A telecommunications fund directly regulated by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is at risk as a legal challenge to the nationwide system known as the Universal Service Fund is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oklahoma is like many other states whose public utility commissions and other regulators control the fund aimed at increasing phone and internet service to households and hospitals in rural areas and to low-income families.
The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear a challenge to the $8 billion Universal Service Fund program. The fund in Oklahoma has not gone without its controversies, namely the secrecy of the companies awarded funding for the program. Attempts were made in years past by the Corporation Commission to obtain private information about how the funds were actually spent by the companies and the makeup of their boards and executive officers. But it was met with maintained secrecy.
At the heart of the matter before the Supreme Court is the rate-making by the telecommunications companies which is passed on to customers to boost phone and internet service elsewhere. A conservative group filed a legal challenge contending the Federal Communications Commission and a private entity should not be determining the fee level but rather Congress should.
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