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Author: Congressional Research Service: The Libr
Publisher: BiblioGov
ISBN: 9781295255092
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 28
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Book Description
The concept that all Americans should be able to afford access to the telecommunications network, commonly called the "universal service concept" can trace its origins back to the 1934 Communications Act. Since then, the preservation and advancement of universal service has been a basic tenet of federal communications policy, and Congress has historically played an active role in helping to preserve and advance universal service goals. The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (P.L.104-104) not only codified the universal service concept, but also led to the establishment, in 1997, of a federal Universal Service Fund (USF or Fund) to meet the universal service objectives and principles contained in the 1996 Act. According to Fund administrators, from 1998 through end of year 2005, $43.5 billion was distributed, or committed, by the USF, with all 50 states, the District of Columbia and all territories receiving some benefit. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is required to ensure that there be "specific, predictable and sufficient...mechanisms to preserve and advance universal service." However, changes in telecommunications technology and the marketplace, while often leading to positive benefits for consumers and providers, have had a negative impact on the health and viability of the USF, as ...
Author: Congressional Research Service: The Libr
Publisher: BiblioGov
ISBN: 9781295255092
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 28
Get Book Here
Book Description
The concept that all Americans should be able to afford access to the telecommunications network, commonly called the "universal service concept" can trace its origins back to the 1934 Communications Act. Since then, the preservation and advancement of universal service has been a basic tenet of federal communications policy, and Congress has historically played an active role in helping to preserve and advance universal service goals. The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (P.L.104-104) not only codified the universal service concept, but also led to the establishment, in 1997, of a federal Universal Service Fund (USF or Fund) to meet the universal service objectives and principles contained in the 1996 Act. According to Fund administrators, from 1998 through end of year 2005, $43.5 billion was distributed, or committed, by the USF, with all 50 states, the District of Columbia and all territories receiving some benefit. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is required to ensure that there be "specific, predictable and sufficient...mechanisms to preserve and advance universal service." However, changes in telecommunications technology and the marketplace, while often leading to positive benefits for consumers and providers, have had a negative impact on the health and viability of the USF, as ...
Author: Barbara A. Cherry
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135687978
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
This book is the outgrowth of shared interests between the editors and the contributing authors to provide a multidisciplinary perspective in evaluating universal service policy and recommending policy changes to accommodate a more competitive telecommunications environment. The book is interdisciplinary in nature to reflect the extremely complex context in which universal service policy is formed. The chapter authors represent a broad cross-section of disciplinary training, professional positions, and relationships in the telecommunications industry. Academic disciplines represented include law, economics, anthropology, communication, and business. This book's purpose is to significantly enhance the development of effective telecommunications universal service policy among policymakers, industry members, and stakeholders in the United States. Universal service policy has been, and will continue to be, both enabled and constrained by the simultaneous interaction of social, political, technological, and economic forces in the environment in which it is formed. A more effective process for policy design is to seek agreement on how entitlements embedded in universal service policy should be modified as circumstances invariably change over time. Therefore, the volume reflects recent significant developments in U.S. universal service policy--the implementation of which continues to unfold.
Author: Daniel Lyons
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 11
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Book Description
The federal Universal Service Fund program is in crisis. This observation is neither exaggerated nor controversial. Congress overhauled the program in 1996, ostensibly to assure that as the telecommunications industry transitioned from monopoly to competition, providers would continue to assist those who could not afford basic service. But in the fifteen years since, the fund has doubled in size to $8 billion annually, much of which is spent on projects having little to do with the traditional goals of universal service. The Federal Communications Commission has admitted that the system distorts investment in myriad ways, while the Government Accountability Office has criticized the program for an appalling lack of oversight. At the same time, advances in technology mean that the fund's cost is drawn from a shrinking base of interstate and international telecommunications revenue, which has caused the USF surcharge paid by consumers on all interstate calls to skyrocket from 3% in 1998 to 17.9% at the beginning of 2012. To the Commission's credit, it adopted a sweeping 750-page order in late 2011 that brought much-needed reforms to the High-Cost Fund, the biggest and most problematic portion of the Universal Service program. The Commission also began shifting the program's focus from ordinary telephone to broadband service, recognizing the importance of high-speed Internet access to modern society. But as significant as those reforms are, and as difficult as they will be to achieve, they represent only the first step toward the transformation needed. Over the next five years, the Commission should refocus the Universal Service program on what ought to be its renewed core mission: assisting consumers who cannot afford broadband access, through market-based, consumer-empowering initiatives that befit an increasingly competitive broadband marketplace. And it should abandon the antiquated and rickety contribution mechanism currently in place, by funding these initiatives instead from the general treasury.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Author: Lorelei St. James
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437945023
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 74
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Book Description
The FCC¿s Low-Income Program, administered by the Universal Service Administrative Co. and supported by the Universal Service Fund, provides low-income households with discounts on installation costs for new telephone service and monthly charges for basic telephone service. This report examined: (1) how program participation and support payments have changed over the last 5 years (2005-2009), and factors that may have affected participation; (2) the extent to which goals and measures are used to manage the program; and (3) the extent to which mechanisms are in place to evaluate program risks and monitor controls over compliance with program rules. Includes recommendations. Charts and tables. A print on demand report.
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186
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Book Description
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Subcommittee on Communications
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 126
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Book Description
Author: Donald Gale
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 1581123221
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
The telecommunications industry has evolved into a very competitive industry since 1980. Aggressive competition is the norm in the long distance, equipment, operator services and many other segments of the industry. The remaining segment of the market without widespread meaningful competition is the "last-mile" wireline service to the customer premise. Incumbent local exchange carriers enjoy a monopoly to serve nearly all residences and most business customers, collecting over 99% of all local exchange service revenues. Using their monopoly status, incumbents have developed a cross-subsidy system which uses the rates paid by some customers to lower the rates paid by others to support a policy known as "universal service." This policy has resulted in telephone service reaching 94% of America's households. Carriers claim that this policy cost them $20 billion annually, potential entrants claim the true cost is as low as $4 billion and the rest is profit. In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress ordered the end of the local exchange monopoly and opened the local markets to competition. Congress also specified the continuation of universal service, specified that telephone penetration should be increased and specified that the universal service concept will be applied to America's schools, libraries and rural health centers. Congress also specified that, unlike today, all carriers will contribute fairly and equitably fairly to the universal service fund and that all carriers providing local service, including new competitors, will be eligible to receive support from the fund. The cost to meet these requirements in a competitive environment totals $7.2 billion, or 5.1% of net carrier revenue. This thesis addresses the definition of universal service and the services that should be eligible for support, the new competitive environment, how to collect the universal service support fund, and how to best distribute the funds to customers targeted to receive support from the system: those in high-cost areas, low-income consumers, and schools and libraries for advanced communications services.
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 124
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Book Description
