The net neutrality debate of the last five years -- ending with the FCC in December approving rules prohibiting broadband providers of selectively blocking Web traffic -- was "exhaustive and exhausting," said Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs at AT&T. Cicconi and several other speakers at a telecom policy forum urged the FCC to move forward with plans to make more wireless spectrum available for commercial uses and to revamp the FCC's Universal Service Fund (USF).

The net neutrality debate "focused on hypothetical problems, and we have real problems out there," Cicconi added.

FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker said she fears that efforts to expand net neutrality into mobile broadband and other areas will take more of the FCC's time. "We can't let our debate within the FCC be hijacked by net neutrality for another year," said Baker, a Republican who voted against the net neutrality rules.

But FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's agenda for the coming year looks "far more encouraging," Baker added.

Revamping the USF, a large chuck of which subsidizes traditional telephone service in rural areas, should be a top priority for the FCC, she said. USF, with an annual budget of near US$8 billion, adds more than 15 percent to U.S. long-distance telephone bills, she noted at the telecom policy forum hosted by the Free State Foundation, an antiregulation think tank.