Phone Pork

PHONE PORK
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Tim Doyle]
[Commentary] The telecom reform bill now pending in the U.S. Senate could include a cap on the $7 billion-a-year boondoggle the nation's rural telephone carriers collect. For companies like one Hawaiian telecom that sweeps in $13,345 per line per year, the big battle in the reform measure is not over network neutrality, which is pitting AT&T against Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!, but a high-stakes amendment that could cap the Universal Service Fund (USF) that has provided the carriers years of financial windfalls. The rising cost of the program has drawn criticism from House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Rep Barton has branded the fund's growth "unacceptable, unsustainable and unnecessary." He has even called for an end to the program. Still, the telecom reform bill he guided through the House in June contained no changes at all to the USF. Sen McCain, for his part, is calling for a cap on the fund. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) pushed the Senate telecommunications reform bill through his committee without a cap, saying his staff needs to study how other changes in the legislation will affect the USF. Those changes include audits of how USF money is spent and a new fund-raising scheme that would spread the USF cost more widely, possibly requiring broadband and local-telephone customers to contribute. Consumers hoping for some curbs on the program--and some relief from the USF tax--may be disappointed. One indication: Even though Stevens says he favors restraint, the bill he pushed through his committee creates yet another USF program--this one to bring broadband Internet to rural homes at a cost of up to $500 million a year.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/08/beltway-rural-telecoms-cz_td_0809beltway.html?partner=daily_newsletter