 n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY
 ·Optimum Online
| reply to lestat99
Re: VoIP Industry needs to answer some questions said by lestat99:
(snip)
First we can't dismiss the concept of Universal Service. Universal Service has been upheld by numerous courts over the years and is certainly not going to go away for VoIP. This issue is that those in remote rural areas have the same right at the same cost to telephone service as those in highly dense urban environments. Also who supplies phone service to those below the poverty line that obviously can't afford broadband??
(snip)
Anytime some service is declared by the government to be "Universal" or an "Entitlement", I believe that service should be nationalized as a not-for-profit government agency. The problem we run into now is that for things, like the telephone, we are taxed to pay for the underprivilege/underserved but there is no real accountability for those fees plus the provider still has shareholders and a profit motive. As Teletruth has reported, the current USF fee is free money to the telco's to basically do with as they please. They can jack up their service rates for greater profit and shareholder value and then require the taxpayers to pay a higher USF fee. As a government agency, it will certainly not be any better in terms of service but the service would have to be provided "at cost".
The real solution is to eliminate this whole concept of "Universal Service" and let the market forces come into play. If you live in a rural area, you are going to pay more for service but what you save in urban property taxes and lower home prices as well as the quality of life (ie. crime, pollution, density) is the trade-off. |
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| said by n2jtx:
The real solution is to eliminate this whole concept of "Universal Service" and let the market forces come into play. If you live in a rural area, you are going to pay more for service but what you save in urban property taxes and lower home prices as well as the quality of life (ie. crime, pollution, density) is the trade-off.
I agree, we may have had a need for USF at one time but we are well past that now. |
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BeeperPart Of The Problem
join:2001-09-27
Dayton, OH | reply to n2jtx
said by n2jtx:
The real solution is to eliminate this whole concept of "Universal Service" and let the market forces come into play.
Explain that to the Senator from Alaska.
It will never happen.
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Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope. Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism. |
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 calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA | reply to Automate
...and it doesn't much help the original concept now.
California, believe it or not, still has vast areas without any telephone service--areas where there is no local phone company. USF should be funding the provision of service to these areas--instead it's both a slush fund for the telcos and an overall cover for various "wealth redistribution" schemes--ones which hit not the rich, but instead hit everyone who has a phone, unless you fall into one of the various "identified need" groups where you get price breaks or free service. (We don't need to go further into the make up of these qualifications--let's just say that they are thought by some to have definite political goals.)
Calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA | reply to Beeper
Yeah, the state that is so rich it doesn't impose taxes, but rather gives all residents an annual "rebate", needs the rest of the US to support their phone service.
What arrogant hoo-hockey.
Calvoiper
(What's that? They have been so profligate with their spending that they might have to impose some slight taxes from now on? OK--change my comment "the state that gets over 80% of its revenue from oil, rather than taxes" and my argument is the same.)
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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