The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently authorizes USAC to distribute more than $382 million annually in high-cost universal service support to certain competitive eligible telecommunications carriers (CETCs) to provide mobile wireless service in subsidized service areas, commonly known as “study areas”. This support mechanism is originally based upon per-line support amounts identical to support received by providers of fixed services in high-cost areas.

In 2011, the Commission adopted a framework to reform this support mechanism and refocus these funds on areas that are unserved by mobile wireless and that are most in need of support. The support amount disbursed for each mobile high-cost study area was frozen at the level the CETC received in 2011, and the Commission began to phase down this legacy high-cost support until the phase-down of support was paused in 2014 at 60% of the frozen support level.

This map shows the boundaries of these mobile legacy high-cost support study areas. To prepare these maps, USAC combined High Cost disbursement data defining the subsidized service areas for CETCs receiving legacy support to deliver wireless voice service with data delineating the wire center boundaries for which each carrier is designated as an eligible telecommunications carrier. USAC obtained wire center boundary data from a third-party vendor.

Note: a CETC would not have received high-cost support for any wire centers in its study areas where the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) did not receive high-cost support under the identical support rule (for example in non-rural, urban, or other low-cost areas).