Rural telcos seek bigger role for Universal Service in National Broadband Plan

Many familiar themes and a few new ones can be found among the comments filed by associations representing rural telcos with the Federal Communications Commission this week in response to the Commission's April notice of inquiry about a National Broadband Plan. Among the familiar themes—the idea that universal service funding should cover broadband, including the cost of providing "middle mile" connectivity to the nearest Internet point of presence. To raise the additional funding required, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies both advocate requiring Internet service providers to pay into the USF Fund. But the NTCA went a step further in its comments, recommending that Internet content providers such as Google also should pay into the fund.