States want the FCC to declare that its rules don’t bar or limit states’ collection of data from broadband service or infrastructure providers. “States need this data. There is no question that Congress wants States to have this data,” the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) said in a petition. But USTelecom said states’ broadband data collection ambitions shouldn’t surpass instructions by NTIA.

Internet Service Providers drew the broadband arrow from their quiver of arguments against raising pole attachment rates that cable operators pay, in comments filed at the FCC last week. Increasing rates from a low cable rate to a higher telecommunications rate because cable operators generally provide VoIP service would undermine the FCC’s broadband goals, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association said. “The best means of achieving the Commission’s goal of promoting broadband would be to enable all broadband providers to pay rates established under the existing cable rate formula,” it said. The comments came in response to a petition for a declaratory ruling brought by four power companies. Phone companies also invoked broadband goals in arguing the proposed rate hike. “The Commission should be concerned that ensuring such costs do not unnecessarily deter the extension of broadband networks and the adoption by end users,” said USTelecom, suggesting the FCC develop a single rate for all broadband pole attachments. Electric utilities disagreed. Phone companies support a rate for all broadband providers somewhere between the telecom rate and the cable rate, Verizon said. Forcing cable operators to pay the higher telecom rate will speed broadband deployment because it will clear up questions about what rate certain operators should pay, ending disputes and freeing up resources to be devoted to deployment, petitioners American Electric Power Service Corp., Duke Energy, Southern Company and Xcel Energy said. High pole attachment fees are not deterring rural broadband deployment; it’s the capital costs of reaching those areas that curb it, a coalition of other utilities said. “One glaring problem with the cable industry’s current pole attachment subsidy is that cable operators undoubtedly will not take the tens of millions that they save on pole attachments in urban and suburban systems, where the systems are fully deployed and customers and revenues are abundant, and invest that windfall in rural and other unserved areas where customers and revenues are scarce” said the Coalition of Concerned Utilities, made up of Allegheny Power, Baltimore Gas and Electric, Dayton Power and Electric, FirstEnergy, Kansas City Power and Light, National Grid, NSTAR and PPL.

AT&T asked the FCC to investigate “call blocking” by Google Voice and to treat that company and other new phone service providers the same as traditional telcos. AT&T said Google Voice and others also should be covered by a June 2007 Wireline Bureau order prohibiting “self help actions such as call blocking.” Google replied that Google Voice is fundamentally different from AT&T voice service.

A new coalition of nearly 100 broadband providers, content providers and others aims to act as an educational resource for lawmakers involved with broadband efforts, said a spokesman for the group, Broadband for America. The group, announced Thursday, hopes to highlight barriers to deployment and adoption, and provide technical information about running broadband networks, the spokesman said. Members include CTIA, USTelecom, NCTA, the Telecommunications Industry Association and the largest telephone and cable companies, among others. Members are contributing to the group in different ways, some financially and others with their time, said spokesman Phil Singer. He declined to specify which groups were funding the effort. Elaine Karmarck, a Harvard University lecturer advising the group on policy, said her focus will be showing how broadband connects to major policy areas including education, healthcare and poverty. In an interview, she said she expects the group’s lobbying to be limited, particularly because many of its members already have “full-fledged” lobbying shops.

Coincidental to Monday’s final ruling by the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) upholding a Qwest complaint about traffic pumping by a group of local exchange carriers, telcos and other parties filed related comments to the FCC. The federal agency had asked in August for input on a petition by alleged pumpers Great Lakes Communications and Superior Telephone for a declaratory ruling that state regulators lack standing to bring action in such matters. That bid for federal pre-emption is “another in a long series of misguided filings and presentations by traffic pumping local exchange carriers,” AT&T said. “Even a cursory review of the IUB’s written order indicates that the Petition’s predictions that the IUB’s written order would be ‘extraordinarily expansive’ and ‘flatly inconsistent with the rulings and policies of this Commission’ were wrong.” The Iowa board sees the LECs’ petition as “premature, based upon incorrect speculation, and without basis,” it said in a filing. USTelecom agreed in its filing, which urged the FCC to dismiss. International VoIP provider Futurephone wants the FCC to use its ruling on the matter to clarify “that domestic terminating access tariffs apply to services such as Futurephone’s, that Futurephone is an ISP or an ‘Enhanced Service Provider,’ and that inbound calls to Futurephone’s portal terminate in the U.S.,” its filing said. “Absent clear guidance from the FCC on this legal matter, we may be facing a long series of inappropriate rulings from various state regulatory entities as well as from state and federal courts.” Verizon and Verizon Wireless said in a joint filing that the FCC should “put an end to these disingenuous arguments by issuing an order or a declaratory ruling in its existing Access Stimulation NPRM proceeding holding that it is an unjust and unreasonable practice … for LECs to assess terminating interstate switched access charges on traffic that is subject to a revenue-sharing arrangement.” The alleged pumpers’ case for preemption is “patently absurd” and shows “contempt” for the agency’s integrity, Sprint said in its filing. Iowa-based RLECs Farmers Mutual Telephone, Interstate 35 Telephone and Dixon Telephone, which are parties to the utility board proceeding, filed joint comments saying the FCC should set ground rules for service to conference bridge companies and the associated access charges to interexchange companies. “It is imperative that the Commission provide the necessary guidance and determination which have formed the basis for the IXCs’ continuous refusal to pay the terminating access charges” they're due, the companies said.

The FCC will start a rulemaking abou tadding two net neutrality principles to the original four, Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a speech Monday at the Brookings Institution. The announcement sent ripples through Washington, drawing skepticism from broadband providers and Republicans and enthusiasm from longtime advocates of neutrality rules. The FCC’s two Republican members raised strong concerns about the proposal, in their biggest break yet with the chairman.

Apple rejected the Google Voice application for the iPhone, Google said in the unredacted version of an August letter to the FCC released Friday. That statement is at odds with Apple claims that no decision had been made. The FCC, at Google’s request, made public Friday the full text of a letter from the company in response to questions from the Wireless Bureau about the blocking of Google Voice on the device. Meanwhile, in a brewing controversy, Google officials acknowledge the company is blocking calls to adult chat lines and free conference-call centers, which charge high access charges. The FCC has forbidden traditional phone companies from blocking the same calls.

Privacy clauses in contracts hinder pay-TV companies from showing the FCC and Congress that cable programmers, including ESPN, require the purchase of their online offerings along with their cable channels, pay-TV executives said. Non-disclosure provisions in subscription TV carriage contracts mean groups including the American Cable Association, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and Organization for Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies (OPASTCO) have a harder time making their case, they told us.

Competition has removed need for a rule requiring incumbents to tell consumers that they have a choice of long- distance providers, incumbent local exchange carriers and one competitor said in comments last week on a USTelecom petition. The equal-access scripting rule, which also requires ILECs to read potential customers a randomized list of stand-alone wireline providers on request, applies only to small and midsized companies.

Broadband is “clearly not” available to all Americans, said state members of the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services in comments last week on the FCC’s latest inquiry into whether advanced telecom capabilities like broadband are being deployed to all Americans in “a reasonable and timely fashion.” Others provided mixed reviews of U.S. broadband deployment (CD Sept 8 p5). The FCC must deliver the report to Congress by Feb. 3.