A Year of Challenges for the Universal Service Fund
In 2024, USF encountered widespread calls for reforms to ensure its sustainability and effectiveness.
Jericho Casper
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27, 2024 – The $8.1 billion Universal Service Fund faced a year of challenges in 2024 triggered by a court decision that could require a new law by Congress to reverse.
Established by Congress in 1996 to support broadband access in high-cost rural areas and connect schools and libraries nationwide, the USF has been at the center of legal battles, congressional debates, and calls for significant structural reform.
The 12 Days of Broadband (click to open)
- On the First Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
An extra-planetary-life-promoting tech billionaire set on electing a president. - On the Second Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: 23 million served by the Affordable Connectivity Program.
- On the Third Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
3rd year without the Federal Communications Commission having spectrum auction authority. - On the Fourth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
$42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment funds already allocated. - On the Fifth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
5,500 active satellites currently in Low-Earth Orbit. - On the Sixth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
More than 6 years of service at the FCC by Commissioner and Chairman-designate Brendan Carr. - On the Seventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
More than 70 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually consumed by data centers in the U.S. - On the Eighth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
$8.1 billion dollars in annual Universal Service Funds. - On the Ninth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
$90 billion in global telecom Merger & Acquisition deals value in 2024. - On the Tenth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
100 broadband-related rulemakings at the FCC relying on Chevron Deference. - On the Eleventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
Nearly 11 years to complete the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, complete with defaulted locations. - On the Twelfth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
12 Senators and Representatives signing the Andreessen-Horowitz “Little Tech” agenda.
In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declared, in a 9 to 7 en banc decision, that the USF’s funding mechanism unconstitutional in a potentially consequential case brought by Consumers’ Research. The ruling has thrown the future of the fund into uncertainty, with its legality now set to be reviewed by the Supreme Court in the spring of 2025.
Circuit Judge James C. Ho was in the majority. But, in a concurrence, he stressed his concern that the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Company had been exercising taxing power vested in Congress by the Constitution: "The threats to democracy presented by the administrative state are not inadvertent, but intentional – a deliberate design to turn consent of the governed into an illusion. If you believe in democracy, then you should oppose an administrative state that shields government action from accountability to the people."
“This decision is misguided and wrong,” Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in response to the decision. “It upends decades of bipartisan support for FCC programs that help communications reach the most rural and least-connected households in our country, as well as hospitals, schools, and libraries nationwide.”
