USF Caps

Forbes:

The telecom reform bill now pending in the U.S. Senate could include a cap on the $7 billion-a-year boondoggle the nation's rural telephone carriers collect.

For companies like one Hawaiian telecom that sweeps in $13,345 per line per year, the big battle in the reform measure is not over network neutrality... but a high-stakes amendment that could cap the Universal Service Fund (USF) that has provided the carriers years of financial windfalls.