At a House oversight hearing on the Federal Communications Commission last week, Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) [announced her plan](/government/article.php/3839651) to introduce a bill to reform the agency’s subsidy program for providing low-income Americans with telephone service to include broadband.
On Thursday, she made good on that promise.
The Broadband Affordability Act would expand the FCC’s Universal Service Fund to include Internet service, advancing an idea that has been getting a lot of consideration in the broadband debates that have dominated the tech-policy scene throughout the year.
Bringing Internet under the fold of the USF would get at one of the stumbling blocks on the adoption side of the broadband equation.