The FCC has issued an Order waiving the application of the budget control mechanism for rate-of-return carriers that receive legacy high-cost universal service support for the July 2023 to June 2024 tariff year. The budget control mechanism reduces traditional legacy high-cost support mechanism claims by carriers as necessary to meet budget constraints. The FCC has determined that a waiver of the application of budget control mechanism, effectively reducing the budget constraint to 0%, is warranted given the substantial reduction in support that would result from imposition of the budget constraint, which would otherwise exceed 18%.
