The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Tim Logan reports on a growing debate between a group of companies calling themselves Keep America Connected, and another group calling itself Connecting Rural America, over the status of the Universal Service Fund (USF).

The focus of the debate, Logan writes, is "whether the expansion of wireless phone service across rural America under the $7 billion fund should be capped while federal officials redesign the program for a fast-changing telecommunications world."

"Last month, a group studying the matter for the Federal Communications Commission urged the FCC to hit the brakes to rein in costs," Logan writes. "It proposed capping wireless spending in each state at 2006 levels for 18 months, while the FCC works out broader reforms. FCC chairman Kevin Martin has said he supports this idea, and the commission is considering it."

If the cap is approved, seven companies in Missouri will have to share $120,000 in total for 2007 and 2008. "That doesn't put up one-third of one cell phone site," says Connecting Rural America's John Rooney. "We're basically dead in the water."

Keep America Connected's William Rohde (PDF file), on the other hand, argues that landline phone companies are being hurt by the status quo and need the caps. "I think people are trying to game the system to draw USF funds," he says.

Me, I gotta agree with Rooney -- the focus has to be on wireless, not on landline...

But what do I know.

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