Phone Subsidies are Out of Control

From the Charleston (WV) Daily Mail

In 1996, a Republican Congress and a Democratic president agreed to encourage companies to extend telephone and other services to rural areas through subsidies.
The money comes from a fee on long distance bills. The Universal Service Fund has so far relieved phone customers of $44 billion.

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Wrote Dunbar: "Each time a cell phone company signs up a new customer, it collects a subsidy. If the customer keeps the land line, the fund pays a subsidy to both carriers. If the customer drops the land line and keeps the cell phone, the per-subscriber subsidy for the land-line carrier goes up, keeping the overall subsidy unchanged.

"In some high-cost areas, the subsidy can be several hundred dollars per customer per month.

"Since the cellular competitor's rates are based on the incumbent's per-customer subsidy, the cell carrier gets more money, too. And so does every other cellular competitor doing business in the area."

http://www.dailymail.com/story/Opinion/2007072413/Phone-subsidies-are-out-of-control/

Edited to correct source

I've never paid for my own cell phone service, that was work related and I never saw the bill so I can't comment on that. I've lived in urban, suburban and rural areas and if I had ever had phone bills that were "several hundred dollars per customer per month", I'd have ripped the wiring out and told everyone to write me a letter. I went through some of my phone bills and the USF fees are barely $1.00 a month. If you want to include all the other taxes and fees, it might reach $3.00 a month.
Good points can be easily shot down by including such obviously wrong statistics. I'm off to contact the Daily Mail and give them a piece of what mind I have left.