Lifeline/Low-Income Consumers

As the only ecosystem-based organization focused on ensuring that low-income Americans have sustainable, affordable access to essential communications services, NaLA has submitted comments to the recently re-launched bipartisan, bicameral Universal Service Fund (USF) Working Group. Because NaLA’s members have extensive experience offering affordable communications services to low-income households through their participation in the Lifeline program, NaLA has focused its comments almost exclusively on the USF’s Lifeline program. 

The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition submitted comments to the Universal Service Fund (USF) Working Group, urging Congress to preserve and improve the USF as the nation’s most effective and essential broadband fund that connects anchor institutions nationwide. SHLB’s comments outline several steps to strengthen and modernize the fund, including:

The Universal Service Fund, operated by the Federal Communications Commission in conjunction with the Universal Service Administrative Company, has grown old, expensive, and ineffective. It is past time for Congress to shrink, modernize, and retool it to address today’s broadband ecosystem. While the Supreme Court recently upheld the legal legitimacy of USF’s funding mechanism, the need to reform the program persists.

Rural broadband executives told lawmakers that Congress must modernize the Universal Service Fund to keep small town networks affordable and sustainable. “USF doesn’t just cover network construction, but also ongoing operations, maintenance, and upgrades,” said witness Karen Jackson-Furman, CEO of West Kentucky and Tennessee Telecommunications Cooperative.

The Supreme Court recently provided the Federal Communications Commission a sizable legal win by upholding its Universal Service Fund as constitutional.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) seeks nominations for the following Board member positions on the Board of Directors of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) listed below for a three-year term:

It’s welcome news that Big Tech is investing billions in AI infrastructure, but who’s really paying for the broadband networks that help make those AI investments profitable? That burden is increasingly falling on America’s aging Universal Service Fund, which since 1998 has supported broadband deployment in rural communities, low-income households, schools, libraries and hospitals. The fund is financed mostly by telephone subscriptions—many of them paid by seniors on fixed incomes.

In the United States, millions of Americans lack a broadband connection at home due to the high cost and unaffordability of services. In 2021, Congress allocated nearly $65 billion for broadband programs through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. A large portion of these funds were allocated for the Broadband, Equity, Access, & Deployment and Digital Equity Act programs, which allocated funds to states for deploying infrastructure, promoting broadband adoption, and developing programs to develop digital skills.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) announced the counties in which conditional forbearance from the obligation to offer Lifeline-supported voice service applies.  This forbearance applies only to the Lifeline voice obligation of eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) that are designated for purposes of receiving both high-cost and Lifeline support (high-cost/Lifeline ETCs), and not to Lifeline-only ETCs. The 2016 Lifeline Order established conditional forbearance from Lifeline voice obligations in targeted areas where certain competitive condit

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) submitted the federal Universal Service Support Mechanisms fund size and administrative cost projections for the fourth quarter of calendar year 2025 (4Q2025). USAC projects a consolidated budget of $75.59 million for 4Q2025. Direct costs for all support mechanisms total $32.76 million.