Report No. CC 98-49   COMMON CARRIER ACTION     December 22, 1998

  COMPREHENSIVE MONITORING REPORT ON UNIVERSAL SERVICE RELEASED
                      (CC DOCKET NO. 98-202)

The staff of the Federal-State Joint Board on universal service has released its most recent Monitoring Report on
Universal Service.   The Commission has, at the same time, issued a Public Notice describing the universal service
monitoring program and changes made in that program following the Telecommunciations Act of 1996.

A monitoring program was established in the mid-1980's, at the recommendation of the separations Joint Board, to
track trends related to universal service and related matters.  Since then the Joint Board Staff has prepared
Monitoring Reports at least once a year--a compendium of hundreds of pages of statistical data on subscribership
and penetration,  loop costs, separations factors, universal service fund payments, etc.  The latest report
incorporates a few new sections related to the universal service support mechanisms, reflecting the change in the
publication of this report from the separations Joint Board staff to the universal service Joint Board staff.

The Monitoring Report is unique in several ways.   First, it is the only document that includes information on every
local telephone company in the nation.   Second, the FCC has not imposed any new reporting burdens on any
company to generate the information.  Instead it uses data which the National Exchange Carrier Association
collects for its own needs, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other organizations, and publicly available
ARMIS submissions.  A third  characteristic of the monitoring reports is that they are staff reports.  They are not
intended to be policy documents and contain only enough text to describe the tables.   

The Report released today presents current data in each of the eleven subject categories selected for monitoring:  1) 
industry revenues and contributions;  2)  low income support;  3)  high cost support;  4)  schools and libraries
support;  5)  rural health care support;  6)  subscribership and penetration;  7)  rates and price indices;  8) network
usage and growth;  9)  quality of service;  10)  infrastructure;  and  11)  revenues, expenses and investment.

A copy of the Report is available for inspection in the Common Carrier Bureau reference room, 2000 M Street,
NW, Room 575.  The Report can be downloaded from the FCC-State Link internet site, which can be reached at
http://www.fcc.gov/ccb/stats on the World Wide Web.  Names for print image files: mr98-all.pdf for the whole
report, mr98-pn.pdf for the public notice, and mr98-0/pdf, mr98-1.pdf, ..., mr98-11.pdf for the introduction and
each section separately.  Names for condensed files in WordPerfect 5.1 and Lotus 123 .wk4 format:  mr98-pn.zip,
mr98-0.zip, mr98-1.zip, ..., mr98-11.zip. The report and public notice can also be downloaded from the FCC-
State Link computer bulletin board system by calling (202) 418-0241 with a computer modem.

Copies of the Report are available for purchase from the Commission's duplicating contractor, International
Transcription Service, Inc. (ITS) at (202) 857-3800.

For further information contact  Alexander Belinfante at (202) 418-0944.

                              -FCC-