The FCC should deny AT&T’s call for a Universal Service Fund cont...

pure numbers-based mechanism, in light of this quarter’s all-time high 12.9 percent contribution factor (CD July 14 p5). In an ex parte notice Tuesday, the NTCA accused AT&T of “attempting to create a false emergency in an effort to apparently spur premature FCC action so that AT&T may reduce or eliminate its USF contribution obligations prospectively through future regulatory arbitrage.” The NTCA said a 12.9 percent contribution factor is nothing to complain about, because it produces a phone bill that’s “a tiny fraction of a consumer’s monthly budget.” Using phone numbers for contribution ignores the movement to broadband, it said. “The AT&T proposal is backwards-looking, technology-biased, and will dramatically shift the burden of paying for universal service onto incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers and wireless carriers … while relieving interexchange, broadband and other types of providers of the obligation of paying for universal service.” The FCC should keep its current revenue-based contribution mechanism and change it slightly to take new technologies into account, the NTCA said. The FCC could achieve widespread broadband deployment in five to 10 years if it added broadband as a supported USF service and expanded the contribution base to all broadband and special-access transport providers, it said.