Rural phone subsidy bill returns

By Kristi E. Swartz

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Another attempt to cut the amount of taxpayer money the state's rural telephone companies can receive was filed Wednesday in the Georgia House.

House Bill 855 would phase out a fund that as many as 17 of the state’s rural phone companies have dipped into to subsidize the cost of supplying phone service. The total amount that the rural phone companies can receive would be capped at $9 million in 2012. The amount then would be reduced to $6 million in 2013, then $3 million in 2014, its final year.

The subsidy fund is financed by cable and telephone companies including AT&T. AT&T pays about $13 million into the fund annually and passes on those costs -- in a $5-per-year fee -- to its residential and business customers.

In 2010 the Georgia Legislature passed a law aimed at limiting the subsidies. Requests from rural phone companies totaled $17 million in 2011, however, up from $13.2 million in 2010. The bill was among the most heavily lobbied in 2009 and 2010.