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).

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.