Support
What is the Federal Universal Service Fund (USF) and why do I pay a USF charge?
The Federal Universal Service Fund, or USF, helps to make phone service available and affordable to all Americans, including schools, libraries, low-income consumers, rural healthcare providers, and consumers living in rural areas. All companies providing interstate telephone service must contribute to the USF and legally are permitted to recoup these contribution costs from their customers.
The purpose of the USF charge on your invoice is to recover CLEAR’s required USF contribution costs from those of our customers who have signed up for CLEAR Voice service and who therefore are entitled to make interstate and international telephone calls. CLEAR does not apply the USF charge to a customer’s home or on-the-go internet service(s). Money that CLEAR collects from the USF charges to its CLEAR Voice customers is used by CLEAR to make its required contributions into the Federal Universal Service Fund.
The amount that CLEAR and other telephone service providers (including traditional "landline" providers) are required to pay into the Federal Universal Service Fund is based on each provider’s relative percentage of the total interstate and international calling revenues generated by these providers. Each provider’s percentage is set by the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") on a quarterly basis. While CLEAR currently does not provide advance notice of exact USF charges or of any changes in the amount of these charges, the typical USF charge that a CLEAR Voice customer incurs usually will range between 6% and 10% of that customer’s total monthly phone service charges (including the standard monthly domestic calling fee and any international long distance service charges).
