Academics say FCC flunking on USF

A group called the Keep USF Fair Coalition, comprising mostly representatives from American universities, issued a report yesterday highlighting the steep price the academic community would pay if the FCC moves forward with its proposed flat-fee charge for the Universal Service Fund on all phone numbers.

While the change in funding, which could range from $1 to $1.50 per line, would impact the current budgets of educational institutions for this expense by as much as 1000%, legislators also are currently contemplates new telecommunications law, such as the Broadband for America Act of 2006 and the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act, both of which will affect USF funding.

The group’s report, Flunking Numbers: How Changing the Federal Universal Service Fund (USF) Long-Distance Phone Bill Fee Would Harm America’s Colleges and Universities, indicated that America’s 4325 colleges, universities and other post-secondary institutions would be socked with a net annual increase in USF phone taxes of $320 million to $480 million if the FCC implemented a flat fee of $1 or $1.50 per phone number.

According to the report, the average college or university would see an increase from $8971 per year to $82,999, or an average 892%. All participants in a coalition-sponsored conference call yesterday said how the increase would force tuition hikes, reductions in services and even the elimination of dormitory room phones. They also highlighted the security concerns this would raise.

“These findings should be a concern to every student, parent or grandparent paying a college or university tuition today or planning to in the near future, because the plain reality here is that the extra USF costs…would be passed along to students and their families,” said Linda Sherry, director of national priorities of Consumer Action and co-chair of the Keep USF Fair Coalition.

Sherry said colleges and universities are particularly vulnerable to a connections-based methodology for USF because of the significant number of phone numbers they require and how those and other connections are used to help students learn.

While representatives from Wake Forest University, the University of South Florida, Reed College and others all said they support the ideas and efforts behind universal service and are willing to continue supporting it in its current form, the substantial increase prevents them form supporting a flat-fee structure.

“There is something strange about having a fee that is intended to help improve telecommunications and data services to people in rural areas and at the same time tell students that those very same services are going to be reduced or denied to them. It doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Martin Ringle, chief technology officer, Reed College.

Ringle urged the FCC to look at more progressive ways of sharing the cost burden of USF. “Not only [across] colleges and universities, but telecommunications corporations and others who are in a better position to make these expenditures as investments rather than taxes.”

Other U.S. colleges and universities already are on record in opposition to the FCC proposal to increase USF charges include: Seton Hall, St. Johns University, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University, Southern Illinois University, Texas Lutheran University, University of Utah, Upper Iowa University, University of South Florida, Macalester College, and Montana State University.

Sherry said she has talked to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and that he is very set on a flat-fee methodology. “We think it is turning the clock back by imposing tremendous costs on people and institutions. We think it’s unfair, and we don’t feel the democratic process is working very well in this process,” she said.

Asked what solutions the coalition would offer, Sherry said, “Certainly we would like things to remain exactly as they are with the USF selection methodology which is based on a percentage of the long-distance usage you use. Short of that, we would like to see a fall-back plan that has some protection built in for people and institutions that would be negatively impacted by this change.”