halfband
Premium
join:2002-06-01
Huntsville, AL
 ·Comcast
| reply to TK Junk Mail
Re: a data service, not a phone service
Is it a "phone service" well yeah in the sense that it uses a phone, but that's about it. The USF was originally set up to provide pots in rural areas that would have been money losers to wire and service. Since this fund depends on service in one area to subsidise another it kind of breaks the system if anyone gets a choice in where they get there phone service from. And that is exactly what has happened with VOIP. Vonage paying into a fund to support POTS, which they do not sell, makes little sense. This is a case of the social tinkering with the system that has been set up by the politicians being overcome by the events in advancement of technology. The USF is an obsolete idea that will shortly need an overhaul to move into the current age.
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Registered Bandwidth Offender #40812 |
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Piggie
Frying Noises in My Brain
Premium
join:2005-11-23
Orange Springs, FL
 ·HughesNet Satellit..
 ·Windstream
| said by halfband  :... The USF was originally set up to provide pots in rural areas that would have been money losers to wire and service. Since this fund depends on service in one area to subsidise another ... The USF is an obsolete idea that will shortly need an overhaul to move into the current age. So I am a rural POTS customer. Which means to me it's a surtax to support my own rural POTS. If the intention was to subsidize me from an urban area, then it should not be on my phone bill either. Or I wish! :@)
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| Speedstream 4200 Modem - 3m/384 plan | W98-W2KSP4-XPSP2 - All AMD | Buffalo WHR G54S with Tomato 1.13 | 3 downstream switches feeding 6 total clients (no wireless) | Including the Data port on the side of my neck | |
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Network Guy
join:2000-08-25
New York
·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Vonage
·Optimum Online
| reply to halfband
The real issue at hand is a political one. Nobody in the finance department wants to lose a revenue stream, particularly a fruitful one from back when people were bound to LATAs and metered local calls.
Reform will eventually take place to define the liabilities and obligations for all telecom carriers. The roadmap is full of bumps, road blocks and downed bridges. It is a new era in data and telecommunications, someone somewhere will eventually forge a new constitution and I can almost guarantee it will shread to shit the existing Telecom Act of 1996.
For the meanwhile, I'm quite content to stray from paying this greed-ridden city of any more taxes than it currently rapes me out of bi-weekly. |
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xsiddalx
join:2005-03-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to halfband
Amen! Raise the prices of broadband to rural areas. It is certainly cheaper to live there in other respects, right?
Finally time for us to realize the old LD is expense, local is cheap model changes....local is expensive, LD is cheap.
I think prices should certainly reflect costs, but I doubt that can exist if we are all paying the same 30 bucks a month. Our Cable friends certainly cross subsidize internally between rural and urban, when they are large enough. I doubt the day will come when pure competition exists and we all get individual prices...
said by halfband :Is it a "phone service" well yeah in the sense that it uses a phone, but that's about it. The USF was originally set up to provide pots in rural areas that would have been money losers to wire and service. Since this fund depends on service in one area to subsidise another it kind of breaks the system if anyone gets a choice in where they get there phone service from. And that is exactly what has happened with VOIP. Vonage paying into a fund to support POTS, which they do not sell, makes little sense. This is a case of the social tinkering with the system that has been set up by the politicians being overcome by the events in advancement of technology. The USF is an obsolete idea that will shortly need an overhaul to move into the current age. |
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xsiddalx
join:2005-03-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to Piggie
I think the overall idea of the Feds was to increase your rates and reduce the costs of LD (imo). Increasing the surcharge and tacking on the USF expense certainly is a step in the right direction...placing more costs on the infrastructure user and less on the telephone user.
The long term goal is to get all of the customers to pay their own pay...
The hope is that cellular, cable, over the top voip, long distance providers + pots, clecs all provide enough competition (again, IMO).
Voice services certainly seem competitive enough these days.
The trick is getting broadband competitive now, to enable more competition in wireless over the top voice (again, imo). USF won't go away, nor will takes. Anyone want to take a stab on why none of the communications company want to add a pass through for their federal income taxes? 
said by Piggie :said by halfband :... The USF was originally set up to provide pots in rural areas that would have been money losers to wire and service. Since this fund depends on service in one area to subsidise another ... The USF is an obsolete idea that will shortly need an overhaul to move into the current age. So I am a rural POTS customer. Which means to me it's a surtax to support my own rural POTS. If the intention was to subsidize me from an urban area, then it should not be on my phone bill either. Or I wish! :@) |
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