The Universal Service Fund is ‘unsustainable’ in its current form...
The Universal Service Fund is “unsustainable” in its current format, and the public should be notified about the program’s sources of revenue and spending obligations, the two top Republicans on the House Commerce Committee said in a letter Tuesday…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
to FCC acting Chairman Michael Copps. “American consumers should not bear the burden of paying more and more to support a broken system while universal service reform languishes,” said the letter from Reps. Joe Barton of Texas and Cliff Stearns of Florida. The members asked the FCC to include in each quarterly public notice of the proposed USF contribution factor: A statement of whether any sources of revenue other than industry affected the contribution factor, and if so, the sums from each source; a summary of why the projected demand increased or decreased from the previous quarter; and a summary of why the projected industry revenue decreased or increased from the previous quarter. Barton and Stearns asked the FCC to begin providing the information with the public notice for the third quarter of 2009. If the commission declines to include it in the public notice, the congressmen asked that the FCC provide it to the Commerce Committee “no later than the date of the release of each Public Notice of a proposed contribution factor.”