Consumers' Research urges FCC to shut down the $4.5 billion High Cost Fund

Consumers’ Research has urged the Federal Communications Commission to shut down the $4.5 billion High Cost Fund, echoing a position also taken by Starlink parent SpaceX (Broadband Breakfast).

In a 30 September letter to the agency, Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild said consumers are being taxed to support broadband networks that already exist. “Consumers’ Research therefore urges the FCC to discontinue High-Cost spending on redundant infrastructure. The FCC should not create a new long-term High-Cost mechanism that would lock in another decade of the same tax for duplicative networks. It should not extend legacy support to locations that unsubsidized providers already serve,” Hild wrote.

The High Cost program, part of the Universal Service Fund, spends roughly $4.5 billion a year subsidising rural network deployment. In 2025, Consumers’ Research lost at the Supreme Court in an attempt to have the FCC’s Universal Service Fund contribution scheme held unconstitutional under the nondelegation doctrine.

SpaceX filed with the FCC in August asking it to “wind down and sunset” the program, arguing satellite broadband made it obsolete (see our earlier coverage: flipnews.co.uk/policy/spacex-urges-fcc-sunset-high-cost).