A while back I wrote about the business model of used by free conference and free fax services; these services are located in places such as rural Iowa to take advantage of government-mandated pricing. I strongly suspect that ipkall, which hands out free phone numbers in Washington, operates on a similar business model, which hasn't stopped me from using ipkall to grab a phone number or two.
There seems to have been a bit of a revolt at the Federal level. The board that oversees the Universal Service Fund decided to impose an "emergency" cap on payments due to the explosive growth in outlays; considering that they've been looking at the issue for three years, that's quite some definition of "emergency." The current recipients of subsidies, as might be imagined, aren't happy with this decision.
The major protests I've seen are from cellular service providers, but they of course they have a better case to make as they provide local service in those rural areas. I suspect that this order will also affect the free conference and free fax services, which will be an interesting change; expect to see more conference calls move to a purely IP-based solution, such as Skype.
Topics: · business · government · telecommunications
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