Universal Service Fund Should Focus on the Low-Income, Agree Broadband Experts

A panel of broadband experts agreed Monday that the Universal Service Fund should direct more of its funding to low-income areas and away from exclusively focusing on rural high-cost areas, where funds are not being spent efficiently. The experts spoke during a panel discussion sponsored by the Technology Policy Institute, a market-oriented think tank on technology issues. The term universal service, said Jonathan Nuechterlein, a partner at Wilmer Hale law firm, has two different meanings. One meaning has to do with funding for broadband in high-cost areas where deployment is expensive, regardless of the residents' income, and the other has to do with funding for low-income areas. "Funding broadband," said Nuechterlein, "is expensive" and is going to "increase the burden on the companies that end up subsidizing it." One way to ensure that this money is spent efficiently is to "narrow the scope" by only funding broadband in "genuinely unserved areas," he said.