FCC inches toward the broadband future with USF reform

The Federal Communications Commission’s $4.5 billion plan to upgrade for the 21st Century the funding program that provides telephone service to rural areas will soon become law, as universal service fund reform hits the Federal Register.

As policy-making goes, this more-than-700-page regulation detailing the reform was much-needed and has taken years, but once the FCC decided to buckle down and address the problem in the last few months, the lobbying was over in a relative flash. This compared with the two-year saga that was getting network neutrality from a proposed rule to final rule with legal teeth. Savvy politicos see the USF reform’s speed as a case of necessity, because the issue was complicated and created uncertainty for many telcos and communications providers. The FCC did kickstart the issue two years ago, but only over the summer did it start focusing deeply on it. So the industry and the FCC got together to push the process through in record time with attention for the issue coming mostly from political and industry insiders fighting over their slice of the pie. Most portions of the reform, which swaps the FCC’s rural funding model from old-school copper and voice to backing broadband and IP, will go into effect on Dec. 29 after the Commission voted to approve the order back in October. While this is a necessary step in moving the nation from the analog infrastructure to something equipped to meet the digital age, there are aspects of the rules where political compromise has cost the tech world and rural consumers while still sending payment to the big telcos.