The Federal Universal Service Fund

The Federal Universal Service Fund makes $2.25 billion available in 1998 to qualified K-12 schools and libraries, and $400 million available to eligible health care providers for telecommunications services and other items.

Overview

The May 8, 1997 FCC Universal Service Report and Order establishes a program of rate discounts/subsidies for eligible schools, libraries and health care providers. Funding of these discount/subsidy programs for qualifying entities is provided through the Federal Universal Service Fund (FUSF) effective January 1, 1998. The fund has been created by assessing both the intrastate and interstate revenues of providers of interstate telecommunications.

The Order and the schools and libraries and health care funds are in response to Section 254 of the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Eligible Entities

• All public and private non-profit K-12 schools, except those with endowments of $50 million or greater.
• All public and private, non-profit libraries and library consortia with independent funding. (International library consortia are excluded from the fund).
• Public and non-profit rural health care providers in communities with less than 50,000 population.
• Public and non-profit health care providers, regardless of location, are eligible for limited toll-free access to an Internet service provider if toll-free access is not available.
• Consortia consisting of eligible and non-eligible entities; however, only eligible entities will receive FUSF discount support.

Eligible Services for Schools and Libraries

• Any commercially available telecommunications service, including usage and mileage.
• Basic, non-content access to the Internet.
• Installation and maintenance of internal networks, including: basic phone service, inside wire, routers, hubs, network file servers and related operating software, wireless LANs, leased data circuits, T1, 56 Kbps ISDN lines, pagers, switches and PCS/cellular.
• E-mail.

For a more detailed description of services go to the Schools and Libraries Corporation (SLC) Matrix of Services.

Eligible Services for Health Care

Eligible rural health care providers receive a rate subsidy for mileage and rate differentials between rural and urban rates for the equivalent of one 1.544 Mbps telecommunications service. Public non-profit providers that do not have toll-free access to an Internet service provider (ISP) receive limited support for the toll portion of their calls to their Internet service provider.

To Learn More...

Please select one of the following links to learn more about the Federal Universal Service Fund as it applies to your geographic location: