Why FUSF can show up even when voice usage is $0

Federal Universal Service Fund (USF) recovery charges can appear on an invoice even when you don't see any separate "voice usage" line items that month. That's because USF isn't triggered by minutes. It's tied to the carrier's assessable end-user telecommunications revenue (primary interstate/international revenue) and how the carrier chooses to recover that cost.

Importantly, the FCC does not require providers to pass their USF contribution through to customers, and it also doesn't require them to itemize a specific "USF" line on bills. Each carrier decides whether to recover it, how to recover it, and whether to show it as a separate surcharge.

How USF is calculated in the background (the part most people never see)

At a high level:

• Providers report revenues (and the interstate/international portions) using FCC reporting worksheets (From 499 series). USAC administers the program and uses these filings to determine contributions.

• USAC projects the funding need and contribution base, and the FCC announces a quarterly contribution factor. For example, the FCC's posted materials show a proposed 1Q 2026 factor of 0.76 (or 38.1%).

• For mobile services, carriers can use an FCC-allowed "safe harbor" method to estimate the interstate share rather than running a traffic study. A commonly used safe-harbor figure for cellular and broadband PCS telecommunications revenue is 37.1% (per FCC Form 499-A instructions).

So even if a line had no billable voice usage, the account still generated assessable telecom revenue (typically the monthly recurring service revenue on voice-capable devices/services). That's enough for USF recovery to appear.

Why carrier-to-carrier differences can be huge (your key insight)

In your data, the per-eligible-line USF recovery amount varies a lot:

• Verizon: ~$1.07 per eligible line (sample ~37K lines)

• AT&T: ~$0.78 per eligible line (sample 37K+ lines)

• T-Mobile: ~$0.18 per eligible line (sample ~$8K lines)

That spread doesn't automatically mean one carrier's true USF burden is "higher" than another's. It often reflects billing philosophy:

• Some carriers are more likely to itemize USF recovery as a distinct surcharge.

• Others may bake recovery into the MRC (or bury it inside bundled pricing), which makes the explicit USF line look lower even if the total cost isn't actually lower.

This is why Verizon can look "more expensive" on a surcharge line-item basis, while T-Mobile can look "cleaner" (fewer add-on fees) but harder to benchmark apples-to-apples.

Benchmarking takeaway: compare "all-in," not line items

If you benchmark carriers using only MRC or only itemized fees, you can get misled fast. The safe approach is:

1. Define "eligible lines" consistently (same device/service type across carriers).

2. Calculate an all-in cost per line: MRC + itemized surcharges + taxes/fees (and call out what's excluded).

3. Treat "low itemized USF" as a transparency issue, not automatically as a savings win.

That's why, as you said in your earlier article, it's vital to include all charges when benchmarking otherwise you're comparing one carrier's transparency against another carrier's bundling.