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