USF Fees Increase For Wireless, VoIP Providers TelecomWeb
At its monthly open meeting today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to increase the carrier contribution base for the universal service fund (USF) on an interim basis, hiking the amounts coming from wireless carriers and bringing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers into the fold. Confirming earlier reports (TelecomWeb news break, June 6), the five commissioners unanimously approved a draft report and order aimed at temporarily shoring up financial stability and viability of the annual $7 billion USF subsidy program. The action that raises wireless contributions and mandates participation by VoIP companies interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) is designed to leverage those two businesses' presumably accounting for growing interstate revenues and traffic (the basis of USF contributions). Wireless operators and VoIP service providers, however, have the option of using so-called "safe harbor" calculations to make their contributions or basing their monetary obligation on a combinations actual long-distance revenue figures and traffic data. Today's FCC move buys time for the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service to continue wrestling with a variety of USF-reform contribution and disbursement issues. It also was accompanied by a unanimously approved Further Notice of Proposal Rulemaking on longer-term methods of assessing VoIP companies and their still relatively nascent long-haul businesses. One of the potent issues for disagreement among the commissioners remains last year's FCC decision to reclassify broadband and DSL as "information services," thereby making them exempt from the USF base. Other USF-related issues on intercarrier compensation, the carrier settlements/separations process to divide revenues and some sticky federal/state jurisdictional matters on USF also are pending at the agency. Expanding the USF base, reforming and streamlining the disbursements, and linking USF with broadband deployment are parts of pending legislation within the U.S. Congress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet today is conducting a hearing on the so-called "high cost segment" of the USF programs, ostensibly to examine who and what is being subsidized and why. Much of this is likely to focus on rural incumbent and competitive carriers from the wireline and wireless businesses as well as on rural subscriber needs. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Duane Whittingham (N9SSN) - Producer Tom and Darryl Radio Shows Heard on C-Band Analog Satellite (W0KIE) - Telstar 6 (IA6) Ch 1 6.2/6.8 mHz Also on WTND-LP Macomb 106.3 FM, WQNA 88.3 FM, WBCQ 7415 kHz & the Internet. Heard Fridays 9pm ET, Sundays 12am ET and Tues 1am ET (Folk) An Independent Freeform Eclectic Radio Show. http://www.tomanddarryl.org http://www.wtnd.us Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
