**GAO-11-13SP**                      Published: Oct 28, 2010. Publicly Released: Nov 30, 2010.                  

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## Highlights

This is an e-supplement to GAO-11-11. This e-supplement provides the results of a survey of state public utility commissions about the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Universal Service Fund (USF) Low-Income Program which provides discounts on telephone installation and monthly telephone service to qualifying low-income consumers.

## Supplemental Material

### Background

This e-supplement provides the results of a survey of state public utility commissions about the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Universal Service Fund (USF) Low-Income Program which provides discounts on telephone installation and monthly telephone service to qualifying low-income consumers.

The purpose of the survey was to gather information regarding the roles and responsibilities of the state public utility commissions, eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs), and other related entities in administering the Low-Income Program. We also gathered information on barriers to program participation; advertising and program outreach; potential advantages and disadvantages of expanding the Low-Income Program to support broadband service; and oversight procedures used by the state public utility commissions.

The survey was administered to state public utility commissions in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between April and June, 2010. It included both open-ended and closed-ended questions. We received responses from all 51 commissions on the survey, a 100 percent response rate.

This e-supplement contains the questionnaire administered to survey respondents and our analyses of their responses. We omitted results for questions to which we received inconsistent responses that we could not clarify through additional follow-up and excluded responses to open-ended narrative questions.

We conducted our work in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. A more detailed discussion of the scope and methodology of our work and agency comments on the draft report are contained in our report "Telecommunications: Improved Management Can Enhance FCC Decision Making for the Universal Service Fund Low-Income Program," GAO-11-11 (Washington, D.C.: October, 2010).

### Contents

 

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### Copyright

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## Topics

Telecommunications

BroadbandData collectionDecision makingFinancial managementInternal controlsMonitoringPaymentsPerformance measuresProgram evaluationProgram managementRisk assessmentTelecommunicationsTelephonesUniversal serviceWirelessComplianceDiscountsProgram goals or objectives