Universal Service Fund support amounted to $7 billion in 2007, sa...
Universal Service Fund support amounted to $7 billion in 2007, said a monitoring report by the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service. The report, available on the FCC Web site, reflects data on the telephone industry filed with the…
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commission through June 2008, on 2007 and prior years, the agency said. In 2007, 61.6 percent of support went to the high-cost fund, 26 percent to the E-Rate fund for schools and libraries, 11.8 percent to the Lifeline/Link-Up program for low-income households and 0.5 percent to rural healthcare. Total high-cost support in 2007 was $4.3 billion, up from $4.1 billion in 2006. The increase was due to support from competitive carriers increasing $200 million to $1.2 billion, the FCC said. E-Rate increased $100 million year-over-year to $1.8 billion. Low-income support increased $16 million to $824 million. Only rural healthcare saw a drop in support, decreasing $4 million to $37 million. Total industry revenue for telecom services provided to end users in 2007 was about $238 billion in 2007, $1 billion more than 2006. The portion of households subscribing to telephone service increased to an average 94.8 percent in 2007, up from 93.6 percent in 2006. Interstate toll usage for customers of incumbent local exchange carriers dropped 30 billion minutes year-over-year to 349 billion. The total number of access lines in service for mandatory price-cap carriers Qwest, AT&T and Verizon declined to about 109 million in 2007, from 118 million the year before.