Rural phone subsidy bill returns

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.