The video relay service (VRS) rates suggested to the FCC for the 2010-2011 fund year were opposed in comments from the hearing-impaired community and VRS providers. Last month the commission issued a public notice seeking comment on the payment formula and fund size estimate for the Interstate Telecommunications Relay Services Fund. The formula was submitted by the National Exchange Carrier Association for July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011. The three-tiered rates are based on “the 2009 average actual historical cost data submitted to NECA by VRS providers,” the commission said. In the notice, the rates are $5.77 for up to 50,000 minutes under Tier I; $6.03 for monthly minutes between 50,0001 and 500,000 for Tier II; and under Tier III, $3.89 for monthly minutes over 500,000.

The most hotly debated order at the FCC’s meeting Thursday is expected to be the annual wireless competition report, agency sources said Friday. The report is always controversial. The most contested part this year is that, unlike previous reports, it will not declare there’s effective competition in the U.S. wireless market, but it also won’t declare there isn’t.

ViaSat’s newly acquired WildBlue satellite-based Internet service will add 20,000-25,000 net new subscribers this year as the new owner fine-tunes it in advance of a 2011 satellite launch, company officials told analysts in a conference call. WildBlue, which had about 424,000 subscribers in mostly rural markets as of March 31, was purchased by ViaSat earlier this year for $568 million. ViaSat kept WildBlue’s Greenwood Village, Colo., headquarters as well as many of its 240 employees. It plans to phase in changes to the service gradually this year as it prepares for the ViaSat-1 satellite launch in late Q1 2011, company officials said. The Loral-built Ka-band satellite is expected to go into operation in Q2 2011, they said.

A grant to Dish Network of a rare full-court review of a ruling of a DVR patent infringement ruling it lost to TiVo hinges on whether a redesigned satellite receiver/DVR should be subject to new infringement proceedings, analysts said. In granting an en banc review, the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ordered that four additional briefs be filed by September. That set the stage for oral argument this fall, analysts said.

Negotiating 3D distribution rights for live TV events such as sports has become a complicated task as content owners, licensees, traditional distributors and new distributors seeking them all are at the table, industry executives said in interviews. “In terms of rights?” said Terry Denson, vice president of content strategy and acquisition for Verizon. “It’s cloudy. It’s real cloudy."

West Virginia’s Public Service Commission conditionally approved Verizon’s proposed sale of landlines and long-distance accounts in that state to Frontier Communications. The announcement late Thursday marked the final assent needed at the state level for the transaction and came after a harsh campaign against approval by telecom unions. The only regulatory hurdle remaining is the FCC, which a Frontier official said might come within a week.

The FCC heard a litany of complaints from advocates for people with disabilities Thursday, on the opening panel of the FCC’s Wireless Technology/Disability Access Workshop. They asked the commission to step in and make cellphones more accessible for their members. Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman and Karen Strauss, deputy chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, assured speakers that the FCC takes their concerns seriously.

The Rural Cellular Association and the Rural Telecom Group sharply criticized Verizon Wireless’s disclosure that it’s in talks about partnerships with rural carriers to accelerate LTE deployment in remote places. The association’s president, Steve Berry, said the announcement doesn’t deal with a crucial matter: Data-roaming agreements with smaller carriers around the country.

LOS ANGELES - State PUC Commissioners debated the implications of the National Broadband Plan at NCTA’s annual show and urged the federal government not to pull rank on states.

Slow broadband speeds and insufficient access stifles small business, business owners and executives told the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee during a round table discussion Thursday. “Broadband Internet service is the ability to open doors for small businesses that have been historically shut,” said Committee Chair Mary Landrieu, D-La. “Broadband can help some small businesses function like big businesses and increase their geographic presence by moving their operations online."