OPASTCO: Job No. 1 remains USF reform

For their customers, members of OPASTCO (the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies) are focused on delivering broadband and whatever services that may entail. But for themselves, their focus and their ability to deliver that broadband remains fixed on the universal service fund.

Panelists at OPASTCO’s Summer Conference in Anchorage this week drove that message home. And with the time for decisions at the FCC and in Congress looming, they urged members to get more engaged in the lobbying effort.

“We need to recognize what our current and future public policy needs are,” said Bob Williams, former OPASTCO chairman, adding that broadband should be added to the list of supported services in the Universal Service Fund.

Williams said there is no one more capable and efficient at providing broadband to rural communities than the rural providers themselves and that wireless service just won’t cut it in the long run because it cannot provide the ubiquitous, 20 Mbp and more bandwidth that consumers are demanding.

However, he agreed with Ron Strecker, CEO of Panhandle Telephone Cooperative, who said rural providers could not do it all on their own and that they would have to work together with wireless providers to deliver the requisite services.

“A lot of voice service will be wireless in the future, but we can’t forget that the wireless industry relies on the wireline industry to complete its network,” Strecker said.

Strecker and Williams joined panelist Matt Dosch, head of external affairs at Comporium, in saying OPASTCO and its members needed to form partnerships with other industry associations to give volume to its voice in Washington.

“We have to look for alliances that are not 100% aligned with our positions and vice versa, but where we have enough commonality, we can work together,” Williams said. “The Missoula plan is a good example of that.”

USF reform has become a critical matter for rural telcos that stand to lose up to 40% of their subsidies depending on what changes to the fund are handed down.

Rural communities also stand to lose as their exchanges are sold off from large ILECs and USF support for those exchanges is not forthcoming. Dosch said these properties will require new money and that the USF need to grow with new money.

“We have to recognized the dynamics have changed. The ability to support rural areas from large urban areas is coming to a close because of the competition in those areas,” Williams said.

Panelists agreed that rural telcos are going to have to give a little to get USF reform and in fact already have by agreeing to a cap on the fund. Strecker reiterated that the original intent of the fund was so that rural customers would have good dependable service. But it did not designate that the service had to be delivered by a rural company.

Williams said at the very least he would like to see a re-indexing of high-cost funds to today’s dollar.

John Rose, president of OPASTCO, said rural telcos are in a battle for the heart and soul of the USF. “It is a political battle, and we must succeed,” he said.