CHICAGO - Network neutrality rules could slow or “halt” progress toward a fully connected world, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said in a keynote speech Wednesday at Supercomm. “While this future is imminent, it is not inevitable, and the decisions we make today - as an industry and as a country - will determine whether the benefits of these transformational networks will be felt sooner or much, much later.”

USTelecom asked the FCC to go one step further in examining call blocking practices by Google on Google Voice (CD Oct 14 p1). Glenn Reynolds, vice president-policy, said in a letter to the FCC the questions posed by the Wireline Bureau “are critical to ensuring that all providers in this exceedingly competitive market are competing on a level regulatory playing field.” But, Reynolds wrote, the letter doesn’t ask if companies like Google have been engaging in other forms of access charge arbitrage. The bureau should ask if Google, Bandwidth.com “or any other entity Google contracts with to provide Google Voice assess originating or terminating switched access charges for any calls associated with Google Voice.” The FCC should also ask “which entity bills for this service, what rates are charged, what access rate elements are included in such charges, what access functions are performed, and on which entities are those charges assessed,” USTelecom said.

Groups representing broadband companies, workers and minorities expressed concerns that net neutrality rules could undermine broadband investment. The FCC will vote on beginning a net neutrality rulemaking at its meeting Thursday. “Government’s role in the Internet should be to support investment, jobs and new technologies, especially if they increase the opportunity for all Americans to connect online,” said Cisco, Nokia, Motorola and 41 other communications companies in a joint letter to FCC commissioners: “If Internet companies are prohibited from continuing to offer advanced and well-managed networks where new applications and services have flourished, then there will be no incentive to make meaningful investments that further develop and expand rapidly evolving broadband infrastructure.” Telecom is “one of the few dynamic sectors in an otherwise dismal economy,” said Communications Workers of America (CWA) in a separate letter to commissioners. The net neutrality rulemaking should encourage “reasoned discussion among all stakeholders about the technical requirements of network management and the economics of broadband build-out,” CWA said. “Proposed rules that take an extreme position will discourage the reasoned dialogue that is necessary to achieve an appropriate balance between openness and investment.” Meanwhile, the Asian American Justice Center, Hispanic Institute and 18 other national organizations wrote commissioners Wednesday saying neutrality rules could be “particularly detrimental” to minorities. “The core concept of an open Internet, operated transparently, is highly desirable and we support it wholeheartedly,” it said. “But the nation can’t afford to get this wrong.” Broadband providers weighed in late Thursday with their own joint letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “While your speech promised the kind of open, collaborative approach that we have experienced in the National Broadband inquiry, the NPRM apparently contains highly controversial conclusions before these complex issues are fully explored,” said USTelecom, the CTIA, the Telecommunications Industry Association and the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance. “We respectfully suggest that you instead begin this process by attempting to develop consensus on the key issues and avoid conclusions that would cause divisions inside and outside the Commission.”

Six consumer groups called for additional rules on wireless-billing disclosures, responding to an FCC notice (docket No. 09-158). Some industry groups opposed new rules and supported an extension of current ones.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- U.S. economic growth “is threatened by a regulatory structure that remains firmly planted in the past,” Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse said in a keynote Monday at the CompTel show. He urged policymakers to “correct regulations that direct money away from mobile broadband providers in order to protect incumbents and … preserve antiquated technologies.” Hesse also cautioned the FCC to avoid “unintended consequences” as it writes network neutrality rules.

The FCC tentatively concluded that incumbent local exchange carriers should get more universal service support under the local switching support (LSS) mechanism if they lose a significant number of access line customers. The conclusion came in a rulemaking notice responding to a petition by the Coalition for Equity in Switching Support. It protested an FCC rule that reduces a small incumbent carrier’s LSS support when its number of access lines climbs above a specified threshold but doesn’t increase support if the count falls below the threshold (CD Sept 3 p7). Republican commissioners supported the rulemaking but distanced themselves from the tentative conclusion.

The FCC asked Google a series of questions about its practice of preventing calls to some phone numbers from Google Voice. AT&T last month asked the commission to investigate “call blocking” by Google Voice and to treat it and other new phone service providers the same as conventional telcos. The Wireline Bureau asked technical and other questions going to the regulatory status of Google Voice. The response is due Oct. 28, six days after an FCC meeting where the commissioners will vote on a notice of proposed rulemaking on expanded net neutrality rules.

The FCC Wireline Bureau will issue a public notice on special access within 30 days, Chairman Julius Genachowski wrote Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. “These issues have been pending for several years and I appreciate the understandable frustration of many parties regarding the Commission’s lack of progress in addressing special access issues,” Genachowski wrote on Tuesday.

Frontier joined USTelecom, the association said Wednesday. The company “will be an important voice as our member companies work together to advance U.S. broadband policy,” said USTelecom Chairman Ron McCue. Frontier is seeking approval of an $8.6 billion deal with Verizon in which the mid-sized company will take on 4.8 million access lines and expand its territory to 27 states.

The FCC may soon take a renewed look at the legality of traffic stimulation that rural local exchange carriers are accused of carrying out through arrangements with free- conferencing providers, industry officials said in interviews. They said two recent events have raised the profile at the FCC of what big carriers call traffic pumping: An Iowa Utilities Board decision last month requiring eight rural LECs to refund unauthorized intrastate switched access charges billed to Qwest, AT&T and Sprint, and an AT&T letter saying Google Voice is flouting an FCC ban on traditional telco “self-help” by blocking calls to numbers with high access charges (CD Oct 2 p13).