The Universal Service Fund (USF) was established in 1996 by Congress to help build critical telecommunications infrastructure in America’s rural and underserved areas.

One of the main functions of USF is to promote the availability of telecommunications services to rural and high-cost areas of the country that are comparable in price and in quality to those available in urban areas. To do this, all telephone consumers contribute a percentage of their interstate telephone charges to the USF. Support from the fund is then provided to carriers who are committed to investing in infrastructure located in rural areas where the cost of establishing facilities is too expensive to justify investment otherwise.

Wireless customers contribute a large share of USF funding, about $3 billion annually to the total USF fund of $7 billion. Since 1999, about $25 billion of those contributions has gone to traditional wireline telephone phone companies, while about $3.2 billion has gone to competitive carriers (the vast majority of which are wireless carriers) to provide service in rural and high-cost areas. This disparity ultimately prevents wireless carriers from developing facilities in rural areas that would expand coverage and provide high-quality services.

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Connecting Rural America wants to protect the USF from additional threats

The Universal Service Fund (USF) is a trust for rural Americans, and is certainly a benefit for all who travel through rural areas. In many rural areas, there is no profitable business plan that delivers the robust networks needed to provide consumers with high quality service everywhere they live and work. Universal service funding enables wireless providers to deliver reliable service in those rural areas.

Since rural consumers pay into the fund, they deserve to have the same choices in telecommunications services as those who reside in urban areas, which is exactly what Congress intended.

Wireless providers simply can't deliver consistent, high-quality service unless they have strong networks to rely on, and such networks are only feasible with USF support.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently froze support for rural wireless infrastructure development by placing a cap on the USF. Now it is considering proposals for “long-term reform” that are even worse than the cap. These proposals are bad for rural consumers and could result in a 50 percent cut in existing USF funding that is dedicated to building new cell towers. A 50 percent cut in funding will mean significantly fewer new and needed cell towers being constructed in rural America. Rural America will be left behind with poor cell phone coverage, dropped calls and dangerous dead zones for the foreseeable future.

There is no better use for the USF than to deliver improved mobile wireless coverage, which provides rural consumers with the same public health, safety, economic development and everyday conveniences enjoyed by those living in urban areas.

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