Big Cable Lobby: USF for Broadband Must Be "Tailored"

The Senate Commerce Committee will hear from National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow and three of the five members of the Federal Communications Commission June 24 as the committee ponders migrating the Universal Service Fund to broadband.

According to a copy of his testimony, McSlarrow plans to tell the committee that cable operators support considering changes to the program to achieve universal access, but that given the history of "staggering growth" in the fund--almost everybody agrees some reform is needed--"the role of USF in promoting broadband must be carefully tailored to unserved areas and populations." McSlarrow argues that USF subsidies for broadband should only go to areas that don't have broadband facilities. He points out that cable broadband is in 92% of the country. As with the broadband stimulus funds being handed out by the Commerce Department, NCTA is concerned that the USF money not go to overbuild its members. "It would be a poor use of scarce government resources to subsidize a broadband competitor in communities--including many small, rural communities -where cable operators have invested risk capital to deploy broadband services," McSlarrow says.