The Fifth and D.C. Circuit federal appellate courts are now poised to issue pivotal decisions in the ongoing litigation challenging the constitutionality of the FCC’s universal service support ...

The week prior, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing titled “The State of Universal Service.” And while the hearing ostensibly sought to examine the performance ...

President George W. Bush has laid out the case for why Congress should tackle the looming Social Security crisis, even though the real financial crunch is still several decades away. He’s right, of ...

Last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) marks an inflection point in this debate. The bill included the single largest federal appropriation ever for broadband investment — $65 ...

First established as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Universal Service Fund was designed to provide telephone service to underserved areas of the country. Soon after, ...

The Federal Communications Commission chair decided not to impose Universal Service fees on Internet service, rejecting arguments for new assessments to shore up an FCC fund that subsidizes broadband ...

On July 24, 2024, on a petition for rehearing en banc, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held in Consumers’ Research v. FCC (Consumers’ Research) that the current funding ...

The Communications Act of 1934 established the principle that all Americans should have access to communications service, with the government subsidizing uneconomic routes for remote and lower-income ...

The US Supreme Court will hear appeals of a 5th Circuit ruling that called Universal Service fees on phone bills an illegal tax. The US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled in July that the ...

In a ruling today in Consumers’ Research v. FCC, the en banc Fifth Circuit ruled by a vote of 9 to 7 that the multi-billion dollar Universal Service Fund tax levied by the Federal Communications ...

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- "We applaud the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the constitutionality of the Universal Service Fund, which has long served as a cornerstone for expanding ...