Almost everyone has a wireless phone. And sure enough you’ve probably seen that “Universal Service Fund” (or something similar to that) on your bill. You’ve probably thought to yourself What IS that charge for?
The USF was created in 1997 by the FCC in order to meet the goals of Universal Service as outlined in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. You can read more about USF here. Is it easy to understand? Not really. It’s supposed to protect the public interest (more on that in a moment.)
A subsidy program concerning rural wireless phone coverage was capped in a 3-2 vote recently. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean you’ll lose any existing service if you’re in a rural region. What it does mean is that the cap was put in place so that funds can be examined to make sure they’re being spent correctly.
Congress is going to re-work the USF into something a bit more modern-day because in all honesty it’s seriously dated.
USF is supposed to be used so that everyone everywhere can have wireless telecommunications available to them in the US. This is currently not the case. Granted, a whopping 80% of the US subscribes to some type of wireless phone service, but 20% is still a huge chunk left out. That 20% literally can’t subscribe because the coverage is nonexistent wherever they are.
Hopefully with the re-worked USF will direct cash where it’s needed, get the towers in place and the network expanded like it’s supposed to be.
There are times when the FCC has to step in and smack around the wireless carriers every so often to make sure they’re spending money correctly. This is one of those times.
You can expect better coverage in “dead” areas in the next few years once the USF is re-done and the cap lifted. This should not take long to complete.
[Source: c|net Tech News Blog]
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