Wireless Providers to Pay Universal Service Fees?

andyo writes "Mailing lists are abuzz with the news that wireless Internet providers may have to pay fees to support plain old telephone service. My own perspective is at the O'Reilly Network." The Universal Service Fees are taxes set up long ago to assure that telephone service was provided to everyone, even people who it would normally be uneconomical to serve. The theory is a good one, the execution maybe not. (Maybe if the fees went towards Universal Broadband?)

Comments

just a bit more proof

[medcalf]

that taxation with representation isn't so hot, either.

Actually, it's worse than that. This is another form of taxing the unrepresented, since WISPs are unlikely to get the ear of Congress for a redress of grievances, when compared to the telcos who can spit out large amounts of bribes...er, subsidies...er, direct democracy to the Reps and Senators.

Universal broadband better?

[NanoGator]

I was reading the other day that during disasters email tends to work a lot better than the phone. In Bellevue Washington, they're talking about deploying wireless devices to disaster workers. Here's the article:

http://www.komotv.com/news/story_m.asp?ID=17879

I can't help but think that this would be a better service to keep running than POTS with the money. Text messages are so much easier to get through than voice.

Re:NO NO NO

[Ubergrendle]

Uh oh, not another IAMAEBSOOTV ("i am not an economist but saw one on tv"). Adam Smith had revolutionary ideas..for a couple of hundred years ago. If Smith nailed everything down so perfectly the first time, why bother having a field of economics now? I mean, everything can be simplified to pure laissez faire market capitalism, right??? Wrong. Unfrotunately there are lots of trends in open markets that defy explanation, or that require much more complex models to explain; things like anti-trust law exist for a good reason, as do keynsian economics, game theory, etc etc. For example, game theory indicates that competition is good, but a clear cut winner is not good.