Qwest received $28.5 million in assistance from the universal ser...
Qwest received $28.5 million in assistance from the universal service program’s high-cost fund in 2007, the company told House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in a letter Monday. Waxman had asked Qwest and 23 other carriers to respond…
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by Monday to questions on how they spend USF subsidies as part of an ongoing inquiry (CD July 28 p6). Waxman is concerned that phone customers are paying surcharges of 11 percent or more to support the fund, he said. Several carriers told us Monday they did not want to release their responses to Waxman, although they had completed the letters. Qwest said it received no high-cost assistance in rural states such as Iowa, New Mexico and North Dakota. “Qwest’s region-wide support … equals the amount of support provided to non-rural eligible telecommunications carriers in West Virginia and was just one-seventh of the non-rural high cost support awarded in Mississippi,” said a letter to Waxman from Shirley Bloomfield, Qwest’s senior vice president of federal relations. The carrier told Waxman that high-cost support should be targeted to rural areas served by non-rural ILECs.