For the first time in Senate history a bill will be challenged today (Thurs.) under a point-of-order as an unfunded mandate. The bill would make permanent the moratorium on discriminatory Internet taxes, including access taxes. Sen. Allen (R-Va.) expressed confidence in a press conference Wed. that S-150 would clear the Senate -- a similar bill, HR-49 by House Select Homeland Security Chmn. Cox (R-Cal.) already cleared the House -- but Sen. Alexander has vowed to challenge the bill under the rarely invoked Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. The bill, opposed by many state and local groups concerned about loss of telecom tax revenue, is able to come to a floor vote because Alexander agreed to lift his hold on the legislation last week.

The House passed Enhanced 911 (HR-2898) legislation Tues. afternoon as supporters turned their attention toward moving an E911 bill through the Senate. The House bill was passed on the suspension calender on voice vote. Sponsor Rep. Shimkus (R-Ill.) told us there would be challenges in getting a bill to President Bush’s desk since there were significant differences in the Senate companion bill, but said getting the House bill passed might streamline the process. “Clearly, we have a wide gap to bridge,” House Commerce Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said: “But considering people’s lives are at stake, Americans want us to get this bill done now.”

Rural wireless ISP (WISP) operators urged the FCC Tues. to consider changes in power limits in unlicensed bands and more spectrum, particularly below 5 GHz. At a daylong Rural WISP Workshop in a packed Commission meeting room, rural WISP developers said they also could use changes in the agency’s Part 15 rules for unlicensed spectrum and help from the FCC on restricting local ordinances for tower siting. Citing the turnout for the workshop, Comr. Adelstein suggested it might be helpful for the FCC to take such meetings on the road, with a possible next workshop somewhere in the Midwest.

A USTA plan to get high-tech suppliers to support a deregulatory lobbying campaign may be an antitrust violation, 26 competitive telecom companies plus ALTS and CompTel said in a letter sent Fri. to key congressional committees. USTA invited top executives of high-tech companies to a closed dinner Oct. 20 in Washington to discuss a possible lobbying alliance and seek funding from the suppliers. One Bell official later characterized the plan as a natural move, given that high-tech suppliers had tended to support Bells’ deregulatory campaigns.

In a filing Thurs. at the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., CTIA disputed FCC arguments that it hadn’t taken an unreasonably long time to act on petitions for wireless local number portability (LNP) guidance. The D.C. Circuit turned down Wed. a separate petition for mandamus filed by Alltel, AT&T Wireless and Cingular seeking a stay on LNP obligations, contending federal law exempted mobile operators from having to port numbers (CD Oct 30 p10). A separate mandamus petition by CTIA remains pending before the court. The CTIA asked that the agency be compelled to resolve unanswered questions on implementing LNP. Among the arguments raised by the FCC at the D.C. Circuit in opposition to CTIA’s request was that it wasn’t obligated to resolve the CTIA petitions by a specific statutory deadline, the issues didn’t have to be resolved before Nov. 24 for wireless LNP to happen on that date, and the agency’s resources were being strained by several other key issues. As for the absence of a statutory deadline for responding to CTIA’s petitions, the group said: “The absence of such a deadline is irrelevant because this case is not about whether the FCC has unreasonably delayed responding to CTIA’s petitions. Rather, the crux of this case is whether the FCC has intolerably failed to resolve number portability implementation issues that have been pending before the Commission for 6 years.” CTIA told the court it wasn’t sufficient that the Commission had issued guidance on wireless-to-wireless porting while allowing wireline-to-wireless implementation issues to remain outstanding. “Claiming that LNP can go forward with only partial guidance is thus only partially correct,” CTIA said. “By failing to issue wireline-wireline guidance, the FCC has ensured that intermodal LNP will not be realized by the November 24, 2003, deadline. Absent such porting, and the consumer benefits the FCC anticipates from the increased competition it expects LNP to produce, the substantial costs and burdens of LNP cannot be justified.”

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.) said he wasn’t sure when he will introduce the Universal Service Fund (USF) draft bill that has been floating around for some time, but said it could be before this session ends (CD Oct 28 p1). “We're thinking pretty quick, we think,” he said. Burns also said that once recommendations were received from the Federal-State Joint Board that’s studying USF distribution methods, further legislation might be warranted. “We don’t want to go down the distribution route until we see what the Joint Board has done,” he said. “I don’t want to preempt them in any way.”

The Telecom Industry Assn. (TIA) said it supports legislation introduced by Sen. Coleman (R-Minn.) that’s designed to fund high-speed Internet access, distance learning, telemedicine and rural teleworks programs. TIA Pres. Matthew Flanigan said the bill -- the Rural Renaissance Act -- would attempt to raise $50 billion through the sale of bonds. “This legislation is visionary in its approach to ensure that Americans in even the most rural settings can access the same broadband capabilities that most businesses and citizens in urban areas can access today,” said Flanigan, who said the bill would generate hundreds of millions for the telecom sector and create new jobs in the industry.

Freeing Vonage from common carrier regulation would “clearly undercut” the ability of law enforcement officers to conduct electronic surveillance under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), the FBI and Dept. of Justice told the FCC in a joint filing earlier this week. The filing was one of more than 4 dozen commenting on whether the Commission should preempt a Minn. PUC ruling that Vonage’s voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) service was a telecom service subject to common carrier regulation.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.) is circulating draft legislation to reform the contribution methodology of the universal service fund (USF). The bill would: (1) Allow the FCC to collect USF support on intrastate telephony traffic. (2) Impose a deadline on the Commission to finish its open proceeding on USF collection methods. Industry sources familiar with the bill said it was likely to be a prominent topic at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on USF scheduled for Thurs.

States and municipalities are expressing concern that legislation designed to prevent taxes on access to Internet service eventually could restrict local govt. regulation of telephony and cable service. NARUC, the National Governors Assn. (NGA), National Assn. of Telecom Officers & Advisors (NATOA) and the TeleCommUninty Alliance (TCUA) are among the local interests expressing concern about S-150, the proposed Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act.