Growing Support for Assessing Big Tech to Fund Universal Service

The Universal Service Fund's reliance on a shrinking base of traditional voice services has created an unsustainable contribution rate, prompting industry leaders to call for technology giants to start paying into the fund. While companies like Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Netflix earn an estimated $2,600 annually from each household connected through the USF, they contribute virtually nothing to maintaining that connectivity. The discussion comes as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on a Constitutional challenge to the fund's structure in Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers Research, which argues that Congress improperly delegated authority to the FCC to administer the fund and that the agency's use of a private company to collect fees violates constitutional principles. While the experts expressed cautious optimism that the high court would uphold Universal Service, there was broad consensus that the funding mechanism must be overhauled regardless of the legal outcome. Besides targeting big tech companies, options included broadening the assessment base to cover all broadband services rather than just traditional voice, or shifting to general tax revenues through congressional appropriations.