Universal Service Fund

Sprint reported losing nearly 300,000 phone subscribers in the latest quarter alongside profit losses and revenue declines, and felt a negative impact from its issues with the government’s Lifeline program.

Benton Senior Fellow Jonathan Sallet called for a new national broadband agenda. Over the past year, Jon has been talking to broadband leaders around the country, asking about who’s currently connected and who’s not. You can read Jon’s findings in Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s. Jon delivered the keynote address at the Broadband Communities conference in Virginia on Wednesday.

In the next decade, everyone in America should be able to use High-Performance Broadband.

The purpose of Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s is to collect, combine, and contribute to a national broadband agenda for the next decade, enlisting the voices of broadband leaders in an ongoing discussion on how public policy can close the digital divide and extend digital opportunity everywhere. Leaders at all levels of government should ensure that everyone is able to use High-Performance Broadband in the next decade by embracing the following building blocks of policy:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the Open FCC Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Nov 19, 2019:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai presented his colleagues with a two-part proposal that would help safeguard the nation’s communications networks. The FCC will vote on this proposal at its Nov 19 meeting.

On July 10, 2019, Sen Steve Daines (R-MT) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai saying he was troubled by reports of "duplicative federal investment from the Universal Service Program for Schools and Libraries (E-rate) that has led to wasteful overbuilding of broadband infrastructure." On Oct 15, Chairman Pai responded, saying the FCC is reviewing the record on a petition for a rulemaking to consider amending rules relating to the E-rate program competitive bidding requirements.

On Sept 19, 2019, 30 members of Congress wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai requesting the FCC discard any plans for setting an overall cap for the Universal Service Fund (USF) programs, claiming such a proposal would harm broadband deployment, among other things. On Oct 15, Chairman Pai responded saying that the FCC sought comment on a proposed overall annual budget of $11.42 billion, which is more than three billion dollars above current USF program disbursements. Chairman Pai said this amount would be adjusted regularly for inflation.

On May 16, 2019, Rep Brian Mast (F-FL) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai asking if the FCC would grant a waiver request that would provide interim relief by allowing service providers to assist consumers by providing eligibility information to the National Verifier in batches for an eligibility determination, or if the FCC would establish some alternate form of electronic submission to verify eligibility in the interim period prior to full launch of the service provider application programming interface (API).

On July 20, 2019, 13 senators wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to postpone adoption of a reform order of the Rural Health Care Program that was on the agenda for the FCC's Aug 1, 2019 meeting.