I'm also discouraged that we don't have our Universal Service Fund programs calibrated for the needs of getting broadband out to all of our people. We're still in the Universal Service Fund of the plain old telephone service era, and this is now the seventh year of the 21st century. We’re still hemming and hawing and debating about whether broadband should be part of universal service, and we’re having all of these debates that we have in this country about regulation versus deregulation.
The fact is we need to do some serious thinking as a country, and we are not doing it, and that is partly here at the Federal Communications Commission, and it is partly more broadly.
Wave: On the subject of universal service, the Joint Board has recommended to cap wireless contributions to the Universal Service Fund. What are your thoughts on that proposal?
Copps: I am a member of that board, but I opposed that recommendation. I believe that it is probably the wrong way for us to be going. We ought to be coming up with recommendations now that get people in the same tent and thinking together and discussing and compromising rather than getting everybody at everybody else's throat.
I am concerned that a cap would mean that in many states there would no wireless Eligible Telecommunications Carriers (ETC). I also think it’s rather hypocritical that on one hand we're saying everybody is going wireless, and on the other hand we're saying that universal service isn't going to help you get there, at least not for a while.
Wave: What do you think is the biggest hurdle in terms of overall reform of the universal service process?
Copps: I believe it goes back to not having a national strategy where everybody would understand the government’s communications policy. I think if there was a policy that said it is a priority to get broadband out to the people of the United States of America, we would suddenly become a lot more serious about doing what we can do under the Telecommunications Act.
I know there are some people who believe we don't have authority to accomplish that with the Universal Service Fund. I think some of those positions might be evolving, but you would have to talk to my fellow commissioners individually to find out exactly where they are on that.
