What’s Next for USF?

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to operate and fund the Universal Service Fund, overturning rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which agreed with Consumers’ Research and said that the USF is unconstitutional. This puts the issue back on the table of somehow fixing the USF, which universally is regarded as broken. The current funding mechanism of taxing interstate telephone services is becoming untenable, with the current USF fee set at 36 percent of the applicable revenue source. It seems likely that only Congress can fix USF, and a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives has created the Universal Service Working Group to take a fresh look at both the funding and the uses of the USF. Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE), one of the members of the working group, has created a comment portal on her website to get feedback from the public on Universal Service Fund reform. This is similar to the public comments that are routinely solicited by the FCC for issues it is considering. The portal says that comments will be sent to all members of the USF working group. The portal includes nine questions, and respondents can respond to any or all of the questions. Comments can be typed into a text box associated with each question or emailed to the working group. Comments are due by midnight, September 15.