Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Powell: VoIP could impact Universal Service Fund subsidies

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 15:43:47 -0500

Powell: VoIP could supplant
need for universal service subsidies

by Heather Forsgren Weaver
Dec. 12, 2003

Voice over Internet Protocol can be delivered cheap enough that it might negate
the need for universal-service subsidies, said Michael Powell, chairman of the
Federal Communications Commission.

“If the goal (of universal service) is achieved, you don’t need a government
program,” said Powell. “You don’t need a government program just to have one;
you need it for a specific purpose.”

Before wireless carriers, which just recently started receiving
universal-service subsidies, think that Powell is going to do away with the
program, Powell admitted it is too politically important for it to go away any
time soon.

The Universal-Service Fund “will be with us for a long time, and we will work
our way through protecting the pots of money, but if every American had voice
over the Internet for $30 a month, what is the fund for? Aren’t you delivering
what the fund was established for?” asked Powell. “Forget the fund. What are the
goals? And let’s achieve the goals and then decide whether the fund is (still)
needed.”

The impact on the USF is one of the concerns of the rising popularity of VoIP
because the Internet has traditionally been seen as an information service and
not subject to telecommunications regulation, including paying into the USF.

Powell appeared at the Jacobs Center (named for Qualcomm Inc. founder Irwin
Jacobs) on the campus of the University of California at San Diego Tuesday. His
appearance was webcast.

During a wide-ranging discussion, Powell discussed his vision for the future of
telecommunications regulation beginning with how the radio-frequency spectrum is
managed.

“You can really understand our approach to wireless if you understand our
approach to regulation in general,” said Powell, noting that regulators need to
be humble. “This is not the space for the government to take over. This is the
space where you let American ingenuity take over.”

Because government moves so slow, sometimes important innovations get missed,
said Powell. For example, today schools would be wired to the Internet using
Wi-Fi rather than tearing up buildings to bring the Web to the classroom.

“I worry that we might have missed wireless while we were (developing the E-rate
portion of the universal-service program) doing this. Now you would Wi-Fi
everybody,” said Powell. 

 http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=16251

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