorient the High-Cost fund to improve efficiency and achieve universal broadband service,” ACA said in its comments. All comments were posted to dockets 10-90, 09-51, 07-135, 05-337, 01-92, 96-45 and 03-109.

The FCC should “immediately” tackle phantom traffic and traffic pumping but should provide “careful transitions” as it reforms the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regimes with “great care,” USTelecom said in comments posted to dockets 10-90, 09-51, 07-135, 05-337, 01-92, 96-45 and 03-109. “Until targeted universal service support provides sufficient explicit funding for networks in high-cost areas, any mandated rate reductions must be coupled with a reasonable opportunity for providers to replace the revenues lost … through a combination of increased retail rate flexibility and a supplement fund,” USTelecom said. USTelecom is leading talks to try to come up with an industry-wide reform. But the commission has made clear that it wants to move to orders on USF and intercarrier comp distribution by the end of the summer. “Intercarrier compensation reform must be accomplished by providing opportunities for carriers to replace lost revenues in order to allow the continuation of support for networks, particularly those in high-cost rural areas,” USTelecom said in Monday’s comments.

Four commenters weighed in on the Paperwork Reduction Act implications of the FCC’s net neutrality order. USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA and the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA) raised questions about the transparency requirements in the rules, saying they should be rejected by the Office of Management and Budget as too burdensome and expensive. A split commission approved the order in December, but it hasn’t been in the Federal Register because of the act’s comment cycles. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has already turned aside a court challenge because the rules have not formally been posted (CD April 5 p1).

Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., called for major reforms in how the FCC does business. The chairman of the Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee spoke Tuesday at a Free State Foundation event. Stearns said change is overdue and promised his subcommittee will focus on regulatory reform in a series of upcoming hearings.

USTelecom’s proposal on dealing with phantom traffic was backed by CenturyLink Vice President Melissa Newman and NTCA Vice President Michael Romano. “It’s a great starting point,” Newman said Wednesday at the FCC’s day-long workshop on intercarrier compensation overhaul. The plan would create per-minute benchmarks for calls to signal what some in the industry call phantom traffic. “It’s all about costs and volumes and the original premise of these tariffs in rural areas was based on low volumes,” Newman said: She hopes FCC officials realize that “there’s agreement on this panel."

Clarification: Talks among a broad range of parties to find an industry consensus on intercarrier compensation and Universal Service Fund overhaul have been ongoing for some time (CD April 5 p4). The USTelecom-led talks are aimed at giving carriers a change to recoup some losses from reductions in access charges and to aim universal-service support better at high-cost areas. Gary Epstein, retired from Latham & Watkins, now works at the Aspen Institute.

AT&T and USTelecom are trying to revive dormant efforts to create an industry-wide proposal on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms ahead of the FCC’s rigid schedule, multiple industry officials told us. Similar efforts have foundered in the past -- including a concerted attempt in 2006-07 -- but this time, “I think there is a possibility for a very broad industry coalition on this,” said USTelecom Vice President Jon Banks. “The FCC knows we're trying to do this,” he added. “Everybody -- ILECs, CLECs, cable wireless, rurals -- is trying to put together a path for the FCC to follow.”

Giving ILECs a break on pole attachment rates could help save $100 million yearly in broadband subsidies, USTelecom wrote FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “While quantifying the benefits to the Connect America Fund requires some assumptions, we estimate that approximately one-third to one-half of the current unreasonable electric utility pole attachments are in rural areas,” President Walter McCormick said in the letter, released late Thursday. This suggests “that a strongly and clearly articulated reduction of ILEC attachment rates to the cable benchmark” could reduce the burden on the Connect America Fund “by more than $100 million each year,” he said.