USTelecom hires Lynn Follansbee, leaving FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Policy Division, as vice president-law and policy … Cox Communications moves Senior Vice President-Northeast John Wolfe to that job in southwest region, succeeding Steve Rizley, retiring.

Industry officials urged Congress to reconsider many elements of USF support policy, despite lauding the broad principles that have guided it. House Communications Subcommittee Republicans issued a white paper last month (http://1.usa.gov/1pmX66c) asking several questions about USF, seeking responses by Friday. It was the fifth white paper the subcommittee issued as part of efforts to overhaul the Communications Act, an initiative announced in December. Initial responses, which the committee has not posted online but were shared with us, were on what parties considered necessary changes to the USF contribution mechanism.

The FCC “overstepped its authority” and “implemented a rule inconsistent with existing law” when it doubled the record-retention requirement in a July E-rate order (CD July 14 p1), USTelecom said in a petition for reconsideration filed Thursday and made available to us. The rule will “adversely” affect the program, the filing said. The agency had no comment. Despite an agency assertion otherwise, the rule is not necessary to comply with the False Claims Act, USTelecom said. That law “is designed to ferret out fraudulent claims by government contractors, not to increase the recordkeeping expense of government contractors,” said USTelecom. The act has a 10-year statute of limitations, the association said, but “a statute of limitations period by which a claim must be brought and a recordkeeping period during which records must be maintained serve fundamentally different purposes -- purposes that the Order conflates.” The 10-year requirement exceeds the requirement in other federal programs, many of which require record retention of five years or less, USTelecom said. The costs of maintaining and storing records for 10 years “is significant and would “greatly outweigh any purported benefit from having available records during the entire time that a person could theoretically assert a False Claims Act claim,” said the association.

Calls by education and library groups, and FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in a speech Wednesday, to increase E-rate funding are running into opposition from telcos, in comments filed in the E-rate modernization Further NPRM. The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and USTelecom said they worry expanding E-rate could cut into other USF programs like the Connect America Fund.

Hours of debate on net neutrality rules at two FCC workshops Tuesday quickly veered into the issue of paid prioritization, a subsidiary issue the commission has committed to examine as it develops broader rules. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler opened the workshops, saying he hoped they would “put a fine point” on the more than 3 million net neutrality comments filed.

Some major Communications Act Title II opponents highlighted proposals by AT&T and Comcast in replies filed before Monday night’s net neutrality comments deadline. Section 706 proponents were pushing the idea that the FCC could consider alternatives that don’t involve resorting to Title II.

Policymakers “should be wary of those calling for significant changes to the regulatory environment and the imposition of telephone-style regulation on broadband service providers,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick wrote in a blog post (http://bit.ly/Zije8b) Thursday. Broadband providers invested $75 billion in 2013, up by almost 10 percent over the prior year, McCormick wrote. “When so much is going so well ... policymakers should be careful to avoid the harm that could result from injecting unnecessary uncertainty and negative pressures into the broadband investment equation,” he wrote.

Broadcasters declared victory as Senate Commerce Committee leaders removed the controversial Local Choice proposal from their Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization draft, circulated Friday. But advocates for Local Choice, which would overhaul retransmission consent rules to stop TV blackouts, hope it will come back to life in 2015, as does Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) formally requested the FCC’s opinion Tuesday on telcos’ legal ability to implement call-blocking technology. Thirty-nine AGs asked the FCC in the NAAG letter whether legal prohibitions against software like Call Control, NoMoRobo and Telemarketing Guard are “subject to change” if customers specifically request the use of the software. USTelecom had said last year that legal restrictions against those technologies prevented telcos from implementing the technologies, NAAG said. The group asked the FCC if carriers can legally block a call if technology identifies a call as coming from a telemarketer, provided the telco wants to block at a customer’s request. NAAG also asked the FCC to clarify the accuracy of USTelecom’s description of the FCC’s position as a “strict oversight” of the delivery of telecom traffic and that call blocking is an “unjust and unreasonable practice” under Communications Act Section 201(b). The telcos’ resistance to implementing call-blocking technology “raises important questions. If a solution to the nation’s illegal telemarketing problem is possible, it will require the private sector -- including telephone carriers -- to get involved,” NAAG said in the letter (http://bit.ly/Zg5uKS). USTelecom is “reviewing the letter” and continues “to work on this issue,” a spokeswoman said.

Price cap carriers say they're willing to offer faster broadband with Connect America Fund Phase II money, but in return they want the funding to last longer, and to have the “flexibility” of not having to serve all areas of a census tract if it’s too expensive. The FCC-proposed changes in the program are resurrecting a long-standing battle, in which cable companies and others resent that cap carriers are eligible for the funds. The American Cable Association, Competitive Carriers Association and NCTA are opposing the changes, in filings submitted before Monday’s Further NPRM replies deadline, with ACA saying the changes would be a “windfall” for the price cap carriers.