Phone system overhaul could be delayed
By John Lister
Plans that could mean higher phone rental costs may not be approved this week as planned. Members of the Federal Communications Commission reportedly want the ideas to go through public consultation before getting the go-ahead.
The measures, proposed by FCC chairman Kevin Martin, are still on the agenda for the commission’s meeting tomorrow. However, the Wall Street Journal reports that Martin’s four fellow commissioners want to delay a vote until they’ve had more time to consider the plan and perhaps put it out to public debate.
Martin wants to overhaul the system which governs how the cost of a phone call is divided when two or more phone companies are involved (for example, with long distance calls). The current system dates back nearly 25 years and is now so outdated and complex that some firms are thought to deliberately route calls inefficiently to maximize their cut.
One side-effect is that Martin’s proposal, which would largely standardize the payments firms make to one another, could reduce phone company revenue’s from calls. Martin says he would be willing to consider raising the maximum service charge people pay to have a phone line from $6.50 to $8.50 to make up for this. That could be particularly welcome news to phone companies which are seeing many customers switch their calls to cell phones rather than land lines.
Another potential result of the plan is that rural phone companies, which rely more heavily on their cuts of call charges, might lose out disproportionately. Martin’s answer to that involves the Universal Service Charge, an existing scheme where some money from long-distance calls helps subsidize services in otherwise unprofitable locations. The scheme could now be extended to include a flat $1 license on every landline or cell phone.
The concerns of fellow commissioners about examining the proposals properly are enhanced because this week’s meeting already has a heavy schedule. Among other issues, the commissioners will likely settle a long-running battle about what happens to ‘white space’, the section of the airwaves which will open up once the analogue television signal switches off next year.
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