Rural Universal Service Equity Act of 2003
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(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The summary of that version is repeated here.)
Rural Universal Service Equity Act of 2003 - Requires the Comptroller General to report to Congress on the need to reform the high cost support mechanism (with respect to universal telephone service) for rural, insular, and high cost areas.
Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in calculating Federal universal service support for eligible telecommunications carriers that serve such areas, to revise its support mechanism for high cost areas to provide support to each wire center in which the incumbent local exchange carrier's average cost per line exceeds the national average by such amount as the FCC determines appropriate for the purpose of ensuring the equitable distribution of universal service support throughout the United States. Requires: (1) the FCC to ensure that no State receives less Federal support than it would have received, up to ten percent of the total support distributed, under the FCC's previous support mechanism; and (2) the total amount of support for all States to be equal to the total support calculated under the support mechanism in existence before enactment of this Act.
States that nothing in this Act shall affect the support provided to rural telephone companies.
By Senator McCain from Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation filed written report. Report No. 108-422.
- Introduced in Senate Formatted Text PDF
- Reported to Senate Formatted Text PDF
Cite this page
U.S. Congress. (2026). S. 1380: Rural Universal Service Equity Act of 2003. 108th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/108-S-1380/
"S. 1380: Rural Universal Service Equity Act of 2003." 108th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/108-S-1380/.
S. 1380, 108th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/108-S-1380/.
[S. 1380: Rural Universal Service Equity Act of 2003](https://openamerica.io/bill/108-S-1380/)