USF by the Numbers Coalition

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USF BY THE NUMBERS COALITION
[SOURCE: press release]
A group of telecommunications industry giants announced the formation of a new coalition to urge policy-makers to act in the interest of telecommunications industry giants quickly and adopt a numbers-based system for collecting universal service funding. The new coalition, called the (or Numbers Coalition for short) will highlight the consumer and economic benefits of replacing the current revenues-based system of collecting funds for the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) with a system based exclusively or primarily on telephone numbers. “The current revenues-based system is not sustainable in the changing telecom environment,” said John Windhausen, Jr., Coordinator of the . “The current assessment on consumers’ bills is confusing and unpredictable. For example, consumers are increasingly buying bundles of services that do not distinguish between interstate and intrastate services, or between ‘telecommunications’ and ‘information’ services. Collecting the universal service funds based on working telephone numbers, with an exemption for Lifeline customers, is an equitable and consumer-friendly way to ensure that universal service funding is preserved for the foreseeable future.” The includes AT&T, BellSouth, CTIA ­ The Wireless Association, IDT Corporation, GCI, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), USTelecom and Verizon.
http://www.ncta.com/ContentView.aspx?hidenavlink=true&type=reltyp1&conte...
http://www.ustelecom.org/news_releases.php?urh=home.news.nr2006_0711


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