Qwest seeks more money from feds for rural service

Qwest Communications International is asking a federal agency to obey a 2005 court order for reforms that Qwest hopes will give it more access to a pot of money subsidizing rural phone and broadband service. The Denver-based telecommunications company petitioned the Federal Communications Commission on May 5 to follow a 3-year-old 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling ordering reforms in a program reimbursing telephone companies billions of dollars for serving rural areas. The agency hasn't formally responded. The petition by Qwest is another gambit to get more of the $4.2 billion of "universal service fund" money, and tie some of it to providing rural broadband service. The way the rules are written now, Qwest is largely shut out from the fund despite having some of the nation's least populous states in its 14-state service territory.
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