Ruling Threatens Telecommunications Assistance in V.I. and Beyond

A recent federal court ruling could upend billions in telecommunications funding for schools, libraries, low-income people, rural areas, and places where the cost of providing phone and internet service is high. One politically conservative policy-hawk group behind the suit said Wednesday Congress should set the rate, not regulators at the Federal Communications Commission. An FCC spokesperson vowed to exhaust efforts to review the decision.

Depending on where you live, who your service provider is, and what sort of service you have, the Universal Service Fund fee might be 10 percent of your phone bill. Since 1996, telecommunications providers have been required to allot varying portions of their interstate and international revenue to the Universal Service Fund. In early 2016, it was 18.2 percent. In Spring 2024, it was 32.8 percent — a rate decided by industry analysts advising the FCC.

“There’s absolutely no bar whatsoever for Congress allocating money or even setting a tax and funding this through telecom services or even the general fund,” said William Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research. “You can’t have this weird Rube Goldberg machine, if you are familiar with that term, where the FCC hires a private company to both administer the fund but also advise them on how much money they need for the fund and therefore the tax rate.”

Hild — whose “anti-woke” group claims government policies and private business practices favoring environmental responsibility, social issues, and internal corporate governance lead to slave labor and genocide — filed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals suit with a coterie of like-minded groups and individuals after identical suits failed in the Sixth Appeals Court and Eleventh Appeals Court.