Paul Kapustka's Blog
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May 02, 2006
Susan Crawford on USF: A must-read
Even though we love, love, love network neutrality, we've said all along that reworking the Universal Service Fund (USF) is a much thornier issue. In her usual succinct style, Susan Crawford follows the money to let you know why USF may live on while net neutrality suffers.
While net neutrality may puzzle even the smartest folks, keeping USF and its $7-plus billion per year in customer payola is a no-brainer for a legislative body that can't even bring itself to end a telecom tax originally levied to supply the Spanish-American War. Instead of looking differently at IP communications, bet your last dollar that Congress will instead find a way to tax new entrants just like they tax the phone companies now.
Hey, what about those "no regulating the Internet" arguments we're hearing from the Bells on net neutrality? Why not make similar arguments against USF? We're waiting...
Posted by paul at May 2, 2006 09:40 PM