Major wireless and wireline associations and their carrier members asked the FCC to back off imposing a requirement that eligible telecommunications carriers send billing inserts or postcards to all subscribers explaining the DTV transition. The CTIA said there’s no “cognizable connection” between a consumer’s wireless service and TV service. A notice asking whether the FCC should expand digital TV consumer-education mandates (CD April 24 p6) faced by cable and satellite-TV providers and telcos getting government money drew no support. In comments on the rulemaking notice filed with the agency Friday, no one supported requiring eligible telecommunications carriers to include information on monthly customer bills or send postcards on the transition to all subscribers.

The FCC should stay an order finding that Verizon unlawfully marketed to departing phone customers (CD June 25 p5), USTelecom said Wednesday. The order will “create an artificial regulatory advantage for cable companies” because it stops “one set of competitors from engaging in pro-consumer retention marketing while others engage in similar practices,” said President Walter McCormick in a statement.

Allison Remsen leaves USTelecom July 3 to become executive director of Mobile Future, a new coalition focused on wireless issues.

Rural wireless carriers made clear in reply comments on three Universal Service Fund rulemaking notices that the FCC could face legal challenge if it kills the identical-support rule. VoIP carriers and American Indian tribes, meanwhile, entered the debate over a USF overhaul, urging a broadband- specific fund. They had sat out an earlier comment round.

Conferees on a VoIP E-911 bill (HR-3403) are hoping to get the Senate to approve a bill reflecting an agreement struck two weeks ago by members of both parties and chambers (CD May 22 p2), Hill and industry sources said Tuesday. The bill drops language opposed by telecom carriers that would have barred them from using customer information in FCC competition proceedings. Earlier drafts of the bill would have limited use of the information to emergency network needs.

Conferees have reached an “agreement in principle” on a VoIP E-911 bill that was hung up over rules governing a database collecting customer location information and provider access to 911 components, industry and Hill sources said Wednesday. Once the conference report is drafted, it’s likely to be considered for an expedited vote in the Senate first and then the House. The Senate bill (S-428) passed the Senate by unanimous consent Feb. 26, while the House approved its measure in mid-November with only one dissenting vote.

AT&T saw nothing but industry support on its appeal of a Universal Service Administrative Co. audit. AT&T disputes a USAC order that eligible telecommunications carriers must report partial or pro-rata dollars for USF Lifeline subscribers who left the Lifeline program within the month they joined. AT&T said it doesn’t need to provide the information because it has never asked USAC for partial or pro-rata support. In comments filed Wednesday, USTelecom, Qwest, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Embarq and Sprint Nextel supported the appeal. No one opposed it.

Needless regulation threatens democracy, USTelecom President Walter McCormick told a Wednesday Media Institute lunch. “The Internet today is driving tremendous diverse participation in the democratic process in the absence of government management,” he said. The same freedom of speech isn’t present in China, which “manages the Internet,” he said, voicing fear that regulation could stifle innovation. Net management rules aren’t needed because “today, anybody who wants to invest and to offer Internet access is free to do so,” he said. Broadband investment is private sector- based, making it “unique from other significant technologies and infrastructure programs,” he said. In today’s dollars, taxpayers paid about $20 billion per year for 25 years to build the interstate highway, and $10 billion per year on the Apollo space program, he said. “But, last year alone, private companies invested more than $70 billion in North American communications infrastructure,” he said. McCormick’s speech was his first to the Media Institute. “Just a few years ago, the Media Institute probably would not have been interested in having the president of what was then the United States Telephone Association address media issues,” he said. But, in a converged world, “this is no longer the telephone industry, but the broadband industry.” - - AB

Adopting USTelecom-proposed phantom traffic rules won’t impose “unnecessary compliance costs” or undermine broader intercarrier compensation reform, USTelecom told the FCC. In a Thursday letter, USTelecom answered cable and competitive local exchange carrier objections. CLECs One Communications, XO Communications and NuVox opposed a passage that would make CLECs answer ILEC requests to negotiate and arbitrate agreements. CLECs can compel ILECs to negotiate, but ILECs can’t compel CLECs. The FCC must make those “rights and obligations reciprocal so as to ensure a level playing field,” USTelecom said. That would fit with an order involving T-Mobile creating a reciprocal relationship between ILECs and mobile carriers. “The same policy and legal grounds support extending this decision to ILEC-CLEC negotiations,” USTelecom said. USTelecom addressed NCTA questions on the proposal’s technical exceptions. The proposed “signaling rules recognize that there are limited instances where calling party number information is not passed in the network either because existing network equipment does not provide for this or because industry standards or guidelines dictate that it not be passed,” USTelecom said. Limited instances include VoIP networks that don’t use phone numbers, law enforcement mandates and calls from 8YY telephone numbers, it said. NCTA also sought clarification on how USTelecom’s phantom traffic rule would define an unreasonable practice. The proposed rule “does not expressly define the prohibited content,” but “enforcement of the provision is no different than the existing prohibitions on ‘unreasonable practices’ or ‘unfair and deceptive practices’ which the Commission has a long history of interpreting and enforcing,” USTelecom said. Burden would be on the alleging party in a complaint proceeding, it said.

Broadband providers convicted of discriminating against applications or devices would face antitrust remedies under a bill (HR-5994) introduced Thursday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich. HR-5994 would require network operators to ensure equal treatment of all content, applications and services.