SAN JOSE -- FCC Chmn. Powell took some bows for protecting advanced services -- but he also credited the VoIP sector and urged it and its financial backers to get more involved in advocacy and education of policy-makers. “Thank you very much for what you've done for America,” Powell told the VON Conference here Tues., in what he called his “swan song” as chmn. But “you won’t be a rock star forever,” he cautioned the industry. “You must take care to work with those things that are of critical importance” to let VoIP flourish.

The FCC should set national standards to make sure the location of E-911 calls can be identified when callers are on multiline telephone systems (MLTS), several organizations told the FCC in comments filed Mon. Although Verizon disagreed and said a national standard would be too restrictive, many said the FCC shouldn’t wait any longer for states to act.

Cal. PUC Comr. Susan Kennedy -- a national leader among deregulatory policy makers -- is pushing for the states to assert themselves on communications policy, even in gray jurisdictional areas, based on an “Internet freedom” principle to ensure access to VoIP. She’s also proposing her commission undertake a sweeping, possibly fast-tracked remake of the basic state regulatory structure. Kennedy is emboldened by the emergence of IP-based and other competitive services; growing receptivity among fellow state regulators to market-based premises; and what she sees as an FCC “void” creating an opening for state activism, she indicated in a speech this week.

Lack of funding and lack of awareness are the major obstacles to implementing the telecom service priority (TSP) program by the public safety, speakers said Thurs. during a TSP summit hosted by the FCC. The program has been in operation since 1988, when the FCC authorized telecom service providers to provide priority restoration of pre-designed circuits in times of emergency. But the panelists said that so far it has attracted less than 10% of PSAPs. For example, they said, there were still at least 20 states which local emergency centers had no TSP coverage. Okla. Corp. Commission Comr. Denise Bode estimated it would take $7.2 million to cover the uncovered circuits.

The Assn. of Public-Safety Communications Officials and The Consultant Registry said they completed early tests on background sounds on VoIP 911 phone calls, which can be significant to 911 call takers. APCO said more tests are needed, but early results found that VoIP performance was “better than expected.” The tests also found that while VoIP didn’t operate as well as wireless, call-takers should be able to recognize most tested sounds in real-time with the proper training, and VoIP sounds may prove usable for evidence. APCO also repeated calls that they take additional steps to guarantee that VoIP calls are routed to the proper public safety answering point.

The Assn. of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) sent President Bush a letter expressing concern about the rapid deployment of VoIP. The letter said the public isn’t always aware of the difference between VoIP and traditional telephony and noted the recent case of a Houston woman who wasn’t able to dial 911 from her VoIP phone. “The public has an expectation that telephone services will provide 9-1-1 and Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) capability, regardless of whether the telephone operates on the public switched telephone network (PSTN), wireless networks, or the Internet,” APCO International Pres. Greg Ballentine said in the letter. “Yet, at present, there is a very real likelihood that a 9-1-1 call from a VoIP telephone will be lost, delayed or misrouted.”

The NARUC Telecom Staff Subcommittee advanced an intercarrier compensation resolution signaling the states’ general agreement the time has come for overhaul of the entire intercarrier compensation (ICC) system. The resolution, advanced unanimously at the NARUC winter meeting here, urged the FCC in its new ICC reform docket to “carefully consider” the most recent version of an ICC reform proposal developed from more than a year of consensus-building effort by NARUC’s ICC Task Force.

Supporters of E-911 will spend this congressional session lobbying for additional funding for E-911 programs. After the Bush Administration declined to fund E-911 in its 2006 budget request, E-911 advocates said Thurs. they would look to Congress and other sources for funding.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Business witnesses at a Cal. PUC broadband hearing said govt. should get out of their way unless it’s helping industry. Advocacy groups, however, said underserved people needed govt. rules and material help to enter the digital world. They testified at an all-day session (CD Feb 9 p3) intended to move a report on broadband adoption, obstacles and solutions from a draft to a final product that the commission could vote as early as March 17 to send the governor and legislature under a state statutory mandate.

The Me. PUC proposed an overhaul of the state’s E-911 system that would reduce by 50% the number of 911 answering points and eventually lead to consolidation of municipal dispatch centers. The PUC, following a 2003 mandate from the state legislature, intends reducing 911 answering points to 24 from 48 by July 2006. The largest reductions would occur in Cumberland and York Counties in southern Me. where up to 2/3 of current local centers could be eliminated. The proposed rules, which will be the subject of hearings in early March, would require municipalities to develop their own plans for 911 answering consolidation and file them by July. Some local police and fire officials say they fear that moving to regional answering/dispatching centers will increase emergency response times and increase opportunities for errors. They also question whether the promised $1 million in annual savings in 911 telephone charges and additional savings from combining operations will actually materialize. Meanwhile, the PUC approved a Verizon tariff amendment that allows Verizon to reduce the bill credit to customers for federal high-cost support on their lines. The PUC said the credit reduction must be in proportion to the expected reduction in federal universal service high- cost subsidies for Verizon in 2005.