SAN DIEGO--Michael Brunner, president of the National Telecommunications Cooperative, kicked off the group's annual convention this morning by saying that rural telcos must stand together to fight opponents of universal service and other programs that help carriers in small markets recover their costs.

In his State of the Association speech, Brunner said 2005 was a significant year with one of the major wins being a defeat--at least temporarily--of the FCC’s move to adopt a bill-and-keep methodology for inter-carrier compensation. According to a study done by NTCA, bill and keep would have cost rural telcos about $2 billion overall.

“It would have been disastrous,” he said to about 2000 attendees. “You gained another year to operate under the existing rules.”

However, going forward, carriers must stand firm on issues such as voice-over-IP providers avoiding contributions to the Universal Service Fund. Echoing the position from previous years, NTCA is pushing to expand the group of contributors to USF to include wireless carriers and all VoIP providers.

“It shouldn’t matter if VoIP services are classified as information services,” Brunner said. “If you ride the network, if you use services, you should pay for it.”

At the same time, rural carriers must cultivate allies. NTCA is currently is working with other associations such as OPASTCO to lobby Congress and the FCC. Additionally, in 2005, more than a dozen small telcos hosted Congressional delegations as part of the associations Spirit program, an effort that will continue this year.

“Lawmakers must comprehend the critical importance of the existing telecom networks,” he said in his pitch. “To those of you on the sidelines, please join us in the fray. These issues are too important for inaction.”