The Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel urged regulators there to...
The Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel urged regulators there to curb growth in the state high-cost universal service fund through measures such as limiting support to the first line serving a residence or business. In comments to the Public…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Utilities Commission on possible reforms to the state universal service fund (Case 05-I-431T), the OCC said “universal service is accomplished when the first line of connectivity is supplied.” But the Colorado Telecom Association said the state fund’s purpose is to make rural phone service comparable in price and kind to service in urban areas. The group also said that if the program were meant to support only a single line to a customer, that would have been written into the program at the outset. The OCC was joined by Qwest in opposing state universal service subsidies for broadband service. They said broadband is an unregulated service and state law may not allow it to be supported. Most parties agreed that all carriers providing intrastate telecom service should contribute to the state fund. Verizon Wireless took exception, saying that it doesn’t use the public switched phone network, and that assessing contributions as a rate element, as state law requires, could put the state in conflict with a federal ban on state wireless rate regulation.