Adam Bender

U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra called for a “commonwealth” approach in which government and businesses come together on friendly terms to advance the “common good.” Under this approach, laws aren’t always needed to effect positive change, he said in a keynote at Supercomm. In another keynote, Cox President Patrick Esser advocated a public-private approach to spur broadband adoption. Meanwhile, an AT&T executive warned that regulatory uncertainty could undermine investment by the telecom industry.

CHICAGO -- The need for a long-term and “holistic” commitment to spurring broadband is the most important lesson to be learned from international broadband comparisons, FCC broadband plan coordinator Blair Levin said at Supercomm Wednesday afternoon. “If this is just kind of a one-shot deal, five years from now it will just be like an infinite number of other things” that people talked a lot about but never accomplished, he said.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he has grown increasingly convinced that disabilities access must be a critical part of the National Broadband Plan. He said the FCC commissioners have been invited to a commission hearing Nov. 6 at Gallaudet University on disability issues. Copps spoke at a daylong broadband staff workshop Tuesday on the topic, the second the commission has held on disability matters as it develops the plan.

Several telephone companies that serve prisons are facing a lawsuit by Millicorp, parent company of ConsCallHome.com, a controversial call routing service that reduces the cost of prisoner phone calls. Securus Technologies, one of the prison telcos named in the suit, has petitioned the FCC to ban such call routing services, which the company said threaten security and public safety (CD Sept 2 p5). The Millicorp suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida sought $75,000 in damages, plus declaratory and injunctive relief. Millicorp alleged that Securus, Global Tel Link, T-Netix and Evercom Systems committed common law tortious interference and civil conspiracy to commit tortious interference when they blocked calls to ConsCallHome. The telcos’ actions violate the 1934 Communications Act and 1996 Telecom Act, as well as various state unfair and deceptive trade practices acts and consumer protection laws, Millicorp said. “What we are trying to do is provide a cost effective solution for family members whose loved ones are incarcerated,” President Timothy Meade said. “Paying upwards of $20 for a 15 minute phone call is a burden that our customers just cannot afford. The prison telephone providers are, as our lawsuit explains, simply put, not only inappropriately blocking these calls but they are also taking outrageous advantage of this targeted group of people with their monopolistic practices.” Stephanie Joyce, an Arent Fox attorney representing Securus, said the lawsuit is “wholly without merit.”

ORLANDO -- The FCC broadband team has a “data problem” that’s making it more difficult to create a comprehensive cost model for the National Broadband Plan, deployment director Rob Curtis said at a regulatory workshop at the CompTel show Wednesday. He pleaded for his listeners to send the FCC the information that their companies use to make business decisions. That information is “fundamentally lacking in transparency at the FCC,” Curtis said. Meanwhile, an NTIA official provided new details on what worked and what didn’t in the first round of broadband stimulus funding.

Attendance at the fall CompTel show was “slightly down” from previous shows, CEO Jerry James said in an interview. The show had about 1,500 pre-registrations, like last year, but didn’t get as many on-site registrations as at previous conferences, he said. About 2,100 people attended the show in the spring. Exhibitors this fall rented nearly 115 booths, James said. That’s down from 142 in the spring and 150 last fall. CompTel’s numbers have been dropping since spring 2005, when 2,715 visited the show, with its 220 booths. But the CompTel show’s decline hasn’t been nearly as dramatic as that of Supercomm, a far bigger show centered on wireline that opens next week. That show’s attendance dropped by more than half from 2005 to 2008 (CD Sept 29 p1). Travel costs may have been a deterrent in the rough economy, but many companies came to CompTel anyway for the chance to meet several new customers in one place, James said. He added that he has heard that many deals were made at the conference. To keep members informed when they can’t make it to CompTel events, the association has started using new communications platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, James said. “Any way we can communicate with our members what’s going on, we think that has value.”

ORLANDO, Fla. -- U.S. economic growth “is threatened by a regulatory structure that remains firmly planted in the past,” Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse said in a keynote Monday at the CompTel show. He urged policymakers to “correct regulations that direct money away from mobile broadband providers in order to protect incumbents and … preserve antiquated technologies.” Hesse also cautioned the FCC to avoid “unintended consequences” as it writes network neutrality rules.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The FCC plans to seek more information on the Universal Service Fund (USF) as part of its development of a national broadband plan, said Jennifer McKee, acting chief of the FCC Wireline Bureau’s telecommunication access policy division. On a panel Tuesday at the CompTel show, she said she expects an FCC public notice on how USF fits into the plan to surface in “the next couple of weeks.”

Supercomm returns later this month with its old name but a new focus on broadband applications, services and content, said the show’s managing director, Jan Maciejewski, in an interview. This year’s event will be the first Supercomm managed by Maciejewski and Expocomm Events. Organizers expect the show to take a hit on attendance and exhibit space due to the poor economy, but are aiming for quality, not just quantity, Maciejewski said. Supercomm under its various other names has seen declining attendance and shriveling exhibit space rentals for the past several years (CD Sept 29/08 p1). The 2008 show in Las Vegas had 13,000 attendees, less than half the number that came in 2005, and 180,000 square feet of exhibit space, down from 300,000 in 2004. Maciejewski wouldn’t speculate on attendance for 2009, but said “we are tracking ahead of our expectation at this time.” Exhibit space is “clearly going to be smaller than [it was in] the hey-day of Supercomm,” he said. “The trend in the industry due to the economy … has had an impact on expectations, but if we get the people that we've seen have preregistered, then I think we will have met our expectations,” he said. “We're trying to be realistic. We've very specifically targeted and segmented the market into key buyers [and] key industry leaders. … What I would like to see is the exhibitors going home saying, ‘It may have been smaller due to the economy … but the quality of the people I met while I was there was outstanding.'” Maciejewski’s team studied past Supercomm shows, with an eye on “what’s worked well [and] what we can develop,” and collaborated with exhibitors to pick the right location, content and direction for the show, he said. For example, exhibitors almost universally wanted the show in Chicago, and Maciejewski’s team has already targeted the city for next year’s edition, he said. The 2009 program includes an emphasis on broadband stimulus efforts, with keynote speakers including federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling and CEOs of big service providers, he said: “We're trying to steer [the show] … in a way that is relevant to the market, showcases the very latest, next generation of applications and services, and make it very focused on business.” Supercomm was originally scheduled for the summer, but was delayed primarily to better align it with possible dates for stimulus funding announcements, Maciejewski said. The extra time allowed the team to improve educational programming, as well as better target and attract potential attendees, he said.

Big long-distance carriers condemned an emergency petition by small rural local-exchange carriers to stay a disputed Iowa Utilities Board order (CD Oct 8 p16) requiring eight rural carriers to refund unauthorized intrastate switched access charges billed to the big carriers. The RLECs want the FCC to put the order on hold until the commission decides on their petition to preempt the board. In opposition filings last week, Qwest, Verizon and Sprint Nextel said the FCC has no authority to intervene, because the Iowa order concerned intrastate traffic, which states have the only jurisdiction over. No FCC decision has upheld the access revenue arrangements between the rural carriers and free conferencing providers, Sprint said. Verizon called the emergency petition “the latest in a series of meritless filings by traffic pumpers” that “engaged in pervasive fraud against” the Iowa board, “the Commission, and interexchange carriers and their customers.” The big carriers say the board’s order is limited to Iowa intrastate traffic, but meanwhile they are citing the decision in similar disputes across the country, said Ross Buntrock, an Arent Fox lawyer representing the RLECs in the FCC proceeding. “They can’t have it both ways.” Buntrock said he hasn’t found anything in the Iowa order clearly stating whether the decision applies to intrastate or interstate traffic or both, and the big carriers haven’t cited anything to that effect, he said.