Any third-grader will tell you that one of the most important rules of playing a game is to play fair. And any adult will tell you that life doesn’t work that way. So at the risk of sounding like a whiny school child, I want to scream, “That’s not fair!”
Wireless carriers once again are being robbed of potential universal service funds at the expense of wireline carriers that operate in rural areas-and no one has a legitimate explanation of why.
Indeed, the radical new rules under consideration for changing how carriers pay each other for delivering phone calls to other carriers’ networks are being proposed in part because there is not much money left to subsidize rural carriers. In other words, the Universal Service Fund is going broke. The government is asking for a coalition of carriers (the Intercarrier Compensation Forum) to come up with the new payment system. After a few meetings, independent wireless carriers quickly called foul and left the forum.
Why? Because it’s the same old story: Wireless carriers have to pay into the fund, but they can’t take out of the fund.
Every other type of telecom carrier that pays into the fund is eligible to receive money from the fund too. Those carriers just have to prove that they are a primary telecom source for people living in a rural area, for example. Wireless carriers don’t count, however. As CTIA’s Michael Altushul explained: “Everybody else gets something and gives something but wireless just gives.”
Western Wireless Corp. already fought this fight. Western argued long and hard to be able to get USF money and finally is eligible in 14 states-just like all the other telecom carriers offering service in those areas. Each step of the way, state utility commissions had to be convinced that wireless should be treated the same as rural local exchange carriers providing service. And that fight continues. The Federal Communications Commission earlier this year reiterated that providing telecom competition in rural areas benefits the people living there, and as such, said a Virginia wireless carrier was eligible to receive USF subsidies. The agency also warned that it was scrutinizing eligibility on a case-by case basis for wireless carriers.
The FCC should reject the Intercarrier Compensation Fund’s plan because it’s not fair. Chairman Michael Powell cannot proclaim the wonders of wireless technology, praise how wireless can be used to bring broadband access to rural areas, and then not treat wireless on equal footing with other telecom carriers simply because it’s not an incumbent provider.
It’s just not fair.
