What is the Kansas Universal Service Fund?
The Kansas Universal Service Fund, or KUSF, was created by the enactment of the Kansas Telecommunications Act of 1996 that addressed competition and regulation for intrastate telecommunications services. Among other things, the legislation required reductions in the access rates that local telephone companies charge to interexchange carriers (long distance companies such as AT&T, Sprint, MCI, etc.) for long distance calls that originate and terminate within the state of Kansas. Before the reductions, the rates were based on the actual costs incurred by rural local telephone companies to provide access to the interexchange carriers. In return, for this access charge reduction that benefited the long distance companies, the Legislature created the Kansas Universal Service Fund. The purpose of it was to compensate telephone companies that serve high-cost rural areas for the loss in access charge revenue so that local service rates would be kept at an affordable level. All telephone users
