CTIA and three of its major carrier members urged the FCC to rebuff a move by RLECs to change the commission’s policy on how intraMTA traffic is treated. The FCC has long held that calls originated by or terminated to a wireless carrier should be deemed “local” and subject to the reciprocal compensation framework, not the access charges regime, the wireless carriers said. Representatives of CTIA, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile met with Michael Steffen, aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski and with Wireline Bureau staff. “The intraMTA rule has been in effect for more than 15 years, has been upheld numerous times in court, and has always governed all intraMTA traffic,” the wireless carriers said, according to an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bm2uh6). “Last year’s [USF] Order once again properly rebuffed RLEC efforts to repeal this rule in the context of traffic delivered by interexchange carriers. To the extent the RLECs’ arguments rely on any suggestion that the [USF] Order created new law, they are simply incorrect.” The changes RLECs seek would “upend” the long-standing framework, “basing compensation on whether or not a particular intraMTA call was routed through an IXC,” the filing said. “This approach would depart from decades of Commission precedent, and create endless opportunities for gaming and abuse.”

Members of Congress and law enforcement agencies backed Big Bend Telephone Co.’s FCC petition for a waiver of some of the new limits on USF recovery. BBTC says it’s the only voice and broadband provider available in the vast majority of its territory, and all alternative providers in the area rely on the company for backhaul transport services. Both Texas senators, Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, wrote FCC members to describe the “unique circumstances” that make BBTC particularly worthy of a waiver (http://xrl.us/bm2s8s).

Reduced USF support for small, rural carriers in Minnesota, as a result of the FCC’s USF overhaul, would mean higher rates for consumers, more difficulties for providers to obtain loans and the potential for providers to go out of business, said a report by the Minnesota Telecom Alliance. It cited Paul Bunyan Communications in the state, which had announced plans to lay 500 miles of fiber to expand services to 2,600 potential customers in underserved areas. Now the company plans to lay only 100 miles that would reach fewer than 400 potential customers and might not plan any additional expansion in 2012, the report said. Another local provider, Halstad Telephone, had planned to upgrade its DSL services. As a result of the changes, it now plans to raise rates to help offset the estimated $250,000 per year revenue loss, the report said. Companies in the state are pulling back from investment due to the FCC’s reform and uncertainty over what might come next, said Brent Christensen, the alliance CEO.

A bipartisan group of 19 senators said the FCC should “immediately act” to remedy the group’s concerns over diminished rural communication network investment in the aftermath of October’s USF/intercarrier compensation (ICC) order, said a letter sent Tuesday to Chairman Julius Genachowski. Warning of “unintended consequences,” the senators requested a formal FCC clarification that the order “will not be implemented in a manner that perpetuates unintended outcomes."

The FCC is expected to take on USF contribution reform at its April 27 meeting, launching a notice of proposed rulemaking. Commissioners already approved orders addressing the start of distribution reform last October and the overhaul of the Lifeline program in January. But the contribution side of the USF program, how money is collected, has yet to be addressed by the FCC under Chairman Julius Genachowski. The FCC is scheduled to release a tentative agenda for the April open meeting on Friday.

Carriers uniformly support the launch of an integrated national database to address duplicate and eligibility concerns for the Lifeline program, according to comments filed in response to a further notice of proposed rulemaking in the FCC’s Lifeline Order. But several carriers, as well as state commissions, were wary of a proposal to use USF dollars to encourage digital literacy, questioning whether the FCC had such authority. States also expressed concerns over privacy issues, the expected cost of the national database, and AT&T’s proposal to let ILECs opt out of the Lifeline program.

Adding unpredictability to the USF support system through opaque quantile regression caps “gravely threatens continued investment in and the sustainability of rural broadband,” the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Friday (http://xrl.us/bmz7wu). Rural LEC members have expressed a “consistent fear” that they might be “the next one” to trigger the caps, and lenders and investors have expressed “deep confusion” at trying to forecast the effects of the caps because of their dynamic nature, NTCA said. NTCA also discussed the substantive underlying problems it saw with the proposed regression analysis approach. “Based upon the discussion in this meeting, however, NTCA understands that the Bureau does intend to receive input from companies and then promptly remedy underlying data shortcomings in the regression analysis models without the need for the filing of individual company waivers,” the ex parte filing said.

It’s incumbent carriers against the world in the latest round of comments regarding the development of an IP-to-IP policy framework, addressed in the further notice of proposed rulemaking as part of the USF/intercarrier compensation order. Commenters also addressed the FCC’s ongoing transition to a bill-and-keep framework. States urged the FCC to proceed at a slower pace or even pause the implementation of intercarrier compensation rules.

Big Bend Telephone Co. will default on loan covenants by next year and could run out of cash in 2016 if its request for waiver of three new USF rules is denied, it said in reply comments Thursday (http://xrl.us/bmzxgc). BBTC pointed to comments of USTelecom and the National Telecom Cooperative Association, which support BBTC’s position due to the “particularly challenging nature” of its service area, and the “extraordinary costs” it faces. Should BBTC go under, consumers could lose access to voice and broadband services because there’s no other terrestrial provider of those services in its area, the telco said.

The Universal Service Administrative Co. disbursed $4.03 billion last year for the USF high-cost program, $2.23 billion for E-rate, $1.75 billion for the low-income program and $81.5 million for the rural health care program, said its annual report submitted last week to the FCC and Congress (http://xrl.us/bmzxdu). “USAC’s program knowledge generated new and improved processes that ultimately saved time and money for USAC and applicants while promoting program integrity,” the report said, pointing to its new payment quality assurance program that homes in on potential improper payments. The beneficiary and contributor audit program lets USAC tailor audit approaches to “both the distinctive features of an auditee’s organization and the specific amounts of money being audited,” the report said.