Rockefeller: FCC must fix universal service system

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) wrote to all five members of the Federal Communications Commission on August 2 urging them to provide telecommunications and broadband services to rural residents across the country as required by law.

"The existing universal service system has shortchanged too many residents of communities in West Virginia and in rural areas across the country," Chairman Rockefeller said, claiming that as many as one in five households in his state lack access to broadband service and only 71 percent of the population has access to 3G wireless service. "The stark fact is that the present universal service system has failed to provide the kind of ubiquitous service that the law requires." Chairman Rockefeller said that the shortcomings have been magnified by an FCC system that focuses on the size of the carrier rather than the needs of the service area.