End of ACP illustrates need for omnibus reform

Alphabet (Google’s parent) alone has a market cap of nearly $2 trillion – roughly twice that of the top 10 companies contributing roughly 77% of all universal service funding combined. Yet Google and others in the Big Tech pantheon like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon contribute not a dime. These dominant Big Tech companies that benefit financially from the connectivity that USF makes possible should contribute to our shared goals of connectivity and affordability.

Policymakers have long explored ways to hold these companies more accountable for their dominant market positions. Contributing to the nation’s effort to provide affordable and universal connectivity that is the foundation of their financial success is a great place to start. The FCC needs the legislative tools to do so, and there is growing momentum for this on Capitol Hill. Congress should give the FCC a bright green light to proceed.

https://ustelecom.org/a-permanent-solution-for-connecting-low-income-families-2/#0

Rather than trying to reform legacy subsidy mechanisms created for voice telephone service, wouldn’t public ownership of open access regional fiber to the premises (FTTP) provide a twin win of superior access and affordability? And supporting its construction and operation by making low interest long term loans available as well as technical assistance grants to help them organize?

The information technology companies mentioned in this article all pay income taxes that could help fund this. They might even be willing to pay an additional advanced telecommunications infrastructure surcharge since ubiquitous, affordable fiber connections synergistically benefits their business if not framed in adversarial terms as one industry asking another to pay for assets they would not own. Publicly owned infrastructure thus offers a neutral solution to this standoff.

This would make more sense than effectively subsidizing the shareholders of privately held telephone and cable companies through means tested end user subsidies for households that find it difficult to afford their commercial “broadband” offerings and bundled services. Publicly owned regional open access infrastructure also offers an additional source of revenue to cover operating and debt servicing costs in the form of lease fees paid by internet service providers to offer services on them.