USO Fund

Universal Service Obligation Fund is a corpus created to help telecom firms provide services in rural areas. It was created through the universal service levy at 5% of the adjusted gross revenue earned by all the operators except pure value-added service providers like ISPs, voice-mail, e-mail etc.

Shantanu Consul is the administrator of the fund. The fund has currently created a capacity of about 30 mln lines in rural India. It plans to provide one phone for three households by 2007 in rural areas, which amounts to over 5 cr rural connections.