Attendance is waning at wireline trade shows. Numbers at Supercomm and CompTel are in decline, while VON -- the big VoIP show -- is dead. The large trade show format may have become unsustainable, said several industry officials involved with show spending. Conference organizers say they're upbeat.

NCTA criticized an analysis by USTelecom of pole attachment rates in an ex parte letter filed with the FCC. USTelecom’s analysis “present[s] an incomplete and… misleading comparison of the differences between cable and ILEC pole attachment payments,” the letter said. “If the commission is serious about promoting regulatory parity and broadband deployment and adoption it should take steps to implement NCTA’s proposal,” which would allow ILECs to opt in to cable pole attachment contracts at the cable rate, NCTA said.

Planning, technology and messaging are critical in preparing for a pandemic, panelists said Thursday at an FCC summit on the subject. Expanding telecom infrastructure like broadband networks will be crucial to dealing with a pandemic, officials said. But officials foresee challenges in keeping networks working during emergencies.

“In hindsight, we accomplished brand confusion” naming an industry show “NXTcomm,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick said Monday in a phone conference. After being Supercomm for years, then briefly splitting into “TeleNext” and “GlobalComm,” the show debuted as NXTcomm in 2007. In 2009 it again will be Supercomm, held June 8-11 in Chicago. The name game was a product of the dynamic between the Telecommunications Industry Association and USTelecom. After breaking up, the groups reunited in 2007, thinking “NXTcomm” a catchy combination of TeleNext and GlobalComm, McCormick said. But the names were tough to keep straight, he said. Now planning a revamped show structure for 2009, USTelecom and TIA have revived the familiar Supercomm, he said. The show, with a focus on “21st century broadband,” will cover communications technology more broadly than “niche” trade shows, McCormick said. Invited are wireline companies of all sizes, wireless, cable and satellite carriers, healthcare and other companies with high-speed networks, government bodies, and content and entertainment providers, the event organizers said.

The telecom conference formerly known as Supercomm will regain that name in 2009, organizers said Wednesday. Supercomm last occurred by that name in 2005, after which organizers USTelecom, then USTA, and the Telecommunications Industry Association parted ways. In 2006, each held its own show, with TIA staging GlobalComm and USTelecom hosting TeleNext. Mixed reviews of the split led the groups to reunite and hold a single show, NXTcomm, in 2007 and 2008. “We are re-establishing [SuperComm] due to popular demand and structuring it to better serve today’s 21st century communications providers and partners,” event organizers said in a statement. Supercomm will be June 8-11 in Chicago.

T-Mobile asked the FCC not to adopt new requirements for dual-mode CMRS-VoIP phones as the commission revises rules for VoIP E-911. The dual-mode phone issue loomed large last month as commissioners debated a rulemaking required by the NET 911 Improvement Act. Other commenters said the dual-mode issue appears unique to T-Mobile and asked the FCC to table the issue to focus on the Act’s main thrust: Ensuring that interconnected VoIP providers have access to E911 services.

Telecom and cable firms, states and others resisted an AT&T plan for an interim intercarrier-compensation revamp (CD Aug 13 p8). In comments last week, they urged the FCC to keep its eye on the comprehensive overhaul promised by Chairman Kevin Martin for November. Comments on an alternative interim proposal by Embarq are due Tuesday.

The fun and games of previous national political conventions hosted by the TV networks and telecom companies will be lacking next week at the Democratic gathering in Denver and the week after at the Republican get-together in St. Paul, Minnesota. Cited as the reason, besides the economy: Tough new congressional rules on accepting gifts. “We're not doing shit,” said a lobbyist for a Fortune 500 communications company when asked his organizations plans for both conventions. He said his company will send only two executives to each city.

The FCC shouldn’t adopt phantom traffic proposals that lead to indirect rulings on broader intercarrier compensation issues, said Alaska carrier General Communications Inc. In an ex parte filing, GCI said it doesn’t “oppose generally applicable traffic identification requirements.” USTelecom and the National Exchange Carrier Association have proposed signaling rules that “appear to stray -- whether unintentionally or by design -- into the potential predetermination of (in the case of IP traffic) and the overruling of (in the case of intraMTA CMRS traffic) applicable intercarrier compensation levels,” GCI said. It’s not certain that “so-called” phantom traffic hurts incumbent carriers, the company said. The lack of evidence isn’t surprising, it said, because rate-of-return rate setting principles and the tariff pooling structure “ensure that little, if any revenues are actually lost due to untracked or untraceable access minutes.” Rate-of-return ILECs “fail to acknowledge [their] own role in traffic identification problems,” GCI said. “Many ILECs are not themselves passing necessary originating signaling information and cannot use the call signaling information they are demanding.”

Don’t stay the Universal Service Fund high-cost interim cap, said USTelecom and Verizon. They separately opposed a petition (CD Aug 6 p10) by the Rural Cellular Association and a group of small wireless competitive eligible telecom carriers. The interim cap “is a fair and balanced response to the growth of the high cost fund, a very real problem that threatened the sustainability of the universal service system and resulted in rapidly growing costs to consumers who pay for the fund,” Verizon said. The RCA and the carriers seeking a stay have “a vested financial interest in maintaining a system under which competitive ETCs can obtain high cost subsidies without limit,” USTelecom said. “But while such a system may be good for their businesses, it is bad for nearly everyone else.” The RCA and allies raised no new questions of fact or law, it said. Instead, their argument “primarily observe[s] that the rate of growth of support to competitive [ETCs] declined in recent years and predict[s] that the cap will not be effective,” Verizon said. That evidence is no good, said USTelecom. “While Joint Petitioners may take issue with the data relied upon by the Commission, their doing so cannot obscure the fact that competitive ETC support has grown significantly.” Nor did the petitioners show irreparable harm, USTelecom and Verizon said. The RCA and allies make “bold claims about alleged harms resulting from the interim cap,” but don’t “offer any proof that such harms have occurred or are certain to occur in the future,” USTelecom said. If a competitive ETC is harmed by a cap, it added, it can “avoid the cap altogether by filing cost data with the Commission.”