Adam Bender

The FCC will distinguish between residential and business connections when collecting broadband data, it said in an order reconsidering the Form 477 order on broadband data collection adopted at the March open meeting (CD March 20 p1). Simultaneously, the FCC released the March order and its latest advanced services report.

The elections will intensify focus on broadband deployment, with lawmakers eyeing the universal service program as tool for wider deployment, speakers said Thursday at a Pike & Fischer conference on broadband policy. Lurking net neutrality legislation slowed progress on major telecom bills this Congress, speakers said. No neutrality legislation is likely this year, but a push could come next Congress if network operator practices anger key lawmakers, speakers said.

It’s premature for the FCC to list what forms of network management are unreasonable, Commissioner Michael Copps said Thursday. Keynoting the Broadband Policy Summit, Copps said the FCC instead should create a way to address complaints. Copps called for a national broadband policy and urged the Defense Department and other government bodies to pitch in.

FCC commissioner offices intend to vote early on all three wireline agenda items set for Thursday’s open meeting, an FCC official confirmed. The source told us he was “100 percent” sure commissioners would vote early on an order on the National Do-Not-Call list and a notice of proposed rulemaking on telecom relay speech-to-speech services. They should also finish votes on an order requiring ten-digit dialing for IP relay services, but that’s less certain, the source said. There doesn’t appear to be dispute over the ten-digit plan, but the order hasn’t seen much movement, the official said.

Two ex-FCC chairmen went head-to-head on which presidential candidate has the better communications policy, in a Federalist Society forum Tuesday. Michael Powell endorsed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., while Reed Hundt backed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Tempers flared on Bell mergers as well as on broadband policy.

Competitors pushed back against incumbent local exchange carriers on a rural ILEC’s petition concerning VoIP interconnection rights. Vermont Telephone wants the FCC to rule that it need not interconnect with Comcast Phone, a VoIP carrier (CD May 21 p7). The petition is “another attempt by a rural incumbent LEC to block or forestall entry by a competitor,” CompTel said. Sprint Nextel agreed, rejecting ILEC-claimed “confusion” on interconnection rules. If ILECs are confused, the FCC should make three rulings, Sprint said: (1) An ILEC may not refuse to negotiate with a certified carrier on the basis that it “thinks” the carrier “might not be” a telecom carrier, (2) All ILECs must negotiate in good faith with requesting carriers, and (3) After receiving an interconnection request, ILECs must provide interim arrangements, number portability and dialing parity. But ILECs said it’s competitors who are guilty of regulatory abuse. “Interconnected VoIP providers and associated wholesale carriers are doing everything they can to evade responsibilities normally required of carriers, particularly with respect to compensating network providers for traffic termination,” said reply comments by the National Exchange Carrier Association, Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and two other ILEC groups. The FCC should confirm interconnection rules to curb violations, they said.

The FCC could grant forbearance to Verizon and Qwest without either Bell filing a me-too forbearance petition. Late Friday, the FCC sought comments on whether to give both carriers relief from cost-assignment rules requiring Bell companies to keep records that, among other tasks, separate interstate and intrastate costs. The FCC granted an AT&T forbearance on the subject in April (CD April 28 p5).

Governments should “enable that which will come” in setting broadband policy, David Gross, U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy, said Monday in a keynote at a Technology Policy Institute forum. Policy should enable “technologists to develop technology, entrepreneurs to create opportunities, and people to be able to take the services and buy the equipment that they're interested in having,” Gross said, acknowledging that that’s easier said than done. “Incumbency is often a huge impediment” to change, he said, citing “remarkable progress” in extending the Internet the past 10 years. Next week’s OECD ministerial conference in Seoul, South Korea, on the Internet economy’s future highlights the change, he said. The first such meeting in Asia, it will assemble 1,500 to 2,000 people, a “very impressive cross-section” of the world, he said. The last OECD Internet-economy ministerial, in 1998, focused on what government can do to enable people to get online. “It’s happened,” he said. “That set of issues” from 1998 “has broadened in ways that no one could reasonably have anticipated… to envelop the entire world.” Internet matters are figure in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East -- areas that in 1998 had almost no telecom technology, Gross said. “This quantum leap is something people only now are beginning to understand and recognize its importance.” There’s a lesson in that, he said. “Those who seek to predict the future are almost always, invariably wrong.”

Don’t let Core Communications revamp its intercarrier compensation, AT&T, Verizon and six phone trade groups told a federal appeals court. In an intervening brief filed last week, they urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to deny Core’s appeal of an FCC order denying forbearance. The forbearance petition sought in effect to replace access charges with reciprocal compensation (CD July 27 p8). Oral argument is Oct. 7. In its brief, the phone group panned the Core appeal as “the latest in a long series of efforts by [Core] to promote its own short-term interest in regulatory arbitrage at the expense of rational, pro-competitive regulation.” Besides AT&T and Verizon, the brief was signed by the National Exchange Carrier Association, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Nebraska Rural Independent Companies, Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies and Western Telecommunications Alliance. Core had no basis for seeking forbearance in the first place, said the intervenors. A carrier may ask for forbearance only from a regulation governing itself or a “class of telecommunications carriers” of which it’s a part, they said: “Core sought to impose a new set of regulations on other carriers… as a means of gaining competitive advantage.” Forbearance wouldn’t have given Core automatic relief, but create a “regulatory vacuum,” they said. Core’s petition “was, in substance, a request for new regulation, not a request for forbearance,” they said. Core didn’t comment. “Our reply brief is due on June 17, and we'll use that opportunity to address any issues raised by intervenors that merit a response,” said Michael Hazzard, the company’s lawyer. The forbearance appeal isn’t Core’s only case on ISP compensation. The D.C. Circuit also is weighing whether to grant a writ of mandamus forcing the FCC to clarify its ISP- bound traffic rules (CD May 6 p1). Reversing the forbearance order would give Core future relief only, whereas a mandamus could lead to retroactive relief.

The FCC should seek more comment on emergency calling issues for IP-based telecom relay services after it adopts a 10-digit numbering plan, said Sorenson Communications. In a meeting with the Consumer & Government Affairs Bureau, Sorenson urged the FCC to “move forward to E911 as quickly as possible,” according to an ex parte. Sorenson raised several questions, including how interpreters should handle emergency calls and how to update location information. Commissioners will vote on an order and further notice of proposed rulemaking on the plan at the June 12 FCC meeting (CD June 6 p4). The order will require implementation of the plan by the end of 2008, while the further notice will ask about CPNI, slamming, cost recovery, E911 and related issues, said a lawyer close to the proceeding. The FCC aims to release an order on the further notice before fully implementing the 10- digit plan, the lawyer said.