By Derek Barr, Assistant General Manager/Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer, Hardy Telecommunications, Inc.
There has been a lot of talk lately about how best to connect some rural parts of our country to broadband. Broadband internet service is as vital to West Virginia’s well-being as any other critical infrastructure. People considering a move want to know if their potential new home has reliable broadband, and people living without reliable service risk falling further behind as work, education and civic engagement increasingly move online.
Many like to focus on the upfront costs associated with connecting those areas of our state that have been left behind, and that is one crucial piece of information to determine how to get these areas connected. But there’s more to the story than just initial network construction costs. It takes years of planning to design, build, and pay for a network. It takes a business case often lacking in rural areas where distances are great and densities are low. And it’s not “mission accomplished” once a network is built.
Instead, building a network is one important step in the ongoing effort to deliver reliable and affordable connectivity. In other words, the mission of achieving “universal service” – ensuring that every American has both access to and can make use of broadband – takes work every day to achieve and sustain.
This is why we have the federal Universal Service Fund (USF), an important and often overlooked program for rural internet access that you’ve likely never heard of. So, what is the USF? The Communications Act of 1934 included language that said that all Americans should have access to “rapid, efficient, nationwide communications service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.” Almost 100 years later, the USF is the main federal program helping millions of rural consumers connect to services comparable to those in urban areas and supporting critical connections for schools, libraries and healthcare facilities in rural communities.
But even as the USF programs continue to be highly effective and enjoy widespread support, updates are needed to help sustain universal service for decades to come. For example, the USF is currently paid for by contributions from service providers based on certain telecommunications services and revenues. As fewer customers buy legacy telecom services, the burden on these companies and their customers increases, and entities whose services result in the greatest use of rural networks get a free ride while selling their own products. Netflix, for example, used to pay postage to get its content to itscustomers. Now ISPs essentially cover much of that postage for them. This is unsustainable and unfair.
We need Congress to update the way the USF is funded so that all who use and benefit from affordable and ubiquitous voice and broadband services contribute equitably to its mission. At the same time, transparency and accountability are critical when distributing billions of USF dollars. Careful review and vetting of those seeking support is essential, and West Virginia broadband officials should continue to play an important complementary role in ensuring providers that receive USF funding are capable and have the capacity to serve the consumers and communities they are charged to help.
I urge Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who has been a major supporter of rural broadband as a member of the USF Working Group on Capitol Hill, and her colleagues in Congress to enact reforms now that update and sustain USF funding and help us achieve broadband connections built to last.
