The Cost of Connectivity: USF and the LGBTQ+ Community

Broadband access has revolutionized life for LGBTQ+ people, connecting us to affirming care, chosen family, education, employment, and the safe spaces that don’t always exist offline. But for too many, affordability remains a major barrier. The promise of digital connection means little if you can’t afford to get online.

That’s where the Universal Service Fund (USF) comes in. For nearly three decades, it has provided critical financial support to help low-income, rural, and underserved communities access and maintain reliable phone and internet service, proving one of the most important tools we have in ensuring those most at risk aren’t left behind in our digital age.

What Is the Universal Service Fund?

Created by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the USF was designed to ensure that all Americans, regardless of income or geography, have access to essential communication services.The program is funded not through taxes, but through mandatory contributions from telecom companies, pooled into the USF to support four key programs:

1. Lifeline: Discounts phone and internet bills for low-income individuals.
   

2. E-Rate: Funds broadband access in public schools and libraries.
   

3. Rural Health Care: Helps rural health providers afford high-speed internet for telehealth services.
   

4. High-Cost Program (Connect America Fund): Supports broadband expansion in remote or hard-to-serve areas.
   

These programs have quietly and effectively helped connect millions, including LGBTQ+ individuals, who would otherwise face significant barriers to digital participation.

How LGBTQ+ Communities Rely on USF

While the USF isn’t an LGBTQ-specific program, its impact on our community has been profound.

• Economic Inequities. LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender individuals and LGBTQ+ people of color, are more likely to live in poverty, face housing insecurity, and lack access to affordable broadband. The USF helps close these gaps and ensures that essential digital tools are available to those most in need.
  

• Safety and Privacy. For those who aren’t safe being out at home or in public, digital spaces can be the only place to access identity-affirming resources or mental health care. Programs like Lifeline make it possible for people to reach support networks confidentially.
  

• Access to Education and Health. From rural LGBTQ+ youth who depend on school Wi-Fi to access learning materials, to transgender adults using telehealth for affirming care, USF programs are essential bridges to opportunity and wellbeing.
  

• Combatting the Digital Divide. Recent LGBT Tech polling shows that LGBTQ+ individuals, especially Black, Latine, and transgender adults, are more likely to depend on public access points like libraries and LGBTQ+ centers. Many of these spaces receive E-Rate funding. These aren’t supplemental services; they are foundational access points for a community disproportionately affected by poverty and exclusion.
  

What’s Happening to the USF Now?

Despite its impact, the USF is under threat. A legal challenge currently before the U.S. Supreme Court is questioning the constitutionality of the fund’s structure - specifically, whether Congress delegated too much power to the Federal Communications Commission in how it collects and manages the fund. If the Court ultimately rules against the fund’s current structure, it could jeopardize billions in annual support for programs that serve schools, health care providers, low-income households, and more.

At the same time, policymakers are grappling with whether and how to modernize the USF to meet twenty-first-century connectivity demands. Some call for expanding the contribution base beyond traditional telecom companies to include broadband providers or online platforms. Others question whether the current structure is sustainable at all. But while debate swirls, the people who rely on the USF for daily access to telehealth, school, jobs, and community remain at risk of disconnection.

For LGBTQ+ individuals, access to affordable, reliable internet isn’t optional. It’s a lifeline. The USF represents one of the few government mechanisms explicitly designed to keep people connected, and dismantling it without a clear, robust replacement would cut off vital services and deepen existing inequalities.

LGBT Tech supports a modernized, sustainable Universal Service Fund that preserves its original purpose: connecting those who need it most. This means ensuring stable funding, expanding eligibility where needed, and protecting the core programs that have served our community and so many others for nearly 30 years.

Digital connection means dignity, safety, opportunity, and survival. The Universal Service Fund helps make that possible, and it must be strengthened, not undermined.