By Tim McElligott
Feb 6, 2007 12:28 PM
ORLANDO--In his first formal presentation to an industry association, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell gave the following advice to members of the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association at the group’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.: Take advantage of the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction to arm yourself for the future.
Warning the rural industry that it is “on a collision course with disaster” primarily due to a broken Universal Service Fund structure, McDowell said that while he and others are working to fix the USF and address other important issues such as inter-carrier compensation, competition that will pave the path to the future.
“I believe in free markets and that government should only step in where the free market fails. And in rural America, it did,” McDowell said, adding that it was right that the government stepped in and established systems such as USF.
“But we are at a crossroads. Today the system is broken,” McDowell said. "The system is [designed] to take a lot from the few, but the few are getting fewer,” he said, referring to mergers and acquisitions as well as the exemptions enjoyed by some VoIP providers.
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Full story at:
http://telephonyonline.com/home/news/ntca_mcdowell_usf_020607/
(Lead to this story from Dewayne Hendricks posting to the Dewayne-net mailing list.)
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