At the NTCA Expo this week, FCC Commissioner David Copps gave a crowd of rural and independent carriers reason to hope that regulators understand the current shortcomings of the universal service fund (USF) and are working to resolve them. But, he didn't really add anything to what people like him, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and members of Congress preparing for a telecom act rewrite have been saying for the last several months.

Everyone wants to do something to improve the USF and change the way money is contributed to it. As a regulator or an elected official, to say you don't want to do anything about the USF would be like saying you like to kick puppies.

But there is a lot to change, and currently no single path of change that is being pursued. The "F" in USF is particularly thorny. Some people want to charge a USF fee for every number used, others want to charge it based on any type of connection a carrier activates. Meanwhile, last year's Supreme Court ruling in the Brand X cable modem case ensured the difficulty of trying to assess a USF fee on voice-over-IP and cable telephony service providers.

Then, there's the issue of the "S" in USF. Are we talking just about voice? Are we getting to the point when broadband is a reasonable minimum level of service that all customers should have access to? If we looked at it that way, the USF could be the solution to the shortcomings in broadband penetration that we find so embarrassing in the U.S. Everyone could contribute to it and we wouldn't have to draw a line between who provides information and who provides telephony--because everyone wants to provide broadband.

But what about "U" in USF? Is there anything in America that is truly universal? The up-from-the-bootstraps mentality has persisted much longer than bootstraps themselves have, and we're not keen on some people getting easily what has been harder for others to earn. We don't like universal health care, and we can't even ensure people displaced by storms can continue to have roofs over their heads. What makes us think we can provide anything on a universal and equitable basis in a society that thrives on, defines itself by and defends itself with the rules of free enterprise? And what makes us think we can sort through all of the semantics issues in the coming months before and during a telecom act rewrite?

USF will continue to be the issue everyone wants to do something about, but which no one may be capable of really changing.

E-mail me at doshea@prismb2b.com.