The FCC committed no errors in dismissing a petition for review of $316,447.38 in USF contributions assessed by the Universal Service Administrative Co. against inContact in January 2009, the commission said in a pleading filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The provider of cloud-based products for corporate call centers later disputed $298,410.50 of the charges, but its complaint was dismissed by the Wireline Bureau. The bureau said inContact had filed its appeal “20 days late.” In June 2010, inContact sought review by the full FCC, which handed down an order in January 2012, upholding the decision by the bureau. InContact sought review by the D.C. Circuit. “The sole issue properly before the Court is whether the Commission abused its discretion when it upheld the Bureau’s dismissal of inContact’s underlying request for review of an action taken by the Administrator because inContact’s request was filed out of time,” the FCC said (http://xrl.us/bnj26p). “The Commission did not abuse its discretion or otherwise act unlawfully when it concluded that inContact’s request had been properly dismissed on procedural grounds. The Commission reasonably determined that the issuance of an invoice by USAC constitutes a ‘decision’ of the Administrator that must be appealed within 60 days. ... Because inContact did not file its request for review until 80 days after issuance of the invoice, it was too late.” The FCC said under case law, “the courts owe substantial deference to an agency’s construction of its own rules."

The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment on a June 21 petition by UTPhone seeking a waiver of FCC rules limiting Link Up support on tribal lands to eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) receiving USF high-cost support. “UTPhone argues that it is entitled to receive Tribal Link Up support because it is building telecommunications infrastructure on Tribal lands,” the bureau said (http://xrl.us/bnjxqw). Comments are due Sept. 7, replies Sept. 24. “As a small Low Income ETC serving consumers predominantly on Tribal lands in Oklahoma, UTPhone is a local company that has fulfilled the statutory and public interest objectives of the Commission’s Low Income program by filling a valuable niche in offering competitive, high-quality, locally oriented wireline telecommunications services focused specifically on the particular needs and demographics of low income Oklahomans residing on Tribal lands,” the company said in its waiver request (http://xrl.us/bnjxrc). “With its new and growing broadband network infrastructure, UTPhone is now poised to add a high speed broadband service component to its bundle of offerings to these low income consumers who are struggling to move into the Internet age."

Comments filed on USF contribution reform show little agreement and point to the need for more discussion, Verizon and Verizon Wireless said in FCC reply comments. That conclusion was seconded by many companies and groups filing replies this week. Though many suggested short-term fixes, most agreed there is little consensus to move to a numbers-based or connections-based approach.

The FCC should broaden the range of companies paying into the USF so the fund will remain sustainable in the long term, said the NTCA, OPASTCO and Western Telecommunications Alliance in an FCC filing Monday. The groups filed in response to an FCC request for comment on its proposed rule on USF contribution reform (CD April 30 p4). The groups said they support assessing USF fees on text messaging, one-way VoIP calls, retail broadband Internet access and any enterprise communications service that utilizes a telecom component. The FCC should also adopt a “bright line” contributions rule that would determine service-specific designations, the groups said. The commission should continue to levy USF fees based on revenue, and should adopt contributions reform in stages, the groups said. “The Commission should first expeditiously resolve basic approaches and certain major issues that are ripe for action, and do so in the manner as discussed herein,” the groups said. “Following that, it should deal with more complex and less ripe issues at a later date in an ongoing further rulemaking and/or separate clarification orders as the consequences and unresolved issues of the initial reform become more apparent” (http://xrl.us/bnjnf2).

Valley Telephone Cooperative said it’s “deeply concerned about a framework that caps investment in our future rural infrastructure and eliminates reimbursement for expenses already incurred or committed to in order to provide quality, state-of-art technologies to rural businesses and residential customers.” The telco wrote the FCC in support of a petition by Dell Telephone Cooperative for limited waiver of certain high-cost universal service rules, including the cap of $250 per line per month, the rule limiting reimbursable expenses related to high-cost loop support (HCLS), and the extended limits on recovery of corporate operations expenses applied to HCLS and interstate common line support (http://xrl.us/bni6oy). “The demographics of Dell, like VTCI, require large sums of USF per customer to provide and maintain the services each rural American has had a right to receive since the Communications Act of 1934,” the telco wrote. “VTCI recommends swift action by the FCC approving the limited waiver requests."

The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association has concerns about the transparency, accuracy and predictability of regression analysis-based caps on USF support, association officials told FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bni6ni). NTCA asked the commission to address statistical and data-related issues on the caps, and conduct or release the results of any testing to assess their validity and volatility. “Making the effort to more properly calibrate and test the caps should have minimal, if any, impact on the Commission’s budgetary objectives, given that the Wireline Competition Bureau itself has noted that the caps are anticipated to have at most a $10 million per year net ‘budget’ savings impact” once fully implemented in 2014, NTCA said.

Charter Communications, in bankruptcy three years ago, is impressing Wall Street with a growing subscriber base and favorable positioning against competitors under its third CEO in two years. That’s setting up a revival that could enable it to expand its broadband network and boost its presence in Washington, D.C., industry and company officials told us. A question is whether Washington could help fuel growth for Charter through money from the FCC’s new USF for broadband fund, industry officials said.

Assessing USF contributions on special access services purchased by competitive LECs and used as an input to broadband Internet access services violates the principle of competitive neutrality, counsel for tw telecom told an adviser to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (http://xrl.us/bniz8n). This is because no USF contribution is assessed where a firm provides broadband Internet access using its own facilities, or unbundled network elements, the CLEC said.

Telcos that offer local phone service for less than $10 per month will see their high-cost loop and high-cost model support reduced by the difference between $10 and what they charge, the FCC said Tuesday. A report by the Universal Service Administrative Co. showed 123 study areas with rate floor reductions, with a total annualized reduction at about $1.4 million. The commission adopted the rule to reduce high-cost support for incumbent eligible telecom carriers where end-user rates aren’t high enough in its 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order. The commission said at the time that the purpose of the USF is to help make rural rates reasonably comparable to urban rates, not to subsidize artificially low rates. “Our reforms make universal service fair for all consumers, protecting the consumers and small businesses who pay into the fund while ensuring that rural areas have access to affordable voice and broadband service,” an FCC spokesman said.

The FCC must urgently address statistical and data-related issues on the transparency, accuracy and predictability of regression analysis-based caps on USF support, NTCA executives told Chairman Julius Genachowski, Wireless Bureau Chief Julie Veach, and other commission officials (http://xrl.us/bniu7c). The association also urged the commission to do testing to assess the caps’ validity and volatility, and to make the results public. The objective of ensuring next-generation innovation through sustainable access to broadband throughout America “is frustrated in the absence of clear and well-tested ‘business rules’ that provide sufficient support and enable network operators to understand with a reasonable degree of certainty what investments and operations will indeed be recoverable (or unrecoverable) through USF support prospectively,” NTCA’s ex parte filing said.