T-Mobile Urges Court to Stop Connections-Based Calif. USF

T-Mobile will take California regulators to federal court over a decision to switch state USF contribution to a connections-based mechanism. In a complaint Wednesday against the California Public Utilities Commission (case 3:23-cv-00483), T-Mobile and subsidiaries urged the U.S. District Court of Northern California to preliminarily enjoin a $1.11 monthly per-line fee from taking effect April 1. The CPUC in October required carriers to count access lines to determine contributions to California public purpose programs including state USF (see 2210200073). The per-line fee will replace a revenue-based assessment. A handful of other states previously switched to a flat fee, including Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah.