102 Members of the House of Representatives, led by Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-ND), have signed a bipartisan letter urging the FCC to ensure adequate Universal Service Fund (USF) support for rural broadband services. The letter, also endorsed by the House Rural Broadband Caucus, builds on letters sent by Members of Congress in May 2014 and May 2015 calling on the FCC to modernize the USF in order to make standalone broadband service more affordable and accessible to rural consumers. The Commission’s old rules tied USF support to the purchase of traditional telephone service, which often forced rural customers to purchase a service they did not want. However, the FCC adopted USF reforms last year that severed the tie between voice and broadband and allowed small carriers to elect new model-based USF support. Despite these reforms, the letter notes that inadequate universal service funding has led small carriers to charge more for standalone broadband than rural Americans can afford and has left many customers with slow broadband speeds or no broadband at all. Congressman Cramer and his colleagues’ letter asks the FCC to allocate sufficient resources to the USF high-cost program so that rural customers can obtain affordable broadband and carriers can advance broadband deployment in high-cost areas.
