From regulatory reform to incentives to help justify the total cost of ownership of a network, rural broadband advocates came to the launch of the House's bipartisan Rural Broadband Caucus Wednesday with a litany of suggestions. "As much as we want to advance rural broadband, if you don't have a government program [to] support the deployment and maintenance, people aren't going to deploy it," said Sarah Tyree, CoBank vice president-government affairs. The caucus' focus was expected (see 1602020057).

FCC hires Marc Paul, ex-Lukas Nace, as legal adviser to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, with primary responsibility for media issues ... Harris Wiltshire promotes Bill Wiltshire, a founding member, to managing partner, succeeding Mark Grannis, who remains on executive committee ... USTelecom promotes Sarah Versaggi to lead government affairs team as senior vice president, succeeding Alan Roth, retired (see 1510140044) ... T-Mobile US promotes to vice presidents Steve Sharkey for government affairs, technology and engineering policy, and Cathleen Massey, federal regulatory affairs ... MasterCard hires Alexander Niejelow, ex-National Security Council, as senior vice president-public policy, working on cybersecurity, data management, privacy and other tech issues.

A planned launch of the House’s bipartisan Rural Broadband Caucus Wednesday is about exposing a wider range of the chamber’s lawmakers to rural broadband policy issues and will hopefully feature private engagement with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, said in an interview Tuesday. Latta is launching the caucus this week with Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., they said last week in a letter to colleagues (see 1601270054). Latta and Welch have co-chaired the Commerce Committee’s rural telecom working group, which has engaged privately with Wheeler. “You have to hear from the guy at the top at the FCC,” Latta told us of his hopes to continue meeting with Wheeler through the venue of the caucus setting. Latta sees room for having both the Commerce working group and the caucus, which will provide a way to reach lawmakers beyond Commerce who lack the chance to summon FCC officials under their jurisdiction to testify, he said. “It’s good to have everybody involved.” The caucus backers plan a "broadband 101" briefing Wednesday in Cannon and plan to hear from industry officials representing the Competitive Carriers Association, CoBank, NTCA and USTelecom. Latta also cited the importance of his home district, a frequent source of references in his role on the Communications Subcommittee. “We have so many people from all over,” said Latta, a fierce opponent of net neutrality regulations and at times an ally to cable providers, in the interview. “My district, I go from very very rural to a metropolitan area to an urban area. So it’s very important to us that as telecommunications law is developed, that they deal with folks that are in the rural areas, not only for giving them opportunity but also the regulations that are out there can hurt them.” Latta described the geographic challenges of broadband deployment, including “areas that other folks don’t want to go into but the smaller ones will,” he said. “So that’s one of the things that we want to emphasize, what it means to the people in rural areas that haven’t had the ability to have that access and what it means now.”

A group seeking changes to rural healthcare USF received more opposition than support for its FCC petition to open a new rulemaking, in reply comments posted Friday and Monday in docket 02-60. Alaska Communications, CenturyLink and NTCA expressed resistance to the rulemaking petition filed by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition. Although the SHLB filed a reply supporting its petition, and the Salvation Army’s Alaska Division and Utah Education Network sought certain changes, the latter two didn't voice clear-cut support for the petition. Initial comments were divided (see 1601150060).

Alaska Communications opposed General Communications Inc.'s push for FCC reconsideration of equal access and dialing parity relief it gave incumbent telcos in rural Alaska in a broader decision on a USTelecom forbearance petition (see 1601280031). “The FCC correctly abolished its outdated equal access and dialing parity rules, after recognizing that standalone long distance is out of step with modern consumer preferences," Alaska Communications, the state's largest ILEC, emailed us Friday. "Even in rural Alaska, today’s consumers often choose wireless or VOIP national calling plans over traditional local service with a separate pre-subscribed long distance carrier. The USTelecom petition was filed more than 15 months ago, and GCI chose not even to present its arguments to the Commission before the Commission ruled. GCI’s Petition for Reconsideration offers no new evidence, and we are confident that the FCC will uphold its grant of forbearance."

Two heavyweight industry coalitions sparred Friday over the nature of a private set-top box briefing that the Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVCC) held for Capitol Hill staffers that day at Google’s Washington office. The new Future of TV Coalition called the briefing a “secret Google field trip,” outlining opposition to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s set-top box proposals and the NPRM on deck for the February (see 1601270064). CVCC members told us such a briefing was standard and the same demonstration publicly recorded in the FCC docket last year.

General Communications Inc. asked the FCC to reconsider its forbearance decision relieving local telcos of equal access and dialing parity duties in rural Alaska as part of a broader order on a USTelecom request (see 1512170052). The commission said the rules were no longer needed to ensure long-distance providers could compete with the long-distance services of local incumbents, though it provided some “grandfathering” protections for existing services. The forbearance, “without regard to the level of competition for local services or the status of equal access deployment, threatens to send or suspend consumers in some of the most remote areas of the country in a 1980s time warp for their long distance services. The relief granted was overbroad,” said GCI in a petition for reconsideration posted Thursday in docket 14-192. GCI said stand-alone long-distance service is common in rural Alaska, unlike in the rest of the nation. “GCI estimates that it is the presubscribed [interexchange carrier] for perhaps one-third of rate-of-return customers in Alaska,” it said. Tim Stelzig, GCI federal regulatory attorney, added: “Equal access continues to be a unique source of competition between long distance providers in Alaska. We don’t believe the Commission intended to send rural Alaskans back to the 1980s when high costs made many families think twice before picking up the phone to make a long distance call.” The Alaska Telephone Association is reviewing the equal access issue but hasn't taken a position on the GCI petition. "Over the years we've seen that applying broad policies in Alaska sometimes has unintended consequences, so at times it's been necessary to tailor rules to fit our unique network," emailed Executive Director Christine O'Connor. "I expect there will be contrasting opinions on the petition," she added, calling ATA a "diverse group" of ILECs and wireline and wireless competitors.

Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC is continuing its probe of zero rating and has enlarged the probe to also include Verizon's recently proposed FreeBee Data plan (see 1601190070). Some of the meetings were affected by the recent snowstorm that closed the government for more than two days, Wheeler said Thursday.

The FCC approved a report saying broadband isn't being rolled out broadly enough or quickly enough to meet a statutory deployment mandate. The commission action at its Thursday meeting wasn't a surprise after Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a draft report with a negative finding (see 1601070059). Democratic colleagues supported the report and its conclusion, with one backing an even higher broadband standard, but one Republican dissented and the other concurred while faulting the FCC for failing to bring about more broadband deployment. Key House Republicans and major wireline and wireless telco groups were among those criticizing the report, with USTelecom calling it “not believable.”

House lawmakers are forming a bipartisan Rural Broadband Caucus. The members kickstarting the caucus are Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., co-chairs of the Commerce Committee’s rural telecom working group, and Reps. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. They circulated a letter to Capitol Hill colleagues Tuesday announcing the launch of the caucus on Feb. 3 during a 2 p.m. “broadband 101” briefing featuring Competitive Carriers Association Vice President Tim Donovan, CoBank Vice President Sarah Tyree, NTCA Senior Vice President Michael Romano and an unnamed representative from USTelecom. Pocan led the letter to colleagues, and it asked anyone interested in joining the caucus to contact Pocan legislative director Alicia Molt. “This briefing will cover the basic policy concerns regarding broadband deployment and discuss policy solutions to the digital divide existing in rural America,” the letter said. “Recently, the FCC updated its broadband benchmark speeds to 25 megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads. According to the FCC, using this updated benchmark, the 2015 report finds that 55 million Americans -- 17 percent of the population -- lack access to advanced broadband. Moreover, a significant digital divide remains between urban and rural America: Over half of all rural Americans lack access to 25/3 service.” The lawmakers say "all staff, interns, and offices" are welcome to attend. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has sought to regularly meet privately with Latta and Welch’s working group (see 1601070042).