What is the Federal Universal Service Fund and why do consumers and businesses have to pay into it?
The Federal Universal Service Fund, or USF, helps to make phone service affordable and available to all Americans, including consumers with low incomes, those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high, school and libraries and rural health care providers. All telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to the USF and are permitted to pass their contribution costs on to their customers. The purpose of this charge is to recover our required USF contribution amount attributable to each customer’s interstate and international service charges.. The money collected from the Federal Universal Service Fee is paid by CBSSYS Clear into the Universal Service Fund. Effective October 1, 2006 CBSSYS Clear implemented the Federal Universal Service Fee as mandated by the FCC. This total USF fee will likely range from 6-10% of phone service charges including the standard fee and international long distance service charges. Specifically, under the FCC’s
