last mile, regulatory incentives, etc

Sat Mar 24 19:41:25 UTC 2012

It's easy to ridicule the outliers, but the reality is that without USF the
majority of rural America that has Internet connectivity today wouldn't be
online.  Yes, the price-cap carriers didn't do much in rural America, but
that's because there was little economic incentive to do so.  Rate-of-return
carriers had the incentive to invest to earn a return, and they did that.
Many of the independents serve small communities and there is an element of
local pride in providing good service, and coops seek to serve their members
well, and do the same thing.

BTW, the FCC in their recent USF/ICC rulings has put a cap on the funding
per customer per year to $5K, so you won't see any more of the examples
listed in the Connected Planet article.

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: Faisal Imtiaz [mailto:faisal at snappydsl.net] 
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 12:54 AM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: last mile, regulatory incentives, etc

So do a quick research on USF and see who gets paid from it...

Please don't read this if you have just eaten.. you might puke ..

http://connectedplanetonline.com/commentary/real-story-usf-data-071510/

http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/Media/file/PDFs/2011usf/Response
toQuestion1.pdf

If you have more time.. read these for your enjoyment..

http://energycommerce.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=8737

Then one can understand how come folks like Century Tel can gobble up 
Qwest, Savvis, Sprint, and a few others rather quickly !!!

I believe the current USF contribution is about 19%  !!!

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet&  Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, Fl 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232
Helpdesk: 305 663 5518 option 2 Email: Support at Snappydsl.net

On 3/23/2012 1:37 AM, Randy Bush wrote:
>>>> Yes, I find it quite "amusing" that I am paying additional fees on
>>>> all of my telecommunications services to subsidize high speed PON
>>>> networks in rural bumf*ck while I can't get anything like it in San
>>>> Jose, California.
>>> That's OK, you're all in the same boat - the subsidized users can't
>>> get it either. :)
>> So where are these "subsidies" going?
> what a silly question.  lining the telcos' pockets.  american so called
> 'broadband' is a joke and a scam.
>
> randy
>
>