Connecting Rural America :: About the Campaign

Connecting Rural America is a grassroots coalition of advocacy groups, community leaders and elected officials working for equality in wireless telecommunications. Supported by U.S. Cellular^®, the nation's sixth-largest wireless service carrier with a deep commitment to rural America, the campaign’s goal is to protect and expand funding for rural wireless infrastructure development.

We are becoming a wireless nation. We all deserve quality cell phone service where we live, work and play. Rural America should not be left behind.

Wireless telecommunications is no longer a luxury item in our society; it is a fundamental necessity. Law enforcement and public safety officials need dependable service to respond to life threatening situations such as domestic violence, missing children and medical emergencies. Drivers need to be able to rely on wireless service in the event of an accident. And in terms of rural economic development, cell phone coverage is absolutely paramount to bringing new business into an area.

In many rural areas, there is no profitable business plan that can deliver the robust networks needed to provide consumers with high quality wireless service everywhere they live and work and play. Building the advanced wireless networks rural America deserves can only be accomplished with assistance from the federal Universal Service Fund (USF), which Congress implemented to promote the availability of high-quality telecommunications services to rural and high cost areas of the country that are comparable in quality and in price to those available to residents of urban areas.

Connecting Rural America is working to defend the USF from threats and increase USF funding for carriers committed to investing in advanced telecommunications infrastructure in rural areas.

Make your voice heard!

After capping the USF for rural wireless in early 2008, the FCC is now 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.

If this happens, rural America will be left behind with poor cell phone coverage, dropped calls and dangerous dead zones for the foreseeable future. This is unacceptable.

Take action to protect and expand the USF for wireless!