Universal Service Reform Act of 2005

[SOURCE: Press Release from Reps. Terry and Boucher]
Late last week, House Commerce Committee Members Reps. Lee Terry (R-NE) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) released a discussion draft of the Universal Service Reform Act of 2005, announcing that they encourage interested parties to provide comments on the draft by December 23, 2005. The sponsors indicated that the bill will not be considered in the Committee before next year. Since enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a variety of new providers of voice services which are exempt from Universal Service Fund (USF) payments have entered the market, resulting in greater USF funding burdens being placed on traditional service providers. Internet based telephony and flat rate all distance calling plans have rendered obsolete the current USF methodology of imposing payment obligations only on interstate and international calls. The Universal Service Reform Act of 2005 responds to these developments and would ensure the continued availability of the USF to support the provision of communications services in rural and underserved areas. The measure broadens the base of contributions into the fund, controls distributions from the fund and allows use of universal service support for broadband deployment. It also makes a number of other much needed changes to improve fund administration. The Universal Service Reform Act increases contributions to the USF by assessing them on the intrastate, interstate and international revenues of: 1) Any entity that pays into the USF under the current system (e.g., long distance providers); 2) Any provider of a service that uses telephone numbers, IP addresses or their functional equivalents to provide or enable real time voice communications and in which the voice component is the primary function (e.g., cable telephony and VoIP providers); and 3) Any provider that offers a network connection for a fee to the public (e.g., DSL, cable modem, WiMax and broadband over powerline providers).
The Press Release and draft legislation can be viewed at:
http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/usfrelease.htm
http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/usfdiscussion.pdf

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