Art explores the current state of the USF and Web surfing on luxury liners In the old days when Ma Bell owned 83% of the U.S. telephone system, revenues were divided up more or less such that; every so often Ma told the FCC and states  how much money it and we (the independents) needed. Each major cost function (local, state toll and interstate toll) was recovered as a third of total revenue requirements irrespective of related costs. The thousands of independents were averaged in.  Considerable legal expenses went to prevent unserved areas from being developed by the unwashed. If there was a need, Bell would serve it. Anybody else was trying to get their hands in Bell’s pockets. (Never could understand how most state regulatory officials bought that logic. They never considered the revenue “from” the existing network “to” a new area as proper – only “from” the unserved area). The essence of “settlements” was that all revenues were dumped in a big swimming pool. We and Ma then took from the pool all the money (everyone) needed – and went home. A considerable amount of time and cost went to justify the “take.”  There was a cheaper method wherein if we little guys could haul toll for “average” (or less) costs, we could dispense with the complex bookkeeping and settle with the pool (Bell accountants) based on those industry averages. Came divestiture and we abolished all the pools. Yeah. Right. We eliminated the big pool and created instead lots of little ones. USF The Big Mother financial pool is the Universal Service Fund. The USF is becoming a bottomless slush fund from which thousands of hands reach for a daily or monthly fix. Government administrators and their lawyers withhold permits if we don’t get some USF for them as I’ve detailed in previous columns. Western Wireless came up with a slick gimmick to mine the USF. That has, in turn, resulted in all cellular folk saying they too should get USF. Why? Some studies show wireless costs per subscriber are half the cost of wireline. And today, the USF gets its dough from fees levied on wire line customers. So, should we subsidize competitive cell carriers? At a recent NTCA Managers conference, it was suggested that a second USF be established that would get its money exclusively from wireless carriers. That money would then be remitted to qualified cellular operations only. The idea was not met with enthusiasm. It would not be easy, but costs can be calculated. Details can be resolved. Because wireless now doesn’t cover really rural areas, it may be reasonable, contrary to NTCA managers, to create study groups to consider establishment of a wireless USF. Benefits would be the enabling of a dual telecom network nationwide. In the event of one portion taken down as occurred on Sept. 11, the other network could handle the load for that period. Emotion aside, there is a lot of reasons to enable rural cell, but it should only be done with a pool funded by and for each of the separate telephone systems. Marine Telephone Service Cruise ships have sprouted what looks like monster golf tees with ball (hiding a gyro stearable antenna) to provide Internet service, fax and telephone service. But it’s seldom to the individual cabin (which is sort of dumb but shows they are not real telephone people). In a recent test aboard a COSTA 2,000 passenger ship, passengers were unable to connect to Yahoo! in less than 5 minutes. Average: a dozen ships out of Florida at any one time, and each having a dozen computers talking, that’s only 144 units demanding server time. What’s the problem? Each ship has an IT tech to maintain the network of data processing devices plus devote a small amount of time to users of the Internet café. Some ships have fitted out separate quarters; others co-locate PCs in the ship library. COSTA charges $7 per minute for telephone calls to anywhere. That’s just about right for the traditional international marine satellite network INMARSAT. As my observations were made during the start of the Iraqi War, COSTA policy was to prohibit any ship officers from even “talking” to anyone for any purpose – period. Security. I’ll tell you more in a future column. And, their pizza tasted like cardboard with cheese on top. Copyright 2003 by A. W. Brothers and Americas Network magazine. All rights reserved.   ©  Beehive Telephone Co.