US/ND-2: Re: Welcome to Week Two of the US/ND seminar
Re: Welcome to Week Two of the US/ND seminar
Rex Buddenberg (budden@nps.navy.mil)
Tue, 03 Sep 96 12:10:43 -0700
I need somebody who can tranlate the text of the law into something
mortals can understand:
- where does the $ to support universal services come from?
- what's the allowable limit within the law that we can
spend it on?
Without these constraints properly defined, we're going
to talk ourselves in circles for a long time.
> SCOPE. What services should be covered by the Universal
> Service subsidies?
The law uses the term 'evolved set' clearly indicating that the list
changes over time.
The 'telecommunications industry' definition is very broad ...
would include computer companies, ISPs, CATV, VSAT, etc ... much
more than just the telcos.
But it appears that the fund gozintas come only from the
'telecommunications carriers'. I didn't find the exact
definition, other than a reference to interstate commerce.
But it appears that this input to the 'Fund' is from a
quite limited subset of the telecommunications industry.
Since the law also explicitly bans cross subsidization, it would
appear that the a scheme that would use the inputs from the
telecommunications carriers to fund a broader array of services
(to wit, Internet services) would be in conflict. As an example,
use of the Universal Service Fund to pay for VSAT connectivity
(which is provided by a non-regulated vendor within the definition
of telecomm industry but outside the definition of telecom carrier)
would not be supportable.
Rex Buddenberg