The New York Times reports that the FCC will announce intentions to use about $8 billion from the Universal Service Fund for rural broadband. The fund taxes phone bills to help underwrite telecom service to remote areas which are expensive to serve using current technology and infrastructure.

The agency wants to use the money to improve the broadband connections to people in rural areas. High speed telecom lines and cable are usually not available in these areas. Providers do not want to suffer the losses to implement service.

Some researchers who work with broadband distribution think that 4G technology, either WiMax or LTE, would provide high-speed connections to remote areas. It will still be costly to set up the tens of thousand of towers which will be needed to make a system of this kind work.

Farmers and other people who live in remote areas still get six days a week mail delivery, despite the fact that the US Postal System lost $8 billion in its last year of operation. Now the USPS is considering a reduction in deliveries to three or four days a week. The plan would save the postal system a great deal of money in personal, vehicle costs, and gasoline. The promise of universal service goes back well over 100 years. It many not be sustainable in an age of government austerity.

The FCC broadband program raises issues not unlike those faced by the USPS. The government can only afford to underwrite so many discretionary programs. The Republicans say they can take $100 billion out of the annual federal budget. Such a tremendous cut may hurt plans to get broadband for farmers.

Farmers currently use, in most cases, the dial-up connection that Americans had until the advent of high speed connections, which began less than a decade ago. Broadband growth was based on simple supply and demand.

The FCC has taken the position that those living in rural regions should get special treatment. That may be so, but it is not affordable now, along with almost every other stimulus package that Congress will try to “downsize.”

Douglas A. McIntyre

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