The NTCA told FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s new wireline aide, Nicholas Degani, about “the serious problems created by the lack of transparency and predictability in the new regression analysis-based caps” on USF support, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bne4mo). NTCA told Degani that “even the vast majority” of companies unaffected, or affected slightly, “have been expressing overwhelming concern regarding their inability to plan for network investment and operations beyond the next twelve to eighteen months because of the potential volatility and indecipherable nature of the caps.” The association asked for clearer rules to help with business planning, last Thursday’s filing said. That day, NTCA filed suit in the 10th U.S. Appeals Court to block the new rules (CD July 2 p12).

The FCC’s new quantile regression analysis (QRA) will decrease Wauneta Telephone Co.’s federal USF support by $138,636, the company said in a letter to Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett (http://xrl.us/bndsdi). The support reduction will negatively impact the company’s customers and employees, it said. The company asked the bureau to assist it with evaluating the QRA results and provide information on the company’s study area and calculation methodology. Wauneta is a family-owned local exchange phone service provider with 525 access lines in southwestern Nebraska.

Special access reform and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s initial push for a vote on an order rejecting AT&T and Windstream pricing flexibility petitions are expected to be key areas for questions July 10 when commissioners are scheduled to appear before the House Communications Subcommittee for an oversight hearing. Other likely topics include USF/intercarrier compensation reform, progress on a voluntary incentive auction of broadcast spectrum and other spectrum issues, the Verizon Wireless/cable AWS deals and privacy regulations, said government and industry officials.

Representatives of the Western Telecommunications Alliance offered advice on the future of USF and intercarrier compensation reform, during a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (http://xrl.us/bndox2). “The major portion of the meeting involved a general discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of: (a) the Commission proceeding rapidly to adopt orders with respect to the pending matters in the further rulemaking that affect rural telephone companies; or (b) waiting to monitor the impacts of its implemented changes before proceeding further,” the group said. “A hybrid approach of resolving certain critical issues at an early date (e.g., support for naked digital subscriber line services), while monitoring impacts before proceeding on others was also discussed."

The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association filed suit in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, asking for a stay of the FCC’s “flawed” regression analysis-based caps on USF support (http://xrl.us/bndbn6). NTCA is seeking an immediate stay of implementation of the new caps, which are set to be phased in starting Sunday. “The methodology for limiting rural carriers’ cost reimbursements through the USF’s high-cost program is, among other things, riddled with data errors and fails to provide predictable support,” a spokeswoman said. Specifically, NTCA took issue with a capping methodology it said would violate the commission’s statutory mandate to deploy predictable and sufficient mechanisms to advance universal service; inaccuracies in the data set used to designate geographic boundary areas and to compute the formulas’ coefficients’ and retroactive application to limit reimbursements for expenses incurred in past years. “NTCA recognizes the need for modernization of the universal service and intercarrier compensation regimes, which is why we made significant efforts last year to reach a consensus with other industry sectors on suggested updates to those programs,” said Shirley Bloomfield, NTCA’s CEO. “But these specific caps don’t achieve the purpose of modernization. To the contrary, the unpredictable, ever-changing and retroactive nature of these caps are already frustrating routine business planning, setting back investment in rural broadband, and will lead to declining service quality and higher prices for rural Americans.” NTCA has already filed for commission-level review of the regression caps, in a joint May filing with OPASTCO, the National Exchange Carrier Association and the Western Telecommunications Alliance (CD May 29 p7).

Allband asked the commission to stay implementation of the $3,000 per line annual funding cap adopted in the USF/intercarrier compensation order (http://xrl.us/bnc7pq). In a petition filed Wednesday, Allband asked for the permanent stay “so as to align its USF-committed revenues needed to pay” its Rural Utilities Service loans, and “to prevent a default of such loans, and to also prevent an impending close-down of Allband’s telephone and broadband network” that operates as an ILEC in areas of Michigan that previously “never had communications services by any carrier.” The stay would be in addition to the relief Allband sought in its February petition for waiver of the $250 per month high-cost universal service support cap, and a waiver of the framework to limit reimbursable capital and operating costs (CD Feb 15 p17).

The U.S. Forest Service bought 6,000 GPS devices from Globalstar’s Spot. The devices are “rugged, pocket-sized satellite-based personal trackers that work in places where cell phones and two way radios fail,” Spot said. USFS will use the units for employee safety, it said. Spot messenger devices initiated more than 1,800 rescues since they were introduced in 2007, Spot said.

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission denied state USF money to Sacred Wind Communications in a 5-0 vote Tuesday. Sacred Wind had applied as a means to fund “the extension of high-speed telecom and Internet capabilities to underserved areas,” specifically in the rural Navajo Nation land, but the Commission said it was concerned these USF funds “might be used for things like investor profits instead of consumer benefits.” Sacred Wind “lacked the proof necessary to show that underserved consumers will be connected,” said Commissioner Theresa Becenti-Aguilar in prepared remarks. The commission held an extended hearing on the case in February. Sacred Wind serves “approximately 2,200 residential customers spread over 3,600 square miles of Navajo Reservation and near-reservation lands in remote, rural areas of New Mexico,” the company said earlier this year(http://xrl.us/bnc4pg).

The standard for relief for waivers from new USF rules should be tied to whether a company can repay its Rural Utilities Service loans and complete construction of wireline broadband systems, not whether voice service will be lost, the Rural Iowa Independent Telephone Association told FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and aides to Commissioners Robert McDowell and Jessica Rosenworcel in a series of meetings last week (http://xrl.us/bncvd3). The FCC’s reforms have “heightened the climate of uncertainty and have placed a chilling effect on new investments,” RIITA said. The shift of cost recovery to rural customers will burden consumers and result in further loss of access lines, they said.

NASUCA passed resolutions Monday addressing the need for telecom regulation at a time when many states throughout the last year have embraced the industry-backed trend of deregulation. At its mid-year meeting in Charleston, S.C. the organization adopted firm stances on such controversial topics as VoIP regulatory oversight.