Republicans and Democrats from the House Commerce Committee requested information from the FCC on the agency’s USF programs. They sent a letter Friday (http://1.usa.gov/13HZd57) and specified that the information requested is an update to previous requests from July 2012, reflecting reforms to the FCC programs. The agency should send them a state-by-state list of how the funds were disbursed throughout the high-cost and low-income programs in 2010, 2011 and 2012 as well as a list of states that have their own USFs and their purposes, the letter said. It also wants a state-by-state list of the eligible telecom carriers that receive Lifeline support and a history of the FCC’s decision-making in moving forward with some of the reforms. Other requests touch on what companies received certain levels of high-cost support and how many Lifeline subscribers were de-enrolled as part of the FCC’s recertification process last year. The letter was signed by Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.; Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif.; House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore.; and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. The letter “continues a standing bipartisan request to the FCC for data to aid the committee in its oversight of the fund, prevent waste, fraud and abuse, and ensure the taxpayers are getting the most benefit for every USF dollar,” said Upton and Walden in a statement. The request for data “ensures that the committee has the most up-to-date performance information so that Universal Service subsidies can be maximized to spur further broadband growth in critical areas of the United States,” Eshoo added.

"Students are the change agent” when it comes to encouraging broadband adoption throughout the country, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told the Consumer Advisory Committee Friday. Rosenworcel made an appearance to discuss the commission’s E-rate initiative and the need to update commission policies to encourage more Internet capacity in schools. Agency officials emphasized the importance of connectivity at home, and committee members stressed that affordability and adoptions are also big concerns.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said the FCC’s spectrum incentive auction “may slide into 2015,” in an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators scheduled to be aired over the weekend. “I'm totally fine with it happening in 2014,” said Pryor, “but I'm hearing rumors that it may not be ready by 2014.” This year both acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn and former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said publicly that the commission is “on track” to run the spectrum incentive auction in 2014 (CD March 13 p1 and CD May 22 p1). The FCC had no comment Friday.

"Significant steps must still be taken” to fix the quantile regression analysis caps on high-cost USF support, NTCA told an aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/13aMufO). The commission will need to incorporate high-cost data updates and correct study area boundaries in any revision, NTCA said. The commission could also consider using the caps only as a “trigger for review of carrier operations,” it said. The association spoke of the uncertainty resulting from “threats of additional cuts”; the harm caused by some carriers’ loss of safety net additive support; and the need for improvement of waiver mechanisms.

Some Senate Republicans questioned the need for new regulations to govern telecom providers as they increasingly transition from copper wireline connections to IP-based connections, at a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday. Meanwhile, panel Democrats focused on what they called the persistent problems with call completion issues in rural areas. Next week, the Commerce Committee plans to mark up S.Res. 157 expressing the sense of the Senate that telephone service must be improved in rural areas and that no entity may unreasonably discriminate against telephone users in those areas. A committee spokesman did not confirm the date or timing of the markup.

Federal policymakers must act to ensure that the IP transition and USF programs operate smoothly and help citizens increase their connectivity, according to witness testimony that circulated Wednesday. The remarks from executives representing wireline carriers, a public advocacy official and a technology analyst came ahead of Thursday’s Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on the state of the wireline marketplace. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.

If the FCC’s quantile regression analysis (QRA) caps were in place from 2006-2012, they would have caused “tremendous financial uncertainty” that could have prevented carriers from investing in broadband, said industry-sponsored research. The study (http://bit.ly/1bhvQAv), by former FCC Chief Economist Simon Wilkie, examined the effects of the FCC’s 2011 modifications to the USF’s high-cost loop support mechanism. A better implementation would be to use the caps not as an immediate limit on support, but as a “trigger” for further individualized attention from the agency, Wilkie said. An FCC spokesman said the reforms “provide much-needed fiscal discipline” on the fund.

The FCC should use unclaimed money from the Connect America Fund to jumpstart the development of “gigabit communities,” proposed the Fiber to the Home Council Americas on Tuesday. In a petition, the association of telecom providers, utilities and municipalities said the unspent CAF USF money should be distributed as “catalyst funding” to support deployment of ultra-high speed networks with symmetrical gigabit services for community anchor institutions and surrounding neighborhoods.

DENVER -- FCC reforms have both complicated and benefited the deployment of broadband, speakers said Tuesday at the NARUC meeting. As telcos have transitioned to focus on offering broadband service as well as voice, the reforms promise a shift in purpose and support but also have created uncertainty, stakeholders said.

The Texas Public Utility Commission granted Valley Telephone Cooperative’s request for state USF money to offset losses due to FCC USF reform. The order released Friday (http://bit.ly/13TASAm) outlined that the co-op telco “will recover a total of $613,903.50 in reimbursement from the TUSF in the Company’s net reduction of FUSF revenues for 2012 and 2013.” Valley Telephone has sought to raise its rates and offset its own losses. The November 2011 FCC USF order is “reasonably projected to reduce the amount that VTCI receives in FUSF revenue by $444,933 in 2012 and $388,955 in 2013,” said the PUC. It granted similar relief requests earlier this year regarding national USF losses.