xsiddalx
join:2005-03-11
Chicago, IL
 ·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to halfband
Re: a data service, not a phone service
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. |
