Don't Add Broadband, Wireless Support to DC USTF, Verizon Says
It shouldn’t be up to the District of Columbia Public Service Commission whether to expand the D.C. Universal Service Trust Fund to support broadband and wireless services, Verizon said Monday. Such an expansion "would represent the type of policy shift…
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best decided by the Mayor and DC Council,” Verizon replied on a PSC notice of inquiry in docket FC988. The D.C. commission lacks jurisdiction to regulate broadband and wireless providers, Verizon said. It's “inequitable” to require local exchange and VoIP providers that fund the USTF to subsidize broadband and wireless services, it said. “It would increase the amount of subsidy necessary to support universal service so that landline providers and customers would have to provide increased funding at a time when customers are increasingly abandoning landline services.” Last week, the PSC aligned eligibility and other rules with the updated federal program (docket RM28-2016-01). “The amendments in the [notice of proposed rulemaking] make the Commission’s telecommunications universal service rules consistent with the FCC’s rules,” the PSC order said. The rules will become effective upon publication in the D.C. Register. That might occur on the FCC deadline of Dec. 2, PSC Chairwoman Betty Ann Kane said last week at the NARUC annual meeting in La Quinta, California (see 1611140052).