Universal Service oversight under fire

The FCC found a new detractor this summer when the Government Accountability Office recommended that the commission strengthen its oversight and improve performance management of the high-cost Universal Service program.

“The high-cost program does not provide support consistently to carriers operating in similar locations, which can lead to different levels of telecommunications service across rural area,” the GAO researchers wrote in a summary of their report. Researchers noted, for example, that rural carriers receive more support than non-rural carriers do, even when the non-rural carriers serve rural areas.

Although competitive eligible telecommunications carriers (CETCs) receive Universal Service funding at the same rate as the incumbents, they are not subject to the same regulatory requirements, the report authors noted. Most states require some reporting of service data, the study found, but slightly more than half of those states do not require all types of carriers to provide the same information about the number of service outages or unfulfilled service requests. (See top chart.)

States also are not consistent in their requirements for telco reporting on network investment, researchers noted. Thirty-one states require some telcos to provide evidence that high-cost funding was used for its intended purpose. (See bottom chart.) But for nine of those states, reporting requirements differ depending on the type of carrier. And 14 out of the 33 states that require some reporting of plans for quality, coverage or capacity improvements were not consistent in their reporting requirements.

“The commission plans to move forward on adopting comprehensive reform measures in an expeditious manner,” wrote Dana R. Shaffer, chief of the FCC's wireline competition bureau, and Anthony J. Dale, FCC managing director, in a response to the GAO report.