Network World : Playing with our money: The FCC and the Universal Service Fund

"You, your company and I, along with just about everybody subscribing to telephone service in the United States, is hit with a surcharge on our phone bills that goes into a Universal Service Fund (USF).

This fund started out with the simple goal of making telephone service affordable in rural, and thus, high-cost parts of the country. Over the years, the USF goal has expanded to cover Internet service. At best, this has been a controversial program." ~Scott Bradner

http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2011/022111bradner.html?page=1
I can see the benefits of this program, and I also see the need to update it. But I do have to agree that this may not be a job for the FCC.