Universal service fund upheld

I'm really pissed about this Supreme Court decision. In telecom law, the
Federal Communications Commission sets a fee that subsidized rural
telephone providers. But it's not a government subsidy. It's a subsidy
upon other telephone subscribers. Typically there has been a heavy
burden upon subscribers to telephone service on the Publically Switched
Telephone Network (POTS), later expanded to cable subscribers whose
cable company provides phone service even though it is not switched,
while myriad other telephone subscribers are not subject to this fee.

On my cable phone, I pay into the fund. On Google Voice and VoIP lines,
I do not.

There are comparable fees on cellular services.

The economics of the USF are dreadful, given that there are fewer and
fewer traditional phone subscribers mostly because they are hit with
such excessive fees and taxes they have found alternate telephone
service providers not hit with such fees and taxes. Switched telephone
service should be dirt cheap but it is not.

But it's just entirely unfair, a cost shifting from people in one place
to people in another place. Of course there should be rural telecom
services, but we have never paid for rural electrification with
comparable cross subsidies.

It's a subsidy to land so let it be paid for with a tax on land.

FCC v. Consumers' Research