Kill the identical-support rule but don’t impose reverse auctions...
Kill the identical-support rule but don’t impose reverse auctions as a way to bring more equity into the high-cost universal service fund, 35 House members from both parties told FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in a Monday letter. Competitive local…
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exchange carriers now get the same high- cost USF support as incumbent local exchange carriers, though their fixed costs may be lower, the letter said. “This policy has greatly contributed to the explosive growth of the USF,” it said. The FCC needs a cost recovery approach basing support for CETCs on their needs, not others’, it said. But implementing an agency proposal of the “untested mechanism” of reverse auctions would “stymie infrastructure build-out to the most rural areas,” the letter said. It would be better to pursue reforms “not at cross purposes with basic universal service policy,”, it said. Nor does it make sense to require rural carriers to provide service in high-cost rural areas while advancing proposals that “would pull the rug out from under their investments,” the letter said. The FCC approach could leave rural residents without adequate, affordable communications, it said.