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.

USTelecom CEO Walter McCormick urged the FCC to review the “financial fundamentals of the industry” as the agency develops a national broadband plan. In a meeting last week with Commissioner Meredith Baker, McCormick called for overhauls of the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation, an ex parte said.

Some small rural phone companies are asking if Google and other content providers should contribute to the Universal Service Fund. In filings and meetings this summer at the FCC, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association has urged the FCC to open a rulemaking on the subject (CD Aug 31 p9). Content providers impose significant costs on companies’ networks, and charging them for USF would further the FCC’s broadband deployment goals, said NTCA Vice President Dan Mitchell in an interview. But a Google spokesman disputed the credibility of NTCA’s evidence. And some phone companies aren’t sure the proposal can be implemented.

“Significant questions exist about the extent to which broadband access markets are competitive,” the Federal Trade Commission said in comments Friday to the FCC. The FCC’s pending national broadband plan provides an opportunity to do “a competitive market analysis that can be used as the foundation for the development of ongoing regulatory policies governing broadband Internet access.” The FTC also urged the FCC to collect more data on network management practices.