USF Cap Approval Likely This Week once Revisions Circulate
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated late Friday changes in an order approving a Universal Service Fund cap that likely mean approval of a cap within days, we've learned. Counting Commissioner Robert McDowell’s support, Martin has three votes for the high-cost fund cap. Commissioner Deborah Tate backed the cap while Commissioner Michael Copps cast a no vote.
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The order cap has no sunset date, as the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service urged, but grants more than 40 pending applications for eligible telecom carrier (ETC) status, sources said. It caps the fund at March 31 levels.
“I think everyone knew this was coming,” said a wireless industry attorney active on USF issues. “The joint board made its recommendation more than a year ago and it was pretty clear that the chairman was going to get to a majority sooner or later on capping support for competitive [ETCs].” Pro-reform companies worry that the cap means no comprehensive reform for some time to come, the lawyer said. “The greatest fear is that this is just basically going to derail any efforts at long term reform, especially since there is no deadline on this… It’s really going to take the pressure off.”
“If it is March 31, 2008, levels, the FCC listened to us regarding small wireless carriers,” said a lawyer for such companies. “It minimizes the harm to wireless CETCs, but, in the near future, the cap will hurt rural wireless buildout plans and ultimately rural consumers.”
Others said the cap is necessary. “This is something the joint board recommended a year ago and the board has members from states that get a lot of universal service monies and those that don’t,” a wireline industry source said. “It was obviously something the joint broad recommended as critical because the growth in the fund has been so dramatic over the past few years that it’s just really not sustainable.”