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Big cable: move millions from phone subsidies to broadband

// November 6th, 2009 // Tech News

The cable industry is proposing a sweeping measure to simplify the nation’s subsidy system for rural phone service providers. Make it tougher for providers to get Universal Service Fund High Cost program subsidy money, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association recommends, in areas where an unsubsidized wireline service is available via a cable company or similar provider. Paying USF support to carriers who compete with unsubsidized wireline competitors “is both inequitable and inefficient, and can easily be addressed in a targeted fashion,” the NCTA wrote to the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday. Millions could be saved—money potentially redirected to programs that boost broadband rollout and competition.