Telcos: Use USF, Not Free Broadband Plan, to Address Digital Divide

AT&T leads a list of group of eighteen telecommunications companies and organizations that wrote the Federal Communications Commission in support of using existing Lifeline and Link Up universal service programs to make broadband access more affordable for low income households. They contrast this proposal with the FCC Chairman Martin's proposal to auction of some spectrum will a requirement to provide nationwide, free, wireless broadband. That proposal, they write, "would not be means-tested or in any way limited to low-income users, and in fact would impose substantial up-front equipment costs on end-users."