FORD: The Universal Access Fund: Change we can live with

By Carl Ford

Gordon Cook’s message board has been very interesting this week. One of the members on the list near the Obama strategy team (which could one be of half a dozen friends based on their activity) has asked about the Universal Service Fund as a method of enabling a new broadband policy.

When the USF was created, its primary purpose was to support dial tone for the people who were too far away. It was assumed that phone service was the primary goal. The E-Rate portion was to subsidize underprivileged schools, and it has become the lion’s share of the monies used in USF.

For those who don’t know Gordon Cook, he is one of the first trackers of the Internet community, and his message board includes notables from around the world.  It’s a great list with much brighter minds than mine on it. 

However, not having the wisdom associated with valor, I post when they touch my nerves, and, like Achilles, I reveal my weakness.

In the last few weeks, I have come to understand that the Obama regime has a great many former Clinton administration types around it.  Since the USF was passed in the Clinton era, they are inclined to see it as a positive thing that needs revamping.

While many would want to push incentives toward municipalities again, I cannot make a case for that extreme view (As long as my town continues to operate a bus from the 1950s for the senior citizens in town, I will consider municipal strategies a legacy waiting to happen). 

On the other hand, a national commitment to converting the backbones to IPV6 would be a great move toward progressing the Internet.  Right now the delay in converting from IPV4 enables more problems in the future.

With the E-Rate portion of the USF connecting to the IPV6 backbone, I think an elegant strategy might be to allow remote connectivity to the students, so they can access applications associated with their schools and other educational resources.  Right now, as you correctly pointed out, the system is designed to subsidize the schools with direct checks to integrators and service providers.

The school could in theory provide a RADIUS access solution for the neighbors to approve their neighbors to access the network. We could see the poor man’s mesh start to occur.  Access for the end users could be a direct subsidy based on participation.

While this is in theory neutral to access, it does a number of things to promote more service offerings that promote true broadband access.

And in a web 2.0 world, this would enable a lot of creativity, and get away from the dial tone aspect of the system. This would also enable better collaborative work.

Long term, the system needs to be rethought at its core. But this is a spot where lessons can be learned, progress can be made and success is identifiable.

This is change we can live with, universally ;<)