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Cash for Clunkers on top of direct auto bailouts, homebuyer credits, banks on a permanent dole system, subsidies for "green" energy such as ethanol [and most anything else that is "green"], cash to buy white goods appliances, Federal "loans" to States to keep firefighters and other essential service providers employed...can any part of the United States economy actually function "normally" any more?
AT&T, Verizon get most federal aid for phone service
July 8, 2010; 5:31 PM ET
AT&T and Verizon Communications were the biggest recipients of federal support from an $8 billion phone subsidy program, according to data released Thursday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Over the past three years, AT&T received $1.3 billion in funds to deploy phone lines to rural areas. Verizon got $1.27 billion in the same 2007-09 period.
Lawmakers and public interest groups are questioning the use of those federal funds, much of which appears to go to wireless services areas where telecom companies would be even without support...
...“Subscribers now pay close to 14 percent of their long-distance phone bills to subsidize scores of telephone providers in each geographic market, while other providers are serving the same markets without a penny of support,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) said in a statement...
...Last year, Verizon tapped the most money from the Universal Service high cost fund, mostly because of its acquisition of Alltel.
CenturyTel received $931 million, Alltel received $747 million, and Telephone and Data Systems received $661 million from 2007 through 2009.
Derek Turner, director of policy at the public interest group Free Press, noted that many of those company – including AT&T and Verizon – appeared to use the money for wireless networks. Those companies would have served areas where they received federal subsidies even without the government support, he said.
“The USF process at the FCC doesn’t ask if money is actually needed to ensure access to those areas,” Turner said. “Some areas have as many as 19 carriers serving it with USF funds...
And some projects appear too expensive for the number of people served. Westgate Communications in Washington state, for example, runs 17 separate phone lines at a cost averaging $17,000 per line.
July 8, 2010; 5:31 PM ET
AT&T and Verizon Communications were the biggest recipients of federal support from an $8 billion phone subsidy program, according to data released Thursday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Over the past three years, AT&T received $1.3 billion in funds to deploy phone lines to rural areas. Verizon got $1.27 billion in the same 2007-09 period.
Lawmakers and public interest groups are questioning the use of those federal funds, much of which appears to go to wireless services areas where telecom companies would be even without support...
...“Subscribers now pay close to 14 percent of their long-distance phone bills to subsidize scores of telephone providers in each geographic market, while other providers are serving the same markets without a penny of support,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) said in a statement...
...Last year, Verizon tapped the most money from the Universal Service high cost fund, mostly because of its acquisition of Alltel.
CenturyTel received $931 million, Alltel received $747 million, and Telephone and Data Systems received $661 million from 2007 through 2009.
Derek Turner, director of policy at the public interest group Free Press, noted that many of those company – including AT&T and Verizon – appeared to use the money for wireless networks. Those companies would have served areas where they received federal subsidies even without the government support, he said.
“The USF process at the FCC doesn’t ask if money is actually needed to ensure access to those areas,” Turner said. “Some areas have as many as 19 carriers serving it with USF funds...
And some projects appear too expensive for the number of people served. Westgate Communications in Washington state, for example, runs 17 separate phone lines at a cost averaging $17,000 per line.
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