An AT&T plan to ’stabilize’ the high-cost universal service progr...
An AT&T plan to “stabilize” the high-cost universal service program (CD March 28 p17) is on target because it focuses on wireless competitors, main source of the program’s growth, OPASTCO said in a March 22 letter to the FCC.…
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The proposal offers the FCC and the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service “a well-reasoned, easy-to-implement” way to “gain control over the excessive and unnecessary growth in the High Cost program” while working on long-term reforms, the rural telecom group said. It’s “entirely appropriate” to cut subsidies to wireless competitors, since much high cost program growth stems from increased competitive access to the universal service subsidies, OPASTCO said. The AT&T proposal at the same time “correctly avoids negatively impacting rural ILECs and their customers, which have posed no additional burden on the fund in several years,” OPASTCO said.